Pay Attention Before It's Too Late

Newborn undergoing escapism indoctrination.

These days everyone seems to play games. Not the old-fashioned kind, like when you tell someone you'll call them tomorrow or that the check is in the mail or that you really, really like them but things are crazy right now or your car broke down in the middle of 295 and you had to wait for a tow and that's why you never made it to their party. No, I mean the kind on digital devices that are little more than a way to kill time. I play one of those, except I rationalize that it has value as a way to keep my brain healthy and stave off dementia, which personally matters to me since my mother died of early-onset Alzheimer's which may be inherited. Yeah, yeah, I know -- I'm too old for early-onset anything -- but still, that's what I tell myself.

The game I play for free is called Words With Friends, and between each of my turns I must tolerate a 25-second commercial, unless I want to pay ten bucks to get rid of them altogether. I don't. The most annoying part is that they run the same commercial each time for like a month until they get a new advertiser, so you have to see it over and over and over and over until you want to break a window or slit your wrists but instead you just slam the computer closed. Usually I mute the the sound and use the time to meditate, eyes closed, repeating my mantra and listening to the sounds of the birds outside my window, relishing my delicious hot coffee and generally Being Here Now.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the commercial and wonder what they're selling. Today I listened, and it turned out to be an ad for a purveyor of audio books. We are shown people doing everyday things like eating a bowl of cereal at a kitchen table, out running on a dirt path, vacuuming a living room and lying on a lounge chair at the beach. In each instance the person is wearing headphones and instead of their authentic surroundings, suddenly they are in the midst of a wild scenario like a violent war, or a fancy party in Merry Olde England, or discovering a dead body at a grim crime scene or moonbathing on another planet entirely, the point being that listening to these audio stories can take you away from your real life.

This is the exact opposite way to live a fruitful life, and yet another travesty being foisted on an unsuspecting public, as if Hillary Clinton is not bad enough.