The Age of the Voyeur

I don't hate society and civilization as much as I gripe like I do. It's just that I had hoped that after 2023 years of biblical studies and holy wars and 200 years of American indoctrination, humans would have evolved enough to be honest with themselves and others. I know we all lie sometimes to makes things easier or kinder, but some of the bologna sandwiches that the media serves are just plain rotten and I'm not talking about Rotten Tomatoes.

It's bad enough that we've been listening to the same old news about violence, murder, racism for the past 60 years and that writers can't even make a living with the newspaper because paper isn't the only thing that business recycles. No matter which device you use for entertainment or current events, it i s bombarded with a hurricane of bologna sandwiches. How can we intellectualize and claim to be the superior life on this planet when the woke culture is simply about reporting the negative? I'm guilty also, because it's contagious. My life is hard, or I didn't get what I wanted, so everything sucks and I must exclaim that to the world. No one stops me and says, "You know you're full of bologna right?" No one cares because they are so desensitized to it because it's in their eyes and ears every day if not from me from some other show, or reporter, or entertainer. What is authentic then? Just sports and the weather report? That's what it seems to boil down to time after time. But as a lover of theater, the arts, literature, and music, I can't accept that.

I spent years switching from one cable company to the other trying to figure out how to find the shows I wanted to watch without having to spend $200 per month. No company was better than the other, and it took me a long time to figure that out. Then I thought it was better just to use the internet and buy or rent a digital download when I wanted to view something. But that has problems also. Then I thought it was a better deal just to have Netflix and Disney as my two main channels, but even when I was paying my monthly service fee, I was hardly ever watching the shows.

Now I mostly pull up youtube videos, because after I tolerate their commericals, I get to see other people like me express their opinions about shows. But mostly what I'm seeing is not fresh, just the same reports about how Netflix is failing, and Disney is failing, and that movie sucked, and this movie didn't make enough money and how everybody hates everything. And I don't even know what they are talking about because I didn't even see whatever it is they are disrespecting.

Pause for a moment. I used to love that song "Age of Aquarius" from the musical "Hair" (one of my favorites from 1969?) because to me it wasn't just "anti-war" or "pro-liberal hippy" it was about peace, love, and understanding, which I believe to be the higher level functioning of the human brain or any hope of evolution for mankind. I pause to mention this song and musical and the scientific theory of evolution because I was born in 1971 (right around the time that musical was very popular) and I suppose my young soul thought that life, people, and the world were going to get smarter in a good way. But that's now what I've been seeing for the past few years. Not only in my personal life, but in the media and in the world at large.

It doesn't seem to be the "Age of Aquarius" at all. It seems to be the "Age of the Voyeur" where people would rather sit in front of the television and act like everything is still honkey dorey when it isn't. I'm not saying the world is as messed up as some people want to paint it, but there are still some serious problems and the news maybe serving mostly bologna sandwiches, but when you start enjoying your cushy seat just watching news and shows of violence and destruction, I say you are not even close to evolution or the "Age of Aquarius".... Silently letting life slip you by and quietly watching life instead of living it is not my version of peace or understanding or love. It's is a version of either you're too tired and weak to embrace life, or you're too lazy and apathetic to make an effort for yourself or others. And if you were out there making an effort against those who were doing something you only watch on television, I wonder why you felt you had to be opposed to their freedom?

I'd prefer to believe we are in the "Age of Aquarius" where humans do believe in peace, love, and understanding and not some bologna sandwich being served about racism after MLK and Langston Hughs and countless others have already proven that it is an internal battle, not a civil war. Those ideations are absolutely GONE WITH THE WIND and are only recycled as Propaganda because the news writers and reporters are not creative enough to come up with NEW NEWS.