Digital Escapism

A journal blog post incoming, an attempt to defrag my brain, I’ll do my best to contain my rambling. The current me has been overthinking, a lot, over obsessing about all the usual nonsense even though life has been relatively uneventful, I’ve taken active measures to ensure I feel ok as much as possible, so most stress is probably of my own design.

Look, on the whole things are ok, but I seem to worry a lot more lately, often without any reason for it, I have concerns for my health (physical and mental), I worry about my wife, my family, and the future. Death has been an active thought passenger and every ache or pain felt sets my mind off, I have been seeking alternatives to the real world that don’t include chemical or liquid substances. I’m escaping reality where I can and this has really helped. For a few years I have actively avoided the media and have recently limited my social media exposure, which is having a positive effect.  The usual trappings of sadness still creep in, feeling old, ugly, fat, useless and out of touch with the world, these are things I can’t hide from, but I will give it a bloody good try.

Escaping the outside world seems to be all I want to do, the current me feels lost in dystopian sci-fi again, particularly the books of William Gibson, his Sprawl Trilogy audiobooks have been on repeat because I’m too lazy to read lately, and the video games I lose myself in for hours have also helped suspend belief that the real world exists. I feel a hypocritical complaining about the modern world, of the advances of AI and how it has killed the arts, yet I hide neck deep in sci-fi like I’m a small child who has fallen into a ball pit, I don’t get me at all.

With the approach of summer, I’ve noticed I’ve been drinking more and that I need to knock it off for a while, but it is an indicator that my mind isn’t where I need it to be.  My social anxiety is overclocking right now too, any time I’m forced visit the city for work an event, I am physically sick before stepping out the door, followed by a day of depression and paint peeling anxiety levels, this weighs on me until I escape back to our home in the country. A contributing factor I see, as the year ends, is that the world feels like it’s in turmoil, it feels too fast, spiralling, people in public places being aggressive, openly violent, unhinged, many peaking on chemicals, all glued to phones, everyone feels desperate, money is tight everywhere, it costs so much just to get by, it is all rushing and many just aren’t coping, there doesn’t appear to be any relief in sight.  It feels like the worse parts of Christmas Eve shopping madness but every single day, pure speeding chaos.

I guess I see why the current me is lost in Gibson’s Neuromancer, the dystopia feels real, it fits nicely into our current timeline. People all seem plastic, fake, all outraged about things that probably don’t directly affect them, nobody seems genuine, it makes me feel old and confused, little makes sense anymore, it is a depressing cocktail. Well, I can’t deal with it so I’m running from reality before I (over)think too much about it.

A friend of mine has been experiencing the very same emotions, his dystopic drug of choice is the film Blade Runner from 1982, among other things. He has recently invested in VR and has found some success finding peace off world.  Perhaps the advertisement from Blade runner is true, “A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure!”

We’re both artists, well, him more so than me, but we’ve both been struggling to comprehend the current world, its people, and how we fit into it. In these stressful times most believe they’re a superstar, glued to their devices, posting, posing, obsessed with athleticism, money, success, appearing as avatars of themselves. With Blade Runner in mind, I can’t help but think we’re going to need a Voight-Kampff machine to locate anyone with a shred of empathy left out there. Maybe my recent thoughts that the film The Matrix being our currently reality has some truth to it.

I’ve decided to take the VR colony ship off world too and join my mate. Like Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, we’ll be two old weirdos in VR goggles complaining about how annoying modern world is, while hypocritically relaxing in a digital one that has been made a reality by it. Time to wake up Neo wherever you are and save the real world so we can all come home.