Excuses and Lies

I am sitting in a massive cafeteria looking around the room as everyone stares into their laptops clicking away at work or perhaps also doing blog posts about the oddity of sitting here in this virtual world of emails, conference calls, and PowerPoint updates. It’s a strange experience to be here because there is so little that is alive. I envy the cafeteria workers that go about their tasks of filling the serving lines, and condiment stations in preparation for lunch, and they, likely, look back and envy me because I can sit here with my coffee and type while they have to go about their assigned tasks. But what I envy is the fact that they can see what they are doing while they manipulate real things, and complete real tasks. The only evidence of my work is the check that is electronically deposited into my account twice a month. I am disconnected from reality floating through a world of consumer desires that are there to mitigate the sadness I feel about this empty life. I produce nothing but excuses, lies, and presentations that are made up of those excuses and lies. My product is excuses and lies. Welcome to the modern world of work where I touch nothing, produce nothing. I am surrounded by thousands of other people caught up in the same spectacle of non-work.

I must break away from this situation of non-production, of non-work, of triviality.

There is a world of people out there that is hungry for something real to happen in their lives. People hungry for a human interaction that is not based upon money and the trading of commodities we don’t need or even really desire. I drive to work on Monday morning and look over into single passenger cars carrying bored workers to their non-work, to their peck buttons. We are caught in a post-industrial world designed to make sure we are ready to purchase every object that is designed to increase our lack of meaning and further disconnect us from what is of true importance: human relationships. We work at computers and then go home and perform additional tasks on computers that are often the same computers on which we work all day. Our children site and use the same devices for work, play, and socialization. We walk around with mobile phones that connect us to work, friends, information, but they also create a barrier between us and the world so that we are never connected in an emotional way to the space we are in. We are connected to the world, but disconnected from the place in which we live.

What is the solution? Perhaps we like this world because it makes us feel important, makes us feel as if we are actually accomplishing things by forever clicking away at these electronic devices that are a screen between life and virtual life. Are we really opting to live a virtual life rather than a real life of conversations with real people? Will the mark we live on the world consist of a string of zeros and ones that sit on a server in some remote town? Will our life story consist of a string of Google searches that track our interests, perversions, fears, and desires?

I want out! But how to disconnect and live a real life? Time to do a Google search.