Sep 24

00

STOP THE INANITY

Brief Thoughts on Flash, Compiled Just Now

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Let it be said that:

We crave movement, you and I. We impel our bodies in purposeful stride along sidewalks and office halls and supermarket aisles, for indeed we love to move: to cease being here, to start being there. And so it follows we are troubled when impeded.

We move (how we soar, hand in hand) through this arena of clicks and slashes and satisfying slaps of the Return key – eager to read and be informed and sometimes seek out sexual gratification. We enjoy finding what we seek, for this is why it was sought. But know that we are irked when required to behold the creative work of spoiled and overpaid children.

We are social animals, you and I, and indeed we like nothing better than to spend time with good old friends and enchanting new ones. We stand and smile and sip our drink and, rocking from heel to toe, hear stories designed to amuse and inform, for we are social animals. But we do not wish to socialize with those who demand constant attention, or attempt to entertain with tomfoolery, or are plainly boorish. We did not invite these folk, and we bid them go away.

Music fills us with pleasure. Why, just now we listen to music we have chosen to enjoy: we have pressed Play. When exposed – however briefly – to sounds we did not choose to hear, even if enabled to stop the sounds, we shall leave, muttering coarse language. We shall not return.

We know how to read. We learned it years ago. Parsing letterforms and squiggles and dots as words and sentences and paragraphs is one thing we have down pat. It’s been down pat for countless millions through the centuries. Think, you! All those souls, employing all that skill. Makes the needless layering and artless ornamentation of what we read by spoiled and overpaid children seem really rather less than important, does it not?

Since far back in the haze and mire of the early ’90s we’ve used this palimpsest, this backlit surface. We have learned to go Back and Forward, to Bookmark, to Search through oceans of text, to Print that we may add to bursting archives. When dropped into places where these skills do not apply, where a new set of skills – dreamt up at the whim of spoiled and overpaid children – is required to negotiate our path, we become very fucking upset.

It must and shall be understood that items made to dance by the movement of a mouse cursor are kind of neat just once, and after that are not.