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Facebook pulled the video shortly after it appeared.
A message to us from far away.
But I saw it there amongst the sugar rush of lulu lemons, ads: financial-platform-promise-app and the revelations of the snowpocalypse.
I was scrolling my news feed, taking in the eclectic nothingness.
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I have seen captured images from videos like this — on the news, across web sites and into our collective consciousness. I recognized what was about to happen. One of the masked men started sawing, then hacking at the neck of the bound and blindfolded man. He tore the head back and forth until, amongst a wash of blood and viscera it came loose. I couldn’t take my eyes away. Whiskey soured in my gut, burned its way up my throat.
A video of two men beheading a third bound on the ground.
Their black masks made an ellipsis.
On a sunny deck in Colorado, I was thousands of miles away from the men in the video.
Far from the dust, the threat, the blood.
I investigated enough to understand it was two Muslims beheading a Christian. But the knowledge didn’t change my impression: unadulterated and uninvited. A reminder that all is not well.
I have not been to war — sacrificed the way our soldiers have to give us freedoms we abuse. I have not witnessed this kind of brutality first hand. Which is part of the power and danger of our social platforms. They make us passive witnesses — increase our awareness and ultimately our individual responsibility. No longer constrained by the Colosseum walls or the geography of the lynchings.
We are aware of our part in the spectacle.
My thoughts race, crawl — even stall — at times through disillusionment and fear of disillusionment.
Through nights, shocked awake by the impact of falling into my own body.
He haunts my news feed. The pale blue specter of an anonymous comment, the friend request from a stranger, the after image of a blinking cursor. I wonder if he was a father-brother-husband — the shape of the void in his absence.
I am in wonder of this design.
Kaleidoscope applications, networks and sites with no center upon which to focus. Every shift of color frees us from ourselves.
The agony of choice. Its gravity can be oppressive. A weight I know is there but don’t have the knowledge to move. The conflicts and associated atrocities are endless. I don’t know for certain on where to focus attention. How are we to effectively increase awareness? How are we to pierce the digital veil so many hide behind?
I am propelled by the kinetic motion of my social network feeds — moving so fast the focus is diffused, wispy as cotton-candy. The digital connections which empower us to witness and be inspired will erode our humanity through over stimulation.
I try not to consume the message those who recorded the video were trying to send.
I think about the loss, try not to grow apathetic.
I wonder if this global platform of connection creates a stage too prevalent, irresistible. We’ve taken the unspeakable side of ourselves and turned a light on it.
We’re in a sugar coma as we scroll through our news feeds, our updates, our notifications. The one-liners dealt to pop stars, pictures of vacations, meals, kids — and debates about the color of a dress are sedating but in no way nourishing.
On the timeline, human existence is an ellipsis from its more violent beginnings.
At this focus, we don’t appear to be kinder, more accepting, more loving.
It feels like we are going the other direction. Self-absorbed, self-deluded, convinced there is not close enough to here to impact I.
I am insulated. I actively engage in insulation management based on what content I choose to consume. Violence has touched my life in limited ways — disturbing and painful but make sense in context.
I consider heads in the sand. The kind still attached to their necks.
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Closet Writer
Creative-
Misanthrope
In collaboration with Absurdists.
A re-imagining of Beheaded on Facebook.
