Hello, friend. Fascinating time in the world, innit? As a guy I kinda admire once said: "what a great time to be alive, if you love the theater of the absurd". And, indeed, it is.
Heard it for the first time when a friend of mine sent me a David Lynch meme with this quote written on it. I googled it up and found out it was from his daily report, or something quite like that. I found it so powerful, so poetic... The quote was so well delivered and elaborated that I felt like calling my goth band "The Theatre Of The Absurd". But since I (still) do not have a goth band, I decided to name my site after it. Especially when I think that Lynch is no longer among the living. And I may not be the biggest David Lynch fan one can find, with Eraserhead being the one film that I actually love, but I still got love for the figure. Besides, his role in Louie was astouding. So I think it is understandable and fair for me to want to pay respect to this remarkable character.
So now you know where the name came from, but the reason why I chose it as the title will be clear as you read on.
I've been feeling outta place in this world for too long. So long that I cannot start to imagine when it started. And peple might blame it on depression, loneliness, niihilism, absence of God, futility, nostalgia, hopelessness, too much time in front of a screen; I don't know, you name it. They will tell me that the world is the same, that it is just my perception that has changed. But I don't buy it. Everything feels off for a long time and it is increasingly feeling, looking and sounding even worse. I haven't changed, the world has. No mental disorder could make me feel so alien to this world as I usually feel.
Well, I've always been a basket case - that's old news. Hence, it's not wrong to say that being detached is pretty much my normal mode. I'm not, particularly, the definition of standard and I fall far from average. It's only normal for a person like me to feel disconected or out of place. But the uncanny feeling keeps growing in my gut, and I know that there's something very wrong with all this. I can't address the one specific problem, but I can think of dozens, just by the top of my head. And this is what I'll be trying to do with this text and this website.
So... Have you ever entered your room and felt like things were misplaced? Like someone messed with your stuff and didn't bother to put it back in. Well, I have. And I feel quite the same on a regular basis. It is like a Déjà Vu, except that this one is inverted. Instead of the feeling of living it all over again, it gives the feeling that something that was supposed to be familiar is unrecognisable. Like the world you used to know was replaced by a cheap copy that works poorly and fails to trick you into believing it has been there all along, you just don't remember. Like a Mandela Effect in large scale that makes everything unfamiliar and forces you into questioning everything you know - or believe you know - and doubt your own sanity.
I may as well be living in this stage. It hasn't happened lately, but one never knows. Any period of the day can be threatened by these psychological attacks we all have been under in the last decade, at least. Any time it might strick. The over-consciousness, the awareness of yours surroundings and the people next to you. The moment that your start wondering "does this person even exist?", "are they even counscious?", as you walk home and the people on the streets give the vibe of being NPCs or extras that are there just to fill in the gaps, but aren't real human beings with emotions, consciousness, desires, interests, not even a personality. Just bland people in a bland world. With their blank minds and souless bodies. Empty vessels walking around, eating, shitting and breeding. Creating more of them. More of these homunculus, spreading and infecting any and every health environment they set themselves in.
And, of course, speaking like this, I must assume that I'm not one of them. That I'm different somehow. That I'm special. They may be brainless prokaryotes, but not me, though. I was blessed with discernment and rationality. I am sensible and inteligent. I am... right?
I don't like Aku no Hana very much because I think it lost its magic after the protagonist move out from the city. Nevertheless, it was a very fun anime to watch and the content suits the name. I can imagine Baudelaire including some of those scenes in one of his poems, if he was a contemporary poet. But this is not really about Baudelaire, nor Aku no Hana, for that matter. It's about the last chapter of the manga
When the manga is about to end, we are invited into Nakamura's tormented mind. And once inside, we can finally comprehend why she was so twisted and such a freak. And I think that applies perfectly to me, as well.
We finally witness, first-hand, how she sees the world and the people around her. And the reason why she calls every person she knows a "クソ虫" (shitty insect, or something), including herself. And it kinda works for me, since I got this idea that the world is fucked up and we need cooperation and a positive outlook in order to thrive. However, I'm not helping in any instance. In fact, I'm just adding to the problem. So I don't think I'm much different from the people living their lives in oblivion. Maybe I'm just like them and just pretend to be woke. Maybe I was better off just being exactly like them, with no intention of saving the world, or at the very least, change it to something slightly better or recognisable.
