Partying on the Edge of the Twilight Zone
Time rolls on and peak oil grows nearer, and yet I party on, at the edge of this twilight zone.
It is so easy for me to get caught up in the... me. My life. My surroundings. I have been programmed, taught, and trained to accept, and to live the fairy tale American dream life.
The dream now coming together... good job... nice house... beautiful, successful wife... brand new health child... massive tv... two cars in the garage... money in the bank... family only a phone call away... Yes, I am the American dream.
And a dream it is... the dream that this is the ultimate, the best, the pinnacle, the penultimate life that one can have... and yet, it is only a dream... a party... a shadow of a memory... for in some little blink of the eye, things will be so much different.
I would like to deny it. I would like to say that it can not... it will not happen. Peak oil will not be a big deal. I will not have to change. The party can continue. My American dream will go on. And yet the numbers do not lie. The math will not change. I know that I... we... all of us... are addicted to energy.
Addiction... I know a bit about that. Not in the traditional sense of taking drugs... but I certainly have my fixations... those things that I feel I need from day to day... For example, entertainment... watching TV and movies is my number one vice. I think I've lost 100 hours in the last month to this one... and I'm already planning to lose more.
Fantasy land. Take me away. Save me from reality. Show me something more. Sing me to sleep. You are so easy... and you are mine. Can I do anything for you? A new DVD player perhaps? A softer couch? Darker window shades? How can I make this escape from life... this party within a party... a bit more fantastic?
This time, it slips away. When