The days bled together like the colors in his washing machine. He stood and watched his gray shirt, black trousers and gray socks circle around the silver cylinder. Round and round the merry-go-round. The aging device creaking and groaning. The small black screen displaying in green numbers exactly how many hours, minutes and seconds were left to wait until the cycle would be brought to a sudden stop.
00:28:42.
He always allotted himself three minutes of rest after putting his clothes in to wash. To clear his mind before he set about his next task. To breath deeply.
00:28:25.
In exactly twenty five seconds, he would make the thirty second journey to his small kitchen and start preparing his dinner, a process which he calculated should only take twenty four minutes and thirty seconds. This would be quicker than usual, leaving him with an extra three minutes of resting time.
After that, he would move his clothes from the washing machine to the drying machine, pull up his HoloD, make himself comfortable and read the news for twenty minutes. The Apartment would notify him that his dinner is ready, and he would comfortably eat, the end of the drying cycle in perfect sync with finishing his dinner.
He would take his clothes out of the dryer, go watch some TV. Go to bed. Wake up. Order a prepackaged breakfast from the Tube. Order an instant coffee from the Tube. Go to work. Eat a sandwich during lunch break. Stop at the store on the way home to buy ingredients for dinner. Take the elevator up to his Apartment. Put his clothes in the washing machine. Set the cycle time to thirty minutes.
Repeat. This was his process.
Repeat. He did it every day.
Repeat. He didn't even notice it.
Repeat. How many days had it been?
The word monotony was not in his vocabulary. For what purpose has a word for which there is no use? In a world of immortals, much like death, there is an absence of life.
When every day is the same as the day that came before, and the day before that and the day before that one too, you would start to notice things, to pay attention to the details, to draw pictures, to daydream, to escape the drudgery of everyday life!
But not him.
He was just along for the ride. A bored man half-asleep on a very timid roller coaster that went round and round, round and round the merry go round. His life was a washing machine cylinder, going round and round and round the merry go round until the washing cycle would end and he was put in the drying machine and he would go round and round the merry go round until the machine stopped and then he would die.
And then he would be reborn and then he would go to school, going round and round the school go round until he would graduate and be provided a job and then he would go round and round the washing machine machine cycle, his life spinning, metallic and shining silver, swallowing up the washing detergent, round and round the merry go round until he would find himself thirty eight years old, standing in front of his washing machine, waiting for the cycle to end.
Except it never ends because it just goes round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round
00:27:00.
Time to go make dinner.
…
It should have been a normal day like any other. In a sense, it still was. He was on his way to work. Three blocks down Johnston Street, turn to the left, five blocks down McDonald Blvd, to the right, two blocks down Main Street, cross the street at the second crossing light and
Wait. He was supposed to cross at the crossing light as soon as it turned green. Walk across the street, keep going up until he reaches the street corner, where the entrance to his workplace is.
He was supposed to cross. Why was he still standing there? He was about to cross, but he stopped. He saw something brilliant in the corner of his eye. A pigeon flying across the street.
A pigeon. A plain, gray pigeon.
Except he had been taking precisely the same commute to work for the last twenty years, down to the exact minute, the exact second, and he had never, not once in his life, ever, noticed a pigeon fly across that street.
It's totally normal, he thought, since there are pigeons everywhere, after all. I'm just always so focused on the road and where I'm stepping that I've never noticed it before, he thought. In fact, I'll bet that pigeon flies across that street every day and I just haven't noticed it, he thought. I have to get to work now, he thought, or else I'll be late by more than two minutes and my boss will start asking questions.
He entered the building using the same door he always did, went up in the same elevator he always did (the one on the left), said good morning to everyone in the same order he always did and sat down at his desk.
The rest of his day went exactly like it always did, save for one detail: he could not stop thinking about the pigeon. During his lunch break, he thought about the pigeon. Why did he see it?
At home, during his three minutes' resting time after putting in the wash, he thought about the pigeon. Had it always been there?