Things did change a lot in the past decade. Everything seems to be upside-down, to be the opposite of what I remember of the not-so-old world I was raised in. And don't get me wrong, changes are welcomed. And I say this because changes aren't like vampires from Carmilla, Shiki or Fright Night. They don't need to be invited to come in. The world changes, like it or not. Therefore, one needs to adapt and deal with it. But, honestly, it's very hard to adjust as fast as the changes. Ten years ago, the Alien from Alien: Isolation was basically the definition of a first-rate AI. Nowadays, artificial intelligence is so evolved and complex that a n00b like me could never start to understand. The world is moving so fast I can't even notice it. It is like the blink of an eye. Adapt or die. This world won't wait fot you.
Of course, since I don't use social media since 2014 and now I don't even enter on YouTube anymore (thank God for that), I keep isolated and even alienated, perhaps, about what's going on. I don't know anything about the trends, what's happening in the world, who's dying - who's living, the gossip, the drama and all the awful things that traditional media and the algorithms force down our throats. For this reason, I don't see much of the ruckus that's happening in the real world or even online. What I believe to be great for my well-being, as I don't feel my head burning from the radiation as if I was inside a damn microwave. And I can only be thankful for that. But also puts me in a position in which I need to deny reality in order to get a better mental health.
Despite the good things technology has brought, our lives only seem to get worse with it. We are more anxious, stressed, rude, paranoic; all the bad things you can imagine, we have it.
Our relationships are fragil and liquid, our identity was replaced by groups, parties, brands and logos, and our very own personas are been defined by the online one. Your online-self is more important than yourself. If you don't have an online persona, an e-mail, social media or whatever, you don't exist. You can't even solve your issues with the bank or the government agencies if you don't send a fucking e-mail. You being there in flesh doesn't have the same weight as an e-mail. Apparently you don't have the value of a 75KB message.
You don't exist. The real world is a refuge from the online world, not the other way around. You only exist if we have your name on our system, otherwise, you are nothing. And it has been like this forever, with IDs, addresses, fingerprints and all the other things the government might ask you to prove you're an actual human being. But now things took a whole other meaning.
Life seems to be completaly devoid of meaning, with all our interactions being calculated and performed. We live in constant vigilance. We act like we're being watched because we are, indeed, being watched and judged every single time. Everything we post, everywhere we go, everything we eat, everyone we meet- we are always being seen. Be it by our own fault, like when we post stuff online, be it by other's. Because everybody is filming everything, everybody is talking about everybody, they are judging your looks, status, style, morals... the list goes on. And for this reason we are always over-conscious of our surroundings and playing make-believe, always pretending to be something we aren't.
Once, when Alan Watts was explaning Zen and the Wu Wei, he gave the example of a child dancing. When the child is alone she or he will be dancing carelessly, flowing with the music and with the universe, if you go all Taoist on this. But once the parents ask the child to dance for them, she/he becomes counscious of the very act of dancing and now the child is not at easy anymore. The child is overly aware of the eyes of their parents and can not dance as she/he was doing before.
My point is: since we are always being watched and judged, we can not live our lives as we used before. Now we are always performing because we are too afraid of the judgemental eyes of society and we need to prove our value every day to people we've never met and never will.
Being a social species, we, as individuals, got the urge to prove ourselves and compete for status in this hierarchical system that is humanity. We need to compete for better positions, sex, friendships, or even attention, at the very least. In order to get all this, people turn themselves into actors and even throw their individualities away just to belong in a group. Mingling with their peers into a monochromatic shapeless batter. Functioning in some kind of hive-mind in which all of them think and express themselves on an unison. Always cautious with what they say, so they never go against their group's believes, and if it does, it needs to attract attention or elevate their status in on way or another.
And it may not be that bad, maybe I'm overreacting, but I am tired of this situation, this surveillance. It is something I've been criticizing for quite a while now, but people don't really seem to care, so...
Maybe I am the weird one for caring so much about all this. But I can't wrap my head around the fact we are being recorded 24/7. Depending on the country you live in, you can't go to the bakery without a hundread cameras tracking you down from the moment you live your house to the moment you come back. It is the Big Brother, no excuses. And besides all that, you can still be as lucky as Chris Chan and become very famous and have your whole life exposed in on a documentary series with about 100 episodes over 30 minutes long each. You become a meme and your life is ruined for good.
Or settled...
There's the other side, as well. Not everything is bad. Think of those people that get rich from making videos or going viral. I'd say fame did them good.
Technology has brought many advantages and possibilities to mankind. Cancer treatment, MRI, GPS, smartphones [...] there are so many things that are only possible thanks to the technological advances, things that are so tangled in our current lives that it is almost impossible to even consider a world without them. Things that did improve the quality of life of the average man and woman. Thus, it'll be dishonest of me to deny all these pros.
