Memo: Awareness of the Endless Impending
In the beginning, it was just entertainment. It was always available, always ready. All I had to do was pick up the remote, and hit the power button. The endless glow massaged my senses into oblivion, and if I didn’t need to sleep or eat, I’d have stayed there forever. When networks lost their luster, there was digital cable. As soon as I had a handle on whatever was new, it brought me fresh novelty. When the number of channels overwhelmed me, DVRs were available. Faulty guide software kept recording repeated airings of new shows, which I ran anyway, nostalgic for last week. I deleted more than I watched.
New has nothing to do with quality, of course. Was any of it any good? Sure. But with so much in constant supply, it was easier to put Harry Potter on for the twelfth time as background noise while I read novels’ worth of Boing Boing on the web.
Satan did not appear and offer me the bargain of my dark fantasies.
I did not grow fat on Cheetos and peanut m&ms.
But the infinite feed still waits in the corner of the living room, even now urging me to re-mortgage my house, and buy a newer, safer Jetta, not to mention extolling the virtues of video bliss to be, coming in February, coming this summer, coming soon.
What am I not doing in order that I might experience that which is always, and forever, coming soon?