In an act of rebellion, he only half-concentrated on making dinner and half-concentrated on the pigeon. For some reason, it was stuck in his head. An ordinary event all but ordinary.
…
He stood at the cross-walk, waiting. He had woken up three minutes early just so he could order breakfast three minutes early just so he could leave three minutes early just so he could get to the cross-walk three minutes early just so he wouldn't miss the goddamn pigeon.
He looked at his watch. 8:55. It was time. He hadn't felt this way since… since grade school. This energetic. The thrill of learning something new. His heart pounded, his head throbbed, his breathing quickened.
He stood there for a while but there was no pigeon. He sighed, and looked down at the ground. He saw something move in the corner of his eye and his head shot up excited with a smile wider than the sun but it was just a gray man wearing a gray coat and a gray hat holding a brown briefcase that had bumped into someone else and his smile was gone as quickly as it came and he was looking back down at the ground as he had always done for the past twenty years and crossed the street.
He was back to normal, except he wasn't.
On the way back home from work with his head pointing down he saw a small patch of grass in the concrete. He stopped. A little clump of dirt, on it growing little blades of glass greener than his HoloD color scheme surrounded by cracks in the sidewalk. Had that always been there?
He squatted down. Someone nearly bumped into him, cursing. Running his hands through the grass, feeling the blades against his palm, between his fingers. It felt fake. But he knew it was real.
…
He started noticing things he had never noticed before. Some weeds growing at the side of a building, a couple of flowers in a pot in front of a store. A cloud with a peculiar shape, a homeless guy, a cracked window.
…
Every day he saw something new. Something exciting! A tree across the street, or some graffiti in an alleyway to his right, his commute to and from work was new and different and full of discovery every single day!
Soon he stopped reading the news every night and instead spent his time looking out the unfiltered, holo-disabled window of his Apartment observing all of the beautiful things happening below. On the rooftop across the street, someone had just planted a garden of green tomatoes and beanstalks! The moon was a tad bit fuller than it was the night before! There were so many exciting things and new things happening he thought his head would just overload and burst!
Soon he started to dread the moments he would have to be at work and eagerly await the moments in between spent in commute or looking out his window. He was paying less attention at work and more attention outside of it.
His life had something in it. Some meaning. Something to strive for that wasn't employee of the month. He even starting seeing more birds; pigeons, bluejays, even an eagle at one point. An eagle! What was an eagle doing in the city? God knew.
He had no concept of God nor any tangible image of the being because no one had taught him about Him but in those moments, he felt God's touch.
If his life was a washing machine, it was an old one that barely worked. Speeding up, slowing down, making all sorts of weird and funny noises. Each day different from the last. The fun of discovery. The excitement of anticipating what he would see the next day.
He was alive! It was like he had been dead all along and now he had been born and learned to see and listen for the first time and he was alive! He was breaking out, seeing things he wasn't supposed to see, he was his own person learning and listening and seeing and he was alive! And he loved it!
He had done it! He had escaped! The system that kept him trapped all his life and he was out! He didn't know the word monotony but he knew there must be some word for the concept. And if there wasn't one he would make it up.
He had escaped! He was happy!
It was almost too good to be true!
…
It was a Tuesday that day when he got home from work. It was raining heavily outside and he had intentionally left his umbrella at home. For the experience. In his entire life he'd never been soaked in the rain before. His mom never failed to pack him an umbrella anytime the forecast predicted rain. As the years went by he himself remembered to always keep an umbrella in his work bag.
Not today. This morning he saw the forecast and opened up his bag and tossed his umbrella to the side! Today, he would get wet. Maybe even sick!
He was exhausted. He'd stayed up later than usual the night previous looking at the stars. The shining city lights. Stars of concrete.
He dropped his coat to the floor, unbuttoned his shirt and pants, letting the discarded articles of wet clothing circle around his feet. He wouldn't be washing them today. After wrapping himself in a blanket, he decided to do something he hadn't done in a very long time: read the news.
It was all the usual garbage. Oh, how he'd used to gobble it all up. It was almost the same stuff everyday. Still was. Murder halfway across town, a burglary a couple blocks away. The mayor announces some new fancy budget plan.
