Friday, February 21, 2014

For the Love of Screens: Compassion Deficit Disorder or It's Not You...or Is It?

We are living in extremely strange times. These are times when being a white collar criminal is finally paying off ('cause no one cares anymore), there is no accountability when grown white men blow away black teenagers, when my neighbor who I see every day rushes back into her house to EMAIL me regarding how I am...the option of just talking to me I guess is no longer there.

It is a time of corporate cyber fascism-when brilliant narcissists like Mark Zuckerberg and the "inventor"of Twitter have brain-washed millions into thinking they now have to PAY to communicate with other people. I don't have a Facebook page, I don't "tweet", I don't text. I never will. I email and, gasp, make phone calls. I go over to people's houses to, I know, TALK to them directly but hey, it's still free. (FYI, you don't have to pay for a "data-plan" to talk to people, not yet). I am, it appears, in the minority now. (But when have I ever been a sheep?).

People are not building RELATIONSHIPS with one another anymore. Now we are just using one another. It is a cold time. It is a time of what I call narcissistic communication meaning if people cannot get something from/out of you that benefits them, they ignore you and your attempts to reach out.

For example, the email I got from my (now definitely former) friends asking me if they could stay in my guest room on the way through my town. I had not heard from them for months. Emails I sent to them, chatty happy things, went completely ignored. I was excited to hear from them but stopped myself from sending another happy chatty response informing them that sure, they can stay in my guest room. Instead I sent them an email explaining that I had not heard from them for months, they did not seem to think it was all that important to respond to my friendly chatty emails, they had not called to check in and in fact, I could be dead in my house for weeks and they would not know/care, and owing that it appeared they were more interested in a free place to stay, this time I said no. Not only that, I declared them  NOT "friends" of mine but the narcissistic people they are (of course baby boomers; self-absorption, materialism, and narcissism marks this pathetic generation that gave us the Hummer and George Bush Jr).  Of course, after I sent them this email, I heard nothing back. They could have responded thus:

"We have been so busy and are so sorry we have not stayed in touch. Forgive us. We really do want to hear how you're doing."

or how bout this?

"We are sorry. You are right. We have been self-absorbed lately but let us buy you dinner and let's catch-up."

Responses like this would indicate some recognizance beyond themselves, a sense of grace--that precious rare sense of grace.

But of course, I heard absolutely nothing back. This would require something called fortitude and they have never really had any...

There are the people that email you to play tennis, or meet for dinner, or go to a movie, or....and you reply back then hear absolutely fucking nothing. This is how it is going these days.

I call it "Screen-Induced Compassion Deficit Disorder" (SICDD). Then there is just good old fashioned CDD that does not require a screen to implement. Another name for it is:  "I Really Don't Care About You But I'll Use You If You're Handy Kind of Like a Dish Towel" (IRDCAYBIUYLADT). 

Why? Allow me to posit...

SCREENS:

Is it easier to blow people off over a screen? Send out that email that you want something from them then decide that just sending out that email was enough? You left them hanging but fuck it, you are on to something else? A kind of passive aggressive computer communication game? ("I just emailed you about going to dinner and now am going to pretend I never even sent it. HA HA HA"!). Is it that now we can only build relationships with screens? 

I have three in my life--my t.v. with basic cable (which makes me cringe every time I turn it on; I may cancel it), a cell phone (w/ no "data plan"), and this laptop.

My neighbor who goes rushing by my FACE, my BODY, to get to a SCREEN where she emails me...to find out how I am doing? She just fucking passed me! I'm sorry folks but this is a kind of insanity, pathology.

Do we like screens better than faces now? We seem to love looking at faces ON screens...Are we afraid of real faces now? Are real faces just too demanding? I mean, you have to drive to a real face...make the time, energy...then there are all the expressions a real face makes, some good, some bad. Who wants to put up with THIS?

I believe it is the orgasmic desire of Mark Zuckerberg and his ilk to have a world like what is on the t.v. commercials--where there is a large group of people sitting outside in the sun and all of them are looking at screens. NONE of them are paying attention to one another. NONE of them are communicating directly with one another. Let's take this a step further and say that someone falls and hits their head on the pavement. Say it is an old lady. What happens in Zuckerberg's or Silicon Valley's narcissistic world? Do any of the people look up from their screens as the little old lady cries out in pain?  Does anyone run to her? Or does someone snap a photo of her writhing in pain to post on Facebook or U-tube?  Does anyone HELP her? Does anyone care? Does Zuckerberg/Apple execs have orgasms when they see scenes where people are staring at screens and not at the world around them? Why? In Zberg's case, maybe it's because he has obvious psychological problems, problems with social skills so he is trying to turn the entire world into something like him? (Since he is a narcissist of the highest order, this makes sense).

I believe the obsession with (mostly portable small "Smart phone") screens is a pathological disease in our society fostered by capitalism in overdrive. 

So let's just call this one a  done deal--people now want to communicate/be with their screens, not other people even if communicating with screens costs them money and communication with people is free (or requires no "data plan"). This is a kind of cyber- fascism picked up by not only corporations but by "National (so-called) Public Radio" which is obsessed with screens and communication through screens. (They absolutely love talking about "tweeting" even as it undermines their own jobs).

So if people want to be with their screens, does this affect communication between humans?   I say yes on this one.

WE'RE ALL JUST TRYING TO PAY OUR BILLS

Is another reason for the CDD the horrible economy for normal people? We are all just trying to survive so do not have the energy to reach out and touch someone?
Obviously most of our Congress and the President is also suffering from CDD or they would not have cut off people's unemployment insurance right before Christmas. I don't need to say that the super wealthy suffer from CDD and could care less about distributing more of it to the lower ranks. We get it. Again, this is a great time to be a cold-hearted narcissist. FAR GREATER rewards to be this way right now than the alternative. 

LACK OF JUSTICE CAN LEAD TO HOPELESSNESS

I believe hopelessness shadows us as yet another reason for narcissistic communication per our society letting crooks off the hook over and over and over again. Some of us even try to change things but if we feel there is no justice, we lose hope. When I say crooks, I mean the ones that helped destroy the middle class (the banksters we bailed out in the "recession", none of which have been held accountable for their greed; in fact, they were rewarded for it)  to George Zimmerman who performed the opening ceremonies for the apparently now legal practice of gunning down black teenagers, including a black woman who knocked on a door just to get some help with her car. She was met with the end of shotgun. The point is, criminals, large and small, are getting away with murder, figuratively and literally, we apparently have no power, so why give a shit?

The fall of Rome was marked by the end of compassion...every man for himself...

So all I ask is if someone that cares about you as a human being, not a screen, reached out to you this week and you blew them off, first evaluate why, then get back with them. If you can't be somewhere, goddamn it, tell them. If you don't have what they want, tell them. You also always have the option to say something kind, ask them how they are and mean it. I know it's crazy but maybe ask them to their FACE (and it's still free!).

I believe the future of our (current highly dysfunctional) civilization depends on it.