In fact, how many times has a the world ended in some respect for some species or way of life? I feel like with each major technological advancement, we entered a new world while simultaneously ending an old one. But in terms of our present post-apocalyptic world, I'd like to take a look at the what we're facing in a completely new conceptualization of the end of the world.
We no longer occupy ourselves with the space outside our screens, TV, phones, and computers. Our wasteland is paved, out poisonous gases are the heavily monitored and circulated fresh air. We have at least two or three layers separating us at all times from the world that was - screens, earphones, phones, music, emails, text, cubicles, elevators, cars, and other living body bags**. The nutrients we get come from laboratories, our exercise comes from stationary machines, and our thoughts come from fictional characters, who we take for a slightly exaggerated but mostly real reflection of what normal people are. We've created a self-existing existence so we don't have to do shit.
The world has already ended, and we're just waiting out the days in our various online, wired, hooked in purgatories. Days stretch on for miles, and subcultures not possible before have now taken over lingo, habits, and insecurities. Everything's awash with speed, super-saturated images, and constant noise. Innocence is a joke, if not a fetish or a myth. Awkwardness has become mainstream so that we can no longer distinguish discomfort from being cool. We hurtle through space while remaining planted at a computer for 95% of the day waiting to hit a wall somewhere, but all we find is more slippery mediums to slide faster through. Anything that can be built or crafted doesn't merit approval from us until it hits 1 million views, at the minimum. Death doesn't really exist, but then again neither does life.
And the scariest part of the present post apocalyptic world? It is how strange this world would be if everyone didn't always act so damn unfazed by it all.
*This number is a completely arbitrary number
**A little over the top? Perhaps.
I would like to say that people have always been somewhat shocked/frightened by the present that they live in, and that they have always viewed the past nostalgically, as a place of innocence that is somehow objectively "better" than the present. But the things you listed are indeed pretty frightening, as it's obvious I believe by now.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not sure that there will be a genuine apocalypse--an extinction or something--but life is indeed changing rapidly. Something will no doubt happen at some point when the earth is all used up (and it seems pretty apparent that the old fly-to-another-habitable-planet idea won't actually work in reality). I don't know. I don't personally see this as that bad of a thing, because how many other species have become extinct? Maybe the whole world will disappear. I don't know what I'm getting at here.
But yes, how it affects our day-to-day lives does worry me. All around I see depression and anxiety and anger and sloth. I wouldn't care as much if I didn't see it in myself. I wonder if all these things used to exist just as much, or if the myths really are true--that it's caused by our modern world. I'm surprised more effort hasn't been put into trying to figure this out.