In downtown Camden, I heard a street preacher holler, "We are a relational people!" and he certainly got that right. Further, I ardently believe that human bodies are really one continuum that has been tragically yet mercifully broken up. If you're cut, I should feel pain, and vice versa, and when we're at our best, that's exactly what happens. Too often, though, people derive an orgasmic pleasure from watching someone being blown up. Excited, they cheer.
Elias Canetti talks about how instinctively humans laugh at seeing a person falling, and he traces this to our days as flesh hunters. Since a fallen body represents meat, we laugh out of joy. Beside this atavistic impulse, however, we also rush to help the fallen because we recognize the body in distress as our own. Our entertainment industry, though, is relentless in pushing the fantasy of the super predator, somebody who's capable of destroying countless bodies "of the bad guys." With its mesmerizing war and "action" films, Hollywood has amplified, to an insane degree, all of our worst sadistic tendencies. Sex, too, has become a matter of body count, but this is perfectly in line with our obsession with numbers. Ain't that right, Bill? How many have you scored?
The American porch shrank, then disappeared. Sidewalks emptied or became overgrown with weeds. Behind closed doors, an unending cacophony of disembodied voices hyperventilate over nothing or sing the same old songs. Making duck faces or pulling their pants down, a little lower, yeah, like that, Americans snap selfies compulsively to make sure nothing of their noisily desperate lives is lost to eternity. We've all become famous to ourselves, and that's good enough, somehow.
Say, what are the political ramifications of having a nation of inattentive, narcissistic jerk offs? Well, me, myself and I think it's way beyond divide and conquer, for what it is is rule by fragmentation into 320,159,176 pieces, and counting. Yes, we have this, that and that camp but each takes its cues from the right or left hand of our ruling apparatus. To know what to do, say or even dress, we look towards Midtown Manhattan, Hollywood and Northwest DC. Talk about a disastrous recipe! Unwilling or unable to deal with each other in the flesh, we must plug in to even squeak a dissident note, so it's no surprise our feeble rebellion remains virtual.
While the internet allows many fringe voices to find their miniscule audiences, its dominant aim is to tease, tickle and titillate the mind into numbness. With multiple windows and everything flickering by, nothing matters. Skimming over bullshit and insights alike, we forget a minute later what we've just glimpsed. Swarming with words, the internet desensitizes us to language.
After that last paragraph, my phone rang, so I picked it up to hear Casey, someone I hadn't heard from for over two years. After the briefest of chit chat, middle-aged Casey spilled that her wife had left her, "I was crazy, she was crazy, but she was even crazier than I was!" Later, her upstairs neighbor, a crackhead, punched Casey so hard, "my brain moved to the other side! After I maced the b*tch, I was dragged to court, can you believe it?!" Concluding, Casey said I should come over soon to catch up. "I always have beer in the fridge."
"How are you making money these days?" I asked.
"Oh, I do freelance art works," Casey answered rather defensively, "and I get food stamps."
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