Being Pushed Beyond the Pale.

Whenever I’ve been on blogging hiatus for more than twenty four hours I feel compelled to mark the return with something of suitable gravitas (for the sake of the Faithful Few, you understand.) Tonight I decided it should be the recounting of Mel’s latest theory with regard to the Changing Status of the Human Being in the Modern World. But first the preamble:

The last three years or so have been the most difficult and disturbing of my life to date. (I can hardly claim ‘challenging’ for the most part. ‘Grinding’ would be the more apposite participle.) In so being, they have engendered many questions around, and reflections upon, issues such as personal identity, the nature of our particular beast, and what the hell is the point of it all anyway. But it doesn’t stop at me. I’ve noticed that several people within my orbit – most notably Mel, my daughter, and my friend Ms Wong – have been passing through a similar process. Details vary a little, but the principle is the same.

Preamble over. Onward to Mel’s theory.

She thinks the cyborgs are responsible. She is becoming half-convinced that 95% of the human population is being gradually subsumed into a new matrix which has as its foundation unwitting subjugation to, and unthinking reliance upon, the technological imperative and its commercial corollary. In short, the machines are taking over and the new lieutenants are the corporate executives and advertising neophytes.  The remaining 5% of the population, of which we and a few others form individual components, are becoming aliens in this new order. As such, and being unremittingly recalcitrant, we are being forced ever further into a wasteland of distress, disturbance and dysfunction. That is, after all, what most people would consider the most fitting repository for aliens while the belongers get on with belonging to the real world.

I find this a most compelling theory. It fits the facts, accords with the experience, and helps identify the fellow alien nicely. One thing does confuse me, however. Where would the most eminently interesting Mistress M of upstate New York fit into this scenario? It is surely inconceivable that somebody doing a PhD at an Ivy League university could belong anywhere other than in the real world. And yet somehow I have my doubts, but she does have an iPad and she hasn’t spoken to me in ages…

Next up will be the preferred post on the subject of plastic hedging and its usefulness to garden gnomes.