Chicago
Am I the only one frightened by this tendency? Life is a Disney ride. Every activity is a fantasy. Each one requires a ticket. Most rides are “D” or “E” riders. Those are the tickets you come back with. You use up the good tickets, those for the really interesting rides. You come back with the tickets to the stupid attractions, the childish ones, the dull oversimple gimmicks, like the Alice’s teacup ride. But that used to be only at Disneyland. Disney World came along, and it’s the same. Only worse. More blatant. Epcot center purport to be cultural, educational, an attempt to bring nations together by revealing meaningful aspects of their lives and people. They turn out to be sophomorically superficial “rides” just like the ones dreamed up forty years ago for California. And in Florida, at least in Orlando, the hotels have become rides. On your doorknob in the morning hangs a breakfast menu in the shape of Mickey Mouse, with the cheery announcement sprawled across the top, “Ears Your Breakfast!” Good grief, Charlie Brown! Are we so far gone over the edge of reality?
Into what? VIRTUAL REALITY. Video games. WE accepted them a long time ago. Are we now going to eliminate all reality, before we learned to cope with it? I’m afraid so. If you can’t join it and live it, abandon it. Fast. Before it sets in. Reality is now fantasy. Only fantasy.
Malls are rides. Las Vegas keeps building hotels that are merely rides; huge, expensive rides. Within each ride are special rides; for the children, for teenagers, for women and just for men. Clothing stores and restaurants are rides. They don’t just sell good merchandize. That’s not enough. They must attract customers; entice them with gadgets and tricks, colors, lights, music, streamers, and games. Rides. Baroque “E” ticket rides. Bad rides. Bad idea.
Films now take us on rides. Boat rides, plane rides, auto rides; extravagant, outlandish, absurd, exaggerated sped-up electronic rides, “special effect” rides. These are not special at all, of course. Special means exclusive, extraordinary, meaning rare. Now, they’re common. Ordinary, not special.
And all the rides are designed to create a general effect. This is a general effect of being enveloped—drowned but still breathing—surrounded by light, sound and color of your senses overwhelmed. The idea is to cloak or numb the senses, not to play on their subtle reactions to stimuli. The effect is large, gross. It is not refined. Refined response requires being present and aware. The effort here is to leave the present and lose ordinary awareness, because it is regarded as dull. Pity.
Television shows take you on rides. Rescue shows take you along on the rescue. Cop shows take you along on the bust of the lone perpetrator or the raid on the crack house. Home videos—those embarrassingly amateur, shaky, blurry throwaways turned into lucrative professional entertainment (How deep we’ve sunk!)—take us on trips through apartments, houses, and across backyards. Homey romps that merit not even an “E” ticket. Behind the scenes shows take you on trips to movie and television sets. Shows about the rich and famous take you on trips to the Riveria, and through conspicuously over-decorated homes and yachts.
Carnivals used to be rides and shows. Freak shows were popular. Exotic shows were, too. Now we have them on television. Panels are not considered interesting enough if they contain only articulate people. They must consist of people with bizarre problems, strange habits, or peculiar complaints. Many are merely psychotic rides, harrowing emotional roller coasters, or staged battles among angry, frightened, confused family members, friends, lovers, or neighbors. Freak shows. Not that the people who participate are freaks, just that they place themselves in this naked more than merely public forum, and are transformed by the medium and the gawkers into writhing exhibitionists. Are we all freaks, to want this, to participate with relish? This frightens me.
I am afraid of what we have become. I am afraid of what we have stopped trying to be. I fear that we have left reality, and are settling for Never Never Land; where peace of mind can never be found. If peace of mind is not what we’re after, then exile to infantile fantasy may be our only solace. Scary. If everything is a trick—a façade, a forced semi-reality, a disguise—what is the Truth that these simulate, cover, or alter? Where is it? I, for one, can still set it, because I find the pretense boring. But once the “fix” is on. Once the drug has taken hold and the addict can see nothing else. Feel nothing but the relief that comes from satisfying the craving—which has been induced usually by the addict himself—the addict wants nothing else. No reality exists. Even if there is a glimpse of it, the addict sees it only through blurred Virtual Real Eyes, shakes off the uncomfortable mirage, and takes one more ride.
What we could use is a walk in the park, planting a tree, reading good books, writing a bit every day, or most days, or just occasionally (How do I know what I mean until I see what I say?) conversing: actually discussing of today and yesterday and seriously considering tomorrow.