La Vida Es Sueno

Some times it’s like that…

Life is like a dream according to Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s allegory on life.. .

It is a dream inspired by what we like; not necessarily reality.

Don’t believe it?

All you have to do is bring up a topic that is unpleasant to hear a resounding “I don’t want to talk about that!” or something equivalent.

The fact is that the recipient of the communication has already turned off his or her brain.

The truth is that we are remarkably adept at such contrivances.

The brand people say that we can only accept so many impressions. Our minds can only acknowledge a few brands in each category so if you’re not in the top seven in people’s recall, don’t bother to search for funding or expect great leaps forward on the Big Board.

It just won’t happen.

The prophet of TV had it right: The medium is the message. But what he didn’t say but implied was that the Message is taking over.

And why not.

It tells us what we want to here. It doesn’t fill our heads with painful facts.

And that is both the blessing and the curse of our society.

Why is it a curse?

Because the powers that be know that anybody who is addicted to TV is a great subject for their own brand of persuasion that may or may not include the truth.

Someone said to me that the Revolution is coming.

I said I doubt it.

Why? Too often, I find the residue of the Cargo culture.

These are the inhabitants of Western New Guinea who sit on rocks and wait for the “great birds” to come to deliver nice things like food and clothes.

And some are still waiting for America’s return.

That was more than fifty years ago.

We, too, in our own way are waiting to for a savior to come along.

To bring back all of the things important to our conception of democracy.

But there are few figures great enough to fill the bill.

No Adams or Washingtons along the way.

Yet, we wait for the deux ex machinas to come along and save us from ourselves in the Third Act.

But low and behold, it never happens..

Why?

It seems that the passivity required for TV watching is directly proportional to the apathy we find in everything else.

Why bother to read; it is too much work—especially when you can passively watch a made for TV movie without exercising a mental muscle.

Why bother to listen to a heroic piece of classical music. It takes too much effort.

Why bother to research the truth; it requires too much sweat and hard work.

The fact is that largely we have become apathetic because it just takes too much work to get involved, too much patterning of the frontal lobes one would suspect..


Therefore, no Washingtons.

No Revolution.

No nothing.

Just more programming to keep us in our somnambulant state.

So the arbiters of what is right and wrong go about spinning their cynical webs and we all suffer from inertia.

Imagine.

Two hundred years ago who would have thought?

Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon.