The man I know, of whom I now write, is nearing the end of his autumn. As the leaves abandon the trees, so has his head lost its hair. He sits in his office chair, slumped over and fat. He did not spend his summer wisely or well. I am reminded of the fable about the ants and grasshopper. The grasshopper laughed at the ants who worked hard during the summer, while he contentedly spent his days lazing under the sun. When winter came, he starved to death, but the ants lived on.
The man is dead. He walks, talks, metabolizes and respires, but he is dead none the less. The investments he should have made towards his health he frivolously spent years ago. They are gone now, and he sits, slumped and fat. He lost control.
He complains about his wife almost every day. He is chiefly concerned with the fact that his wife no longer has sex with him. He attempts to water his sexual desert with the false euphoria of pornography. He slumps forward on his desk, staring at the tiny screen in his fat hands. He is compelled to it. Having been raised in the world that existed before the proliferation of mass internet pornography, he never stood a chance. Once he encountered porn, he was hopelessly entangled. He will always be entangled. He watches it at work now. He slumps forward on his desk, staring at the tiny screen in his fat hands. The dopamine dump is too much to resist. The models are expertly presented by skilled camera manipulation and the clever application of garish make up. They are made into exaggerations and distortions of femininity, presented to a world of men on whom the producers do not so much as prey upon, but rather on which they feed. It is too much to describe the relationship as predatory:
They did this to themselves. He did this to himself.
I feel bad for the man. He draws his phone close to himself when his coworkers near. He knows what he is doing is wrong, and he knows it is socially embarrassing. If he were discovered by a female, it could result in his termination. He does not know that I know. I know. I saw the screen he held in his fat hands. I said nothing.
His obsession is having a negative effect on his work. He gives halfhearted responses to questions in an attempt to dismiss the questioner as quickly as possible. When the questioner is gone, he returns to his phone. If he can outright ignore them, he will pawn them off on his coworkers. This creates stress. This is not good. The man will continue to stare at the screen in his fat hands. I will continue to say nothing.
One day after work, I stopped at a gas station. They put screens on the pumps now. The man had been staring at his phone all day. The day light was fading. As the pump clicked to the sound of gasoline being expelled from the nozzle, the screen made inane noise, meant to capture your attention for the brief period of unstimulated time that used to pass between the beginning and the end of the fueling process. A vehicle sales advertisement peopled by actors pretending to be friends, related, or in love with one another attempted to communicate to me that by advantaging myself of the discount they offered on their automobiles, I too could be part of their family, friendship, or love relationship linked by a mutually owned multinational brand name product.
I wanted to put my fist through the screen.
There is no silence anymore. There is no silence, and there is no solitude. Paradoxically, although so many people will void the contents of their vocal chords into the air, they say nothing. Paradoxically, even though there is no escape from the screens and the noise and the advertisements, everyone seems to be suffering from chronic loneliness. They fill the air with their garbage, nothing commentary, I think in an attempt to sate the emptiness and the loneliness. Like how the old man, slumped in his chair, stares at the pornographic screen in his fat hands to sate his sexual longing.
The worst thing about these sort of things is that they weren't thrust upon us, like yokes on oxen. We bore them up to our shoulders ourselves. We voted for this. This cannot be changed. Only a Herculean effort of will and strength would lift us out of this morass, all together. I long ago stopped believing that most of us are worth saving.
But I will lift myself. Someday I will not see the fat man slumped in his chair mesmerized by pornography. But I will remember him. He is honorably added to the list of people I never want to be. I will live free, remembering everyone I know who couldn't free themselves. I will live morally, because that is the only way to live free.
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The other day I surprised my girlfriend, inadvertently. I told her that I had flight training all weekend, and she took that to mean that she wouldn't see me that weekend. I meant that I had to leave early on Sunday to get to the airport. When I walked through her door, she rose from the couch she had curled up on, startled at first by the unexpected entrance, the ecstatic to see it was me. She rushed over, eyes watering with small tear drops of joy, and she clutched me as tight as her small frame could manage, making the small noises of happiness that a woman in love is wont to make in the clutches of her hearts desire.
It's you, you're here, you're here. I am so happy to see you. I am so happy..
You don't see that every day. Small blessings.
