Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Nothing Means Anything

I guess I am a cynic.
Yes,
that’s what I am.
No matter how hard I try to stay positive
I always revert.
It is my natural state,
like hibernation for a bear
or lying for a politician.
Oh yes,
occasionally I put on a good face
and smile
and ogle a chubby baby and coo
like every other moron,
but
the truth is
I don’t get it.
Cooing at a baby doesn’t change anything in this world.
We walk around in some sort of sugar-induced daze.
Our T.V.’s pump us full of mindless crap
faster than any drug pusher ever could
and yet we don’t fear them or keep our children away from them.
Instead, we set them down in front of us and teach them what we have learned:
to feel thrill and excitement from watching other people
fail,
succeed,
win,
lose,
fuck,
kill,
and give birth.
We think that by doing this
we are somehow doing it with them.
“Did you see that guy climb that mountain yesterday.”
“Yes, so what?”
“Man, it was just like being there.”
No, it wasn’t.
Being there is just like being there.
Being there is freezing and numb hands
and starving and being terrified
and praying that you get to the top
before your rope breaks
and you plummet thousands of feet to your death.
Not being there is sitting on your ass in a warm room
drinking a beer and eating corndogs
with the remote in your hand.
Big difference.
The problem is we don’t understand that anymore.
Reality and fiction have blurred into one.
Angelina’s sex life with Brad gets as much airtime as a disaster in Kansas.
We cry just as much over the model who was rejected on a “reality” t.v. show
as we do over the children starving in Ethiopia.
We are more focused on erections and Viagra
than what’s happening to our civil liberties.
The result:
we are slowly becoming more and more numb to it all.
Everything is given the same weight.
So ultimately nothing means anything.
Yes, I am a cynic.
Thank God.