Living in Bad Television: The Impossible Reality That is Our Lives

There are a million things we tell ourselves when our emotions start to surface, especially when the timing is inconvenient. It’s easy to swallow it down like a too-big pill and to keep swallowing the phantom lump in our throats, because we busy ourselves with obligations. We prioritize our lives in such a way that puts our needs on the back burner, low heat and apply just enough attention that we don’t have to worry about it burning the kitchen down (metaphorically and literally, in some cases). It becomes second nature to remember we even have needs, never mind how to meet them; we’re doing everything we can just to survive another day in a world that wasn’t built for us. 

It wasn’t built for those who feel everything viscerally, those who find the expectations within a capitalistic society daunting not because they don’t want to work but because they also want to live. It’s not designed for people who say what they mean and crave intellectual and emotional depths that drown much of society—I am fully aware of how that sounds, but the numbers don’t lie. The vast majority of the humans on this earth, while plausibly decent, likeable people, are not going to ever be aware that such depths exist let alone strive to dive deeper with every interaction—I’m getting off track.

We find ways to distract ourselves, concern ourselves with mundane busywork that we tell ourselves is necessary (it’s okay to not run on a schedule all the time, if schedules stress you out; it’s okay to pencil in mindfulness activities or self-care if that helps you take better care of yourself—you deserve the dedication you give to others). Our houses don’t have to be pristine, only livable; we don’t have to match the impossible standards of a BMI chart (which, by the way, is based on White males of the 1800s) to be healthy, and yet we slowly kill ourselves with stress, preservatives, diet fads, and exercise addictions taking the place of personalities. We pay impossible prices for basic necessities, and we allow ourselves to become consumed by consumerism. A walking cliché, we are the only species that pays to exist while we destroy the only resources we have in the name of greed. An invasive species: we overfish, overeat, overuse, overpopulate, and overthrow every living being we come into contact in the name of avarice. And we justify our consumption through a programmed perception of need. Meanwhile, we continue about our consumer-driven lives, with bare-minimum engagement, exchanging deep, intimate connection and thought with surface-level pleasantries and drivel—brainrot.

It’s the cogs that keep the machine running and keep us too tired to do anything about their mayhem. Now, here we sit in our overwhelm, quite literally living history that will be written in textbooks—how it will be described relies heavily on how we respond to everything happening right now. And I am honestly so sick of people clinging to a bipartisan stance at a time and on topics that have less to do with politics and more to do with human rights. Our moral trajectory has thrown us so far out of the realm of rationality that it hurts my brain—and my soul, but I digress. How—legitimately tell me how—do we have a man that is so reprehensible that Jeffrey Epstein referred to him as “the worst human being,” who has dozens of women and young girls who have come forward with allegations of sexual assault, that was found civilly liable for forced penetration on E. Jean Carroll, and 34 felony convictions—that’s to say little of his decades-long reputation for failed businesses (including a casino that only recovered after being bought by Hard Rock), and a laundry list of other transgressions holding one of the most respected seats in the world?! Especially after running on a campaign of “law and order,” acknowledging that “smart people don’t like [him]” and that the fake news media (owned by more of his and Epstein’s pals) was out to get him.

The hypocrisy and mental gymnastics required to condone anything happening right now is incomprehensible. Like, this isn’t about Republicans and Democrats, or Conservatives or Moderates or Progressives—and in many ways, it never was. It is quite literally a matter of power hungry, silver-spoon-fed, White people who make mediocrity sound ambitious (seriously, take away their money…what about them is there left to envy?) Monopoly…relying entirely on the working class to keep the machine running. And do you want to know how I know they’re doing it on purpose? They appointed the co-founder of WWE as the Secretary of Education—we are literally living in the prequel to Idiocracy (2006).

Our education system fails us every day. The majority of US adults read at a 6th grade level or lower, have no articulable skills outside of those required to maintain a skilless job (and more out of demand than of actual work ethics or value), and lack any evidence of media literacy or pattern recognition. I don’t understand how they function, honestly—and they call me an “overthinker,” as if I put in any effort into going “that deep.” To them, it’s never “that deep.” These people, they get to vote; and in some cases, their vote counts more than the vote of the legitimately educated, the well-read, the experienced, the perceptive. That sounds so harsh, so critical, and I hate it. It’s not meant to be course. It’s objective.
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What is subjective is the fact that the majority of those I have met who meet that critical analysis are perfectly content being poorly educated (if at all); they boast about not reading, about evolving about as sophisticatedly as pond scum. Their biggest flex is that they don’t beat their spouse/kids, they sneer at a suggestion of legitimate self-care—or respect, for that matter. Some have actually accused me of condescending because they couldn’t understand my lexicon, or of having a superiority complex for refusing to twist my boundaries, then scoffed at my suggestion of personal development or introspection. I’m still not convinced this life that I’m living isn’t some twisted variation of The Truman Show (1998), but with Rick and Morty (2013-present)-level technology and simulations—and really shitty writers. It’s isolating to feel like the majority of the people around you are soulless drones espousing preprogrammed buzz words, who glitch and shutdown when you challenge their questionable morals or deluded logic; or berate you for “reading too much”—a legitimate accusation leveled against me, by my kin—or for refusing to shrink myself to be more palatable for their consumption. The burden of literacy is heavy, especially in a world that doesn’t benefit from the power of knowledge being shared.