A terrifying, incoherent rant for your disagreeing pleasure

Found this rant from a while back and thought I’d share. I’ve been sucked back into the vortex since this point, so if you don’t agree, no need to worry because I’ve given in, too.

So, lately I’ve been attempting to unplug my life. I’ve gotten fed up with facebook and other things of the like, the dependence of seemingly everyone in the college realm on these things. Anyway, apparently my endeavors may be unfruitful after all: I, as an average American, view 400-600 ads per day.

Is it inescapable? Is it impossible to live a life without demoralizing, time-squandering media and relentless attempts to get me to buy, attempt, or simply believe? I’m not seeking hermitism here. I just want simplicity. Most of all I want reality. I’m through with airbrushed, Photoshopped, consumable people in magazines and on billboards. I’m done with exploitation of the entire human population, through every last element of popular culture.

But apparently this decision is not mine to make. I can’t simply throw up my hands and say “Enough!” and have every tv commercial pulled, every advertising guru unemployed. How can we reverse decades of permeation and infiltration of these hoards of unrealistic sleazeballs being chucked in our faces left and right? How can I force Americans to wake up and become alive again, when “waking up” is what we claim to be trying to do and when we have equated pleasure with “the good life” for so long? We’re trying to educate people, we’re trying to make them more open-minded. We’re going to offer courses in pornography and degrees in gay-lesbian studies so we can be aware. This isn’t life. It’s not reality.

The life I believe in doesn’t consist of this. It is filled with so much more! I dream of impossible things, of people helping each other and taking risks by going out on a limb to connect, not to gain some sort of sick control or pleasure. I believe, alright. In our ability to connect, to be exquisitely creative and wonderful without ulterior motives. Why don’t we channel our immeasurable capabilities to the common good?? Then it wouldn’t be whoever CEO trying to help out starving children in Africa to promote his company, he’d be doing it for them. And he could even do it for himself; he could do it for the challenge, for the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that can’t come any other way. You’re not going to fall into bed joyfully exhausted when you’ve spent all day researching how to make your audience addicted to your product so you can get more money to spend on your expensive bed.

Why don’t we get to believe in the common good anymore? We have to, instead, be swarmed by thousands of creepsters showing us evidence that we are clearly not inherently good, that the cycle is unbreakable and we can’t and don’t want to be, so why would we even begin to try? We should give up, give in, addict, get addicted, buy, sell, trade. It’s our souls, anyway.