The unfortunate mess of the millennial mind

I have this vision, I get it often when sitting at my desk at work, gazing into the fluorescent lights above me, envisioning a blazing sun cooled by a salty breeze… it’s not in Europe, or Asia, but something right in between. I hear Portuguese music, I see tanned skin around me, glowing from sweat, from the golden hour sunset, loose skirts and dresses, red lipstick and messy ocean haired women dance infectiously to the rhythm, while men in undone white linen shirts that smell of expensive cologne and cigar watch feverously. We’re at a lively bar by the sea, feet bare to the sand beneath us, cooled by the end of the day’s sunlight. I’m feeling alive, I’m feeling electric; there is passion, desire, heat around me, everyone in their trance of impatience from life’s whirling, waiting for a chance to explode themselves on the shore. The moon creeps up on us, it affects us all- we are all howlers to the change of seasons and times, connected deeply and bound by a spiritual guidance electrified by our communal energies. We are thriving. Mentally, reproductively… we are at the cusp of discovering an essential knowledge to our existence. We sing, we dance, we make love, we drink, we laugh… it’s a release of endorphins, and who knew it smelled so sweet. I taste their tongue, liquored with local pineapple and a lifelong of lust. I taste their secrets, I taste their regrets, I taste their fears. What a place, what a time to be alive.

I blink.

I am back, seated on my desk chair, adjusted for supreme comfort and spine support, to enable a seamless 9 hours of typing blankly at a computer screen to keep up appearances for the mundane robot world we power…only to destroy.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you catch yourself in tune with this world. You become proud to be succeeding at it, only to realize, that that too was programmed…to increase efficiency of course. Your imagination is scolded, no one can draw outside the lines, don’t you remember what you were taught before you had even begun to speak? Don’t draw outside the lines! Don’t speak unless called upon. When you speak, don’t say anything you weren’t permitted to. Watch commercials. Over and over again, like everyone else. Buy. Buy anything you can get your hands on and make sure you can barely afford it, because if you can, what’s the fun in that? Buy it all… because you won’t really survive, socially at least, if you don’t.

Oh look, it’s an infomercial about a starving child in Africa, give a dollar a day to feed the sticks and stones that make up the skinniest four-year-old boy they could cast for the shoot, who apparently thought that the video camera filming him was actually a time machine sent to save his life. Who knows better when no one has taken away your imagination and sense of hope… You don’t know what these people are doing here, pointing that black box at you with all the funny buttons…

All you make up is the sound of the fair skinned lady with the long fingers tapping a small lit screen, while violently fanning herself saying, “let’s wrap it up, wrap it up, wrap it up”. They “wrap it up”, nod at the boy, and finally leave. Problem solved, they feel better knowing they’re saving the world.The boy dies the following week.

I take a sip of my bottled water…the third one today, I read online that I should be having at least eight a day for optimal results…optimal at what however, I am not certain. I think about that a while, and end up at another long gaze…

The music starts slow and picks up to match the accelerated rhythms of our heartbeats… the moon is full and the crowd is hungry.