Back from the Brink
Recently, I read an article about a man who had become so addicted to the internet that it killed him. It's a tragic case. Apparently he sat, day after day, staring at the screen, neglecting all other aspects of his life. Eventuallyl he perished, a martyr to whatever private cause he was engaged in. Was he continually updating and modifying Wikipedia ariticles on topics which obsessed him? Was he trying valiently to get to level 88 in some all-consuming role-playing fantasy game, living out some otherwise unrealisable dream of a life he never had, as a medieval barbarian or a wizard or something? Was he constantly poking 'fantasy friends' on Facebook - an oddly similar activity? Was he continually updating his blog, in the deluded hope that someone was reading it? No-one knows these things: they are lost in the secrets of time and in the misinformation intrinsic to the systems of communication that both caused and reported his demise. Did he even exist?
But I am not that man! For I have been shunning the computer in an attempt to liberate myself from its addictive clutches. 'Computer!', I would say, 'you are diseased and unsavoury! You are worse than the rotten flesh of a three-week-old dead beast!'. And thus I hurled the monitor three stories onto the pavement, where it shattered, injuring a passerby and causing a minor road accident. I did this to prove that I am not addicted. I did it to prove my sanity.
But, alas, 'ever are the mightly misunderestimated' (as the poet said). For this liberation ended, paradoxically, in my incarceration, an irony which struck me repeatedly as I laughed and cursed and was repeatedly struck in the police station. To cut a long stort short, I was compelled to do community service. 'You're a remarkably self-obssessed man', said the judge as I checked my hair in a pocket mirror, 'and furthermore, your strange behaviour for the sake of self-publicity is grossly inappropriate'. I must confess that I agreed with him and replied to that effect, delivering my apology in rhyming couplets while performing a traditional dance of my own invention. The court was unimpressed and I was 'sentenced' to 1500 hours community service cleaning the streets. But I was liberated from the computer, which, after all had been my objective - so I reinterpreted the whole episode as part of my own glorious triumph. I walked the streets a proud man. And that's what this whole episode has given me: self-satisfaction.
Recently, I read an article about a man who had become so addicted to the internet that it killed him. It's a tragic case. Apparently he sat, day after day, staring at the screen, neglecting all other aspects of his life. Eventuallyl he perished, a martyr to whatever private cause he was engaged in. Was he continually updating and modifying Wikipedia ariticles on topics which obsessed him? Was he trying valiently to get to level 88 in some all-consuming role-playing fantasy game, living out some otherwise unrealisable dream of a life he never had, as a medieval barbarian or a wizard or something? Was he constantly poking 'fantasy friends' on Facebook - an oddly similar activity? Was he continually updating his blog, in the deluded hope that someone was reading it? No-one knows these things: they are lost in the secrets of time and in the misinformation intrinsic to the systems of communication that both caused and reported his demise. Did he even exist?
But I am not that man! For I have been shunning the computer in an attempt to liberate myself from its addictive clutches. 'Computer!', I would say, 'you are diseased and unsavoury! You are worse than the rotten flesh of a three-week-old dead beast!'. And thus I hurled the monitor three stories onto the pavement, where it shattered, injuring a passerby and causing a minor road accident. I did this to prove that I am not addicted. I did it to prove my sanity.
But, alas, 'ever are the mightly misunderestimated' (as the poet said). For this liberation ended, paradoxically, in my incarceration, an irony which struck me repeatedly as I laughed and cursed and was repeatedly struck in the police station. To cut a long stort short, I was compelled to do community service. 'You're a remarkably self-obssessed man', said the judge as I checked my hair in a pocket mirror, 'and furthermore, your strange behaviour for the sake of self-publicity is grossly inappropriate'. I must confess that I agreed with him and replied to that effect, delivering my apology in rhyming couplets while performing a traditional dance of my own invention. The court was unimpressed and I was 'sentenced' to 1500 hours community service cleaning the streets. But I was liberated from the computer, which, after all had been my objective - so I reinterpreted the whole episode as part of my own glorious triumph. I walked the streets a proud man. And that's what this whole episode has given me: self-satisfaction.
posted by dadfield | 8:13 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home