The Wired alone has brought many changes and improvements. If you live in Ireland, you are just one click away from befriend someone in Australia, buy a Seditionaries t-shirt from the UK on eBay (that's me), donate to malnourished children in Somalia, book a holidays trip to South America, keep track of every war going on in the Middle East and follow the madness that is the USA political landscape. One might join a Facebook community that's all about knitting, follow a YouTube channel about skateboard, join a discord server to discuss indie games, create a LetterBox or MAL account, learn how to play chess on Двач (2ch), read and share Percy Jackson fanfics on Wattpad... We can connect to people all over the globe! Yet we are so lonely.
Even with all the chances one has to find your safe-space and beloved online community, it does mean shit because we're still needy. Searching for attention and looking for help. We are social creatures and we long for acceptance, understanding and sympathy. And there's no way in hell The Wired will be enough to fill this hole in modern society's heart. We need friends, we need love. Actually, we long for it. And there aren't enough internet users to replace a good real life interaction. There aren't enough bytes and pixels to compose a physical being. But since those interactions have become scarce and distant, we look for this online. This society we live in - as I previously stated - only intensifies those symptoms, stimulating people to act a fool in this bal masqué and rewarding those that do so.
Please, don't get me wrong. I love the internet. The Wired is probably the best thing to ever happen to people like me, that like to look random things up and get to know a lotta stuff.
Like I've been saying since I was 16 or so, I use the internet as a library. I go there to read all the cool stuff available, stay quiet, spend a couple hours and then go back home and move on with my life. What is brilliant. I can get to see, read, listen and watch to whatever the hell I want, whenever I want. I don't really use YouTube anymore, but I still go there to find my favourite skramz bands or other songs unavailable on spotify (which I mostly use to listen to audiobooks). Songs that I can listen to anytime I want thanks to the interconnection and network of computers that made mass data/information sharing a reality. So, yes, I love it all. I love that I can download books online, watch films on the Internet Archive, read all the copyrighted scientific papers that would be unreachable without Sci-Hub... There are so many things to do. It's just perfect! So my complaining is not at the expensive of The Wired per se. It's all about the way people are approaching technology and how it's misshapen our reality, turning it into a foggy blurred version of the thing before.
Take the political madness as an example. The tension was going to escalate to this point, in one way or another. I have a theory and a name for this, but this text is already too fucking long and it's only getting longer, so I'll let to talk about the "hyper-specification" in another entry. What I can say for now is that it was supposed to happen and predictable, but the internet did make it worse. Being exposed to so much information all the time made us demented. And I'm all for different possibilities. I'm an anarchist, I don't think people should be limited by one single mentality, put in box of "this is the only way". But with this liberty, comes the vast ocean of information and misinformation we find online. Some truths, a lot of lies and a plethora of half-truths and opinions.
And this seems to be the worst: the opinions. How can a fact go against an opinion? Facts aren't able to fight opinions, they belong to two different realms of intellectual perception. If it is a matter of opinion, it does not matter what you say, because there's no objective truth. And if it is a matter of fact, it doesn't matter either. Because if the other person thinks that the oak tree is purple, and you debunk it with facts but she/he goes like "but in my opinion...", you lose again!
People are so attached to their opinions and world views that facts don't matter, at all. They are irrelevant. Cuz it's all about what we like and what we think reality should be. It's not a honest discussion. No wonder we have so many different depictions of reality. Everyone is seeing what they want to see. Some will say that the world is under the control of the Illiminati and the Reptilians. Others will say it is ruled by billionaries and world leaders, like presidents and prime-ministers). Others blame it on the jews. What is utterly ridiculous. We all know they are the same thing!
All jokes aside, I believe the main issue has been addressed and it is now crystal clear. The world is fragmented. People are living inside their personal insane dreams and fantasies. And when our manufactured reality gets in conflict with somebody else's, these too world views clash.
Altough I'm an advocate of freedom of speech, decentralisation and anarchy, I can't help but shiver at the sight of reality falling apart, and all the things we took for granted, all the principles and the very concept of truth itself fading away. But it was supposed to happen all along. It was unavoidable. It'd happen either away, we just weren't anticipating.
This is one of the reasons why I believe anarchy is inevitable. Just a matter of time. I just don't believe it'll be as most people imagine it, nor it'll be soon. I'm most likely will never see anything quite like this in my lifetime. My children won't either. Possibly neither my grandchildren. But it'll happen. I'm positive. But it is matter for a different entry, so I won't take any longer on this subject.
So... I got side-tracked again. Going back a little, I was typing about how much the world has changed and how different it is from the one from my childhood. I remember how it was and it feels like forever. I'm not even old, I'm just a kid. But even so, the changes were so fast and merciless that it feels like I'm over 200 years old. And that nostalgic feeling that I got from a "much simpler time" is shared by all parts involved. Every single person I got to talk about this, tells me they don't understand the world anymore. No need to say that I'm the same boat.
