The early morning rain falls like sheets of shattered glass, Down on the street, the forming puddles reflect the dark sky, Vehicles pass by like hissing serpents, the occupants barely awake, Concrete building frontages shine with a watery veneer, Dripping facades provide walkways shelter before disappearing up into the clouds, Advertisements flicker with colourful brilliance, LED billboards illuminate laneways, They cut through the rain and darkness, clashing with decrepit orange streetlights, A bridge spans a freeway tunnel, and the headlights of hundreds queue to gain access, A helicopter buzzes overhead, preparing to land at a nearby riverbank pad, Sirens wail in the distance, the world is waking up, Time to unplug, disconnect from my terminal and put my mind to sleep, I power down, remove my headset, rub my tired eyes and stretch, Now, while the chaos of the waking world ensues, I will rest, Only to return by night, like some kind of digital vampire.
She came to me through starlight, Through immaculate dancing violet light, I still see her eyes when I close mine, I feel the warmth of her embrace, Her heart is a great constellation of stars, Her lifeforce shines across the galaxy, Tonight, I will close my eyes and dream, Of my beautiful Andromeda.
We are hardwired to provide maximum resolution, Once there were eyes, now cameras are the solution, Life means desperation for the technologically devout, The sky outside remains dark ever since the blackout, The landscape is rain soaked where the buildings stand tall, Here, where we were nearly wiped out by a nuclear war, So many missiles, unchecked AI sub routines fired those, Using cold machine logic to destroy unknown human foes, So, this is our world now unhappily ever after, Where eyes keep recording and headsets transmit data, The wealthy moved off world, and the poor were displaced, Desperate people become cybernaughts, lost in digital space.
A sadness fell upon me this evening, A heavy wave of confusing memories, I was laughing at a comedy with my wife, Only 10 minutes before it hit me, As I sat alone, I felt such a feeling of loss, Where did it come from? A momentary look at a photo of an Atari 2600 console, Someone was selling it online, It was dust-covered, scratched, and time-beaten, The sales caption brought a tear to my eye, It read, “old, but still in working order”, My sadness was about aging and about my own relevance, It hit me like a body shot to the liver with a lead pipe, Because I too feel a little dusty, antique, and I have my scars, For I’ve also been beaten by life quite a few times, But I am still here, and although I am not perfect, I am still in working order.
Illuminated by distant starfields, Our minds may be terrestially imprisoned, But we are built for infinite possibilities, We are the timeless, Those born of stardust, We are the cosmos.
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.
Sometimes it is important to regroup mentally, to step away from everything you’ve been doing to filter out the stressors. I’ve done that recently with a pause on social media. This has opened my mind(s) a little more and allowed me to experiment again and scribble down ideas and possible new pathways. The arrival of AI and its rape of the artistic world, dealt my interest in creating art a considerable blow. So the freedom given by stepping away from these digital platform has been good so far, I’ll keep at it, I do hope to find my feet again.
The world right now lives in unreality, Jobs, services, people we meet, None seems as real as they once did, Is the matrix here and now, Reality has been hijacked by billionaires, We’re abused by greedy politicians, Confused masses, manipulated by the media, Everything feels geared towards marketing, People are desperate to escape reality, Right now, online life is preferred, Where likes provide validation, And reach signifies success, Neither of these is a physical thing, But online is how we live now, Where every perversion is instantly satisfied, It’s easy being digital, you can be anything, You can be anyone other than yourself, A place where we don’t feel the hurt, The painful realities of war, poverty or famine, Where hate is downloadable for the willing, Just click, donate, and feel better, A sweet constant flow of dopamine, Our flesh is now an avatar of our humanity, We must take the red pill and awaken, Back into the harsh reality of the world, Where we follow the white rabbit, Disconnect for a while, and make reality better.
Dan Verkys 