He yawned. Boring. He could be looking at the clouds right now. Maybe he could be lucky enough to catch the lighting hit that tower a couple blocks away! He almost closed his HoloD but he decided to flip to the second page, for old time's sake. He was a quick reader so it should be over with shortly, anyways.
That's when he saw it.
CITY DECLARES ITS RANDOM HOLOBOOSTER TESTS AN ASTOUNDING SUCCESS
Holobooster.
He'd never seen that word before. Every part of him wanted to just close the HoloD and go look at the pretty sky, the sun setting behind these trees of glass, metal and asphalt.
It's just a normal article, he thought, I've seen hundreds just like it before.
Every bit of his essence screaming, just close the HoloD, you don't need to see it.
You don't need to know.
It's better that way.
But why?
...
He selected the article, the entire block of text filling up his HoloD.
His eyes widened. His breath quickened. He had scanned the entire article but he read it back again, word by word. He couldn't believe what he was reading. He swiped the HoloD away and fell back in his armchair.
[[ CITY DECLARES ITS RANDOM HOLOBOOSTER TESTS AN ASTOUNDING SUCCESS ]]
[[ THE HOLOBOOSTERS WERE DESIGNED TO BREAK UP THE DRUDGERY AND REPETITION PRESENT IN THE SALARYMAN'S EVERYDAY LIFE WITH THE GOAL OF BOOSTING WORKER MORALE. WE ARE HAPPY TO REPORT THAT OF THE THREE HUNDRED RANDOMLY SELECTED PARTICIPANTS, EIGHTY-SEVEN PERCENT DISPLAYED POSITIVE REACTIONS, INCLUDING (A) RENEWED INTEREST IN MOMENT-TO-MOMENT INTERACTIONS (B) REDUCED DEPRESSIVE TENDENCIES (C) AN INCREASE IN WORKPLACE PRODUCTIVITY. THE HOLOBOOSTER TECH IS EXPECTED TO BE IMPLEMENTED CITY-WIDE BY NEXT YEAR THANKS TO FUNDING FROM THE CITY COUNCIL. ]]
…
It was all fake. He hadn't escaped anything, none of it was real. His joy was just as manufactured as his job and his life and the socks on his feet. The only real thing in his life were the bars burrowed around him.
That night, he barely slept. Not that he was thinking about anything. In fact, that noggin of his was emptier than it'd ever been.
…
The next morning he got out of bed, got dressed, ordered a prepackaged breakfast and an instant coffee from the Tube. He left for work, three blocks down Johnston Street, turn to the left, five blocks down McDonald Blvd, to the right, two blocks down Main Street, cross the street at the second crossing light, get inside the building and go up in the elevator on the left.
He typed at his station. He took a short water break and typed some more.
Time for lunch. Sandwich.
Back to typing now. Time to go home.
Wait. Stop at the store for groceries.
Go home.
Put your clothes inside the washing machine.
Set the cycle.
Press the button.
Watch the cylinder go round and round, circling forever, the clothes and water and detergent mixing, round and round, round and round the merry go round, round forever and round never and it doesn't stop and it doesn't start and it doesn't even spin but it's still going round and he doesn't know if he's ever going round but it doesn't matter because he's going round and round the merry go round round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and
On Stealing; why do people think piracy is ok but shoplifting isn’t?
In this post I’ll try to examine why it is that in our society, computer piracy is deemed acceptable but shoplifting is not. Advance apologies for any confusion, just stick with me.
Full disclosure: I personally believe both are morally right, but my biases shouldn’t really be relevant to this post, as I’m not writing about whether they’re right, I’m writing about how they’re perceived and why so.
Breaking the law isn’t exclusive to radicals and anarchists. Everyone does it. It’s impossible not to. Driving a fraction over the speed limit, jaywalking, not stopping completely at a stop light, littering, these are all crimes, and almost impossible to avoid doing sometimes. So you can’t say that breaking the law is never acceptable in our society.