I don't think we are supposed to see so many changes in such a short time span. We rarely live past 80, and, for many years, most people weren't even dreaming about living this far. Besides, the world moved in a slow-paced tempo. Even though the world, civilisation, culture, geography, geopolitics, language, religion (and so on), were in constant mutation - the rate was rather slower than it is nowadays or for the last century, to say the least. One could be born in the same world their parents were born and live his/her whole life in it - and so would their kids. But it is not a reality anymore. Not in the slightest.
People born in the early 20th Century in Germany would go through so many things throughout their lives that, ultimately, it'd feel like they travel across different planets and timelines, like in Dr Who or Chrono Trigger.
If this person had been born in 1908, she/he would go through the War, watch the monarchy fall, The Third Reich, World War II, Cold War, reunification of Germany and the rise of the New-Left and progressive movements. Would even get to see Rammstein! And everything around one century. Quite impressive, huh?
Lately, the passage of time is only getting faster, so whoever gets to be alive in the current world, will see more relevant events in a decade than the average medieval person would in a lifetime. So it's highly understandable that people get over-conservative. It's a natural response to the unkown in front of us. Even I am a victim of this irrational fear of the unfamiliar, that's why I can see where the alt-right mentality come from. Fear is the driving force behind all this. And when we experience dread, we usually activate a mechanism of fight or flight - and some people choose to fight.
Anyway, I won't be getting any further on this subject right now. Maybe another day. For now, let's talk about dread.
Let's take technology as an example. I'll be going 100% 2012's boomer on this take, but I feel the need to point it out. Not to force the idea that technology is our ruin - Some kind of neo-ludist mob mentality. I don't think I'm a doomer, but I still got a lotta complaints to make. Also, I do confess that when I read Unabomber's manifesto, it hit home. So I am a little biased. Although I promise to attempt to keep it fair from both sides.
Once again, take technoly as an example. The leap from BlackBerry to OpenAI is incredible. Not exactly because its distance but from its speed. Overnight, we went from Akinator to ChatGPT. From Photoshop and Premiere to Veo 3. It is astouding. Both terrific and terrifying. And those new technologies and tools have become so intrinsic to humanity that the idea of getting rid of them is just laughable.
Airplanes, ships, oil platforms, everything is connected to the internet, somehow. People don't even know how to go back to their houses without the assistance of a GPS. Technology is inherent for us, and has been for more years than I can tell. One might say it started with computers, others that it started with eletricty, and people can go back all the way back to the Industrial Revolution, or maybe The Scientific Revolution, but I honestly won't argue if one stated that it has been fundamental since the dawn of mankind, just got a little more explicit and blatant. Either way, we've crossed the point of no return. From here on, we are on uncharted territory, and that's where the fear dwells.
The distrust of the future leads people into insanity. We are afraid of what's to happen, so we get aggressive and paranoic. We live in a mad situation in which we can't trust nobody. The AI is changing the world too fast, to the point where the word "slop" was brought back to the dictionaries to refer to AI content. A sort of content that, by the way, has took over the mainstream social medias. Reality lost its meaning, we were left by ourselves in the jungle of mirrors, in the Opera's underground, with no compass - incapable of telling illusion from reality. The final stage of Post-Modernism, where truth ceases to exist not only in a metaphorical or philosophical way, but literally as well. You can't trust everything you read, nor everything you see.
Of course, it all goes back to what was previously stated. The post-truth era, the "fake news", the game of narratives; all this contributes to the perception (a very accurate one) that society is going to shit. So we arm ouselves and prepare to fight because we all know we are on the brink of war. We can't keep up with the changes, on top of that, we lost track with reality - everything that's left is to find something to replace what we lost. So we look for a Messiah amidst the crowd. A saviour for our strayed souls. Here's where the religions start. Not talking only about mystical religions, but everything people follow like a sect.
Is very normal for people to look after someone when they're lost and frail. It is of our nature to do so. We need someone take can guide us through the shadows and show us the light. So groups start to pop up here and there. And if you pay attention, will notice that all of them tend to act like they are saving the world. They always have leaders that must be worshipped and treat the other groups as some kind of heretic bunch that deserve to be shamed and punished.
This mob mentaly makes me sick, but there isn't much one can do about it. It is cliché of humans to act this way. We are nothing but animals, ultimately. Our behaviours and responses to certain stimuli are quite predictable.
Howsoever, this is a big issue we are facing. And social media only seems to be making matters worse.
