Caramblogage

Tweet, tweet, tweet, Insta, Post, Status, Snap, Selfie. News flickers over the screen, at ever-increasing speed. A soap opera with a cast of familiar characters, changing occasionally to keep things fresh. The topics of the day are political theatre, the exciting effects of interference in otherwise unremarkable lives, the slow melting of the planet and how to keep yourself safe online while maintaining enough back doors for surveillance to follow you.   And kittens on speed wearing pirate costumes. "Why did I not know about the tiny discovery that changed the world?" Are You Not Distracted?

It had taken years to realise that some of them lived on the tick, some on the tock, and yet others in the silence between tick and tock. And so, when The Time came, they were forced to discard their differences and collectively pledge themselves to a system that was not natural to any of them. It did not come at once, and not every one of them agreed at the same time, but it was close enough for comfort. 

Addiction is a much-maligned, muddy word. Until (ca.) the 18th century, it connoted tendency and drive, rather than (self-) affliction. Opium changed that- reportedly.  Lives described as addiction: to the approval and company of peers, to power and its accumulation, to enjoyment and personal satisfaction (to some people, this may be suffering) and to basics such as air, food, water… and possibly even living. When framed this way, and defined in reference to this word, life suddenly becomes a selfish pursuit in which the living will do anything to get their fix, devoted addicts all.  On that note:  Marylin Manson  - I Don't Like the Drugs, But the Drugs Like Me.  Also: Addiction is apparently yellow. 

With no further comment, we move on.