So why is it that some types of theft are a-okay, while others are not? When you use an online converter to download an mp3 of your favorite musician’s latest single from YouTube, you’re committing a crime. It’s technically akin to walking into a grocery store with empty pockets and walking out with a couple unpaid lollipops and a bag of skittles.
There are two ways we can approach this. The first being through a lens of tangibility, the other through the lens of perspective.
Shoplifting is tangible and computer piracy is not. Similarly to how people are prone to spending more money when they’re paying with a card than they would usually when paying with cash; digital money is intangible, real money is not... (not to imply that money actually exists and isn’t a spook or smthn)
Basically, when you steal from a store, you are physically removing that item from someone else’s possession and placing it in your own. When you steal a song, you are copying the file onto your hard drive. You’re not depriving anyone else of their song- you’re making a copy. For most people, it doesn’t even process as stealing. For most people, stealing is when you take something from someone else. Because it’s not physical, because the “property” (lmao spooky) is intangible, most people either don’t see it as theft or just don’t think it’s immoral.
... The second interpretation: a difference in perspective. For instance, I think it’s a safe assumption to make that working class people are typically more approving of shoplifting than not. Middle and upper class folks on the other hand, are not, because they claim it’s morally wrong. Interestingly, the same people that are so quick to attack impoverished folk for stealing in order to avoid starvation are totally ok with not spending their excess money on some digital goods (ie STEALING). Why is this?
This is because working class folx know and understand all too well that survival can definitely be a struggle, even in the first-world country America claims to be. Capitalism is literally starving the working class, so when they see shoplifting, they just see some guy going through a hard time that just can’t afford to, well, pay for the food. It’s a necessity for survival. What’s he gonna do, starve?
Even if they’re not literally starving and they just steal, like, some beer, it’s still justifiable through their lens: capitalism fucks them over every day, so does that make fucking it back that bad? They’re not stealing from their neighbor, or from another hungry worker like themselves, it’s not a “free-for-all”, they’re stealing from some fat CEO that sits on his ass all day whoms’t by counting from one to ten has already earned more $$$ than that mischievous little thief earns all week. So, from a worker’s perspective, perfectly justifiable.
For the middle class, survival is not a struggle. Not even close. The biggest “struggle” in their life is deciding between whether they should buy organic kale chips or gluten free low-in-sodium crackers at the supermarket.
For the middle class there is never a struggle for food, therefore shoplifting is not a necessity, it’s not something they’re ever exposed to (assuming they live in a middle class area, which they likely do). Shoplifting is this abstract idea, something theoretical they’re taught about in school. It’s bad, don’t give in to peer pressure, etc. It’s stealing. You’re taking something that belongs to someone else, and that’s wrong. You don’t stop to consider who it really belongs to, you don’t stop to consider that for some people, access to food isn’t a given as it is for you.
For you, shoplifting is something completely separate from yourself and you have no experiences that could justify it. You don’t know what it’s like to be starving. You can’t know what it’s like skip meals because you literally can’t pay for them. Hell, I don’t!
After all, why would you ever steal something when you can just pay for it?
Piracy is the same. Middle class people are “affected” by piracy, if you will. It’s so easy after all. It’s intangible, too. They’re no so quick to condemn pirates because piracy exists in their realm; the world of computers, the internet, free time, music and movies and video games. They’re exposed to piracy. While shoplifting is something that’s completely removed and detached from their lives, piracy is not.
Which is probably why even the most devote “legalist” who thinks the pirate bay is the devil will still occasionally download an mp3 from YouTube.
Hopefully that wasn’t too confusing. I’m new to writing lengthy posts about this kinda thing. I appreciate any criticism you send my way.
like isn’t that the whole point of it? divide and conquer right? i guess it makes sense. I swear I was thinking about this more concretely in the shower last night.... if it comes back to me i’ll write a longer post lol.
yeah im new to this whole tumblr thing. don’t expect to get too into it. i’ll philosophize about politics and feelings here probably. also idc what anyone thinks so please leave all the nasty comments you want
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