I know. Much has been spoken about the internet, but not much about the real world. And even what I've been writing to this point hasn't been anything original. I am not saying anything new, so what's the point of all this, anyway?
I aknowledge that I didn't say anything that wasn't said before, but one can't stress enough all these matters. So even if I am being redundant, I'll continue just to keep the discussion alive. And, regarding what I brought up about the real world, The Wired is the real world. Period. Whatever happens there, affects directly the physical world. Our material existence have been successfully replaced by zeros and ones, while our identities became Discord tags. A 6 inch screen is an universe that has overthroned the original. There's no such thing as a real world without the online one. They go side by side like the Yin-Yang. One no longer exists without the other.
I think this is one of the biggest problems nowadays. The internet has become so essencial that whoever controls it, controls humanity.
We have this big corporations that have all the power in the world and keep track of every site you visit, everything you post or like. They spy on you and sell your data. But of course you know about that. People only talk about this, recently. But we also know this is not exclusive of big techs, since the government is always spying on us, both online as well as offline, with their cameras all over, following every step we take. Even though, for some reason, people don't talk much about the government. Could it be because people that address those topics are, usually, Marxists? We know they tend to love the government, so that's one of my hypothesis, Not judging they, tough. At least they are addressing the matter.
We gave up on privacy. We are happy enough with our bright devices and are gladly willing to be watched as long as we can access the internet. I suppose this is what people like to call "Surveillance Capitalism".
But enough with the common sense. I may write a more in-depth text about all thesse questions in the future, but, for now, I'd like to keep focusing on the madness of modern society.
So, we got these different groups with different principles, values, and different knowledges and basic worldviews altogether. They are so different that a communication between them is unfeasible. Like I once heard somebody say: "when you have two different people with completely distinct standpoints, you don't have a debate, you got two interspersed monologues". Those words resonate so much with how I see society, especially in these ominous times. And it aligns with my "theory" of why democracies fail and are designed to fail. Though it is not the time to discuss it. But, to put it simply, there was no way of keep both sides in the leash. Soon or later we'd have to face it and fight for our survival, since two extremes exclude one another, what gives no space for them to coexist. There's no way for the Earth be both 6000 and 4 something billion years old, so one side needs to be wrong. It's the only way to make sense, based in our understanding of reality and truth. And maybe, later on, we find out that things work just like in quantum mechanics, in a way that's counterintuitive and Earth can be both 6 thousand and 4 billion years old, just like superposition. But, for all intents and purposes, we assume it's not.
In conclusion, it is impossible for both ideas to coexist because they nullify one another - thus the conflict. It's not possible for guns, drugs or abortion to be both legal and ilegal, or to a country be both capitalist and communist - and, no, I won't accept China as an example of both. Fuck them.
So I think I made my point clear. In order to these two or more groups "live in harmony", somebody's gotta give.
Anyway, I promise to elaborate it on future posts (as long as I don't forget or grow outta it). The text os already too long and I don't believe more than 10 people will read it in the next 50 years. But I still feel like writing, firstly because I like to do so, and secondly because I believe someone may take some kind of benefit from all this.
Now we have a better comprehension of what's happening and why the fabric of human society seems to be tearing apart. When we can't even agree on the shape of Earth, we have a problem that goes much deeper than the elections can show you. It's rooted on the core beliefs of these persons and it's very difficult to change something that is so elementar for you, that it becomes a part of you. It shapes your personality, habits and many other things that define you as an individual. So, virtually, it is the same as if we were on different universes. And now that we can't tell truth for lie, fact for deception, the monster only grows bigger, feeding itself in mistrust and confirmation bias. And I am just as a victim of all this as you guys. I also don't know what to believe in, and also hate to be wrong. Being refuted feels bad and we want to listen to people that agrees with us and says whatever we wanna listen to. We don't want to be confronted.
I consider myself a pragmatic and logical person. People often say I'm reasonable and sensible, but I can't let this twist my perceptions and make me too arrogant to see my decay coming. I know that I'm wrong in many things, I just don't know which ones (because if I did, I won't believe in them), that's why I need to be careful. Many times I made a fool of myself thinking I had all the answers, when I was completely wrong from the get go. It happens. A lot. But I believe this is the point of the scientific menthod. One is proven wrong and accepts the mistake and tries again. It is pretty much the falsiability principle that Karl Popper proposed. One must look for errors and flaws in their hypothesis. Always looking for things that disprove (or attempt to) what they believe and not things that endorse. And this is the way of doing science, but also the way we should approach our beliefs in general.
It is easy to talk, impossible to do. I've been preaching this whole time, but not even I am doing this.