An intellectual black hole

The world is in a state of disarray, disillusion, and dismay. Come what may, we nullify and numb with distraction by media, be it social or national, syndicated or live, before your eyes. Secondhand gossip becomes the next juicy tidbit we seek to absorb, dissolve, and refine for our own multi-purposes. Better Tweet, Facebook, and Instagram your feelings on all arbitrary topics or the folks who follow our every virtual whim will think we don’t care. Right? We gave everyone a voice where some shout, some pout, and most I could simply do without.

Don’t get me wrong, raising social awareness and bringing about topics for a social discussion are all fine and dandy, but few and far between in the sociosphere the vast majority have come to embrace and personify. What is it that prompts one to become so disconnected to reality while living a real live three dimensional realm? The 2D screens and what flashes across them convolute and skew our once stylish demeanor into a parody of itself.

I hate to say it, (as i sit at a screen and type this PSA) but has technology become our own brains external hard drive? We forget how to fire synapses once trained to do incredible things and outsorce the work to a third world state of mind. Unrefined, insignificant, and unimpressive.

I have a real challenge. No, not an ice bucket, snow in a bikini, set yourself on fire, or the like type feat. Recall the days before the internet, when info was sought in libraries and institutions, social interaction was face to face, and kids played outside with limited time allotted at the Atari or Nintendo. Can you recall the feeling of being without infinite distraction? If you were born in the realm of modern web technology, well, I’m not sure there is hope for you. Keep Snapchatting each other your privates and YOLOing it up I suppose. Enjoy the recycled techno, drum and bass, and house music and keep calling it dubstep. Enjoy the recreational drugs as purely recreation. I can recall not long ago when they were used for introspective looks deep into ones psyche and expanding the bounds of our conception of reality. Now it seems everyone is looking to escape this so called reality, a fallacy, with only the justification to “turn up”. Pity. I can’t blame the youth for the state of mind we created under the guise of improvement and universal access to knowledge. Who wouldn’t want to create the illusion, if only temporarily, of a more exotic state of being from what has become?

However, unprepared for the backlash, we have unintentionally created a monster of a intellectual black hole. In an abyss of access and information in a overwhelming capacity we backstroke blindly, not knowing where we smack our heads into the wall. I know not the answer or solution to such a quandary. A firestorm of book reading perhaps? If only it were that simple. Perhaps mandatory “class time” that would be required before every Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter login where those lazy synapses could get a mini workout. It certainly isn’t Lumosity, where a user can “train their brain with what feels like games”. No sir/mam! And it isn’t in schools where homework is no longer required and laziness is the new norm (where they also told you not to start a sentence with “and”). I myself cannot claim immunity from the distractions and numbification of my intellect. I can only hope that thought will one day supersede again, and advances will be vast. I don’t have the answers, but implore those who had the capacity to read this far to give it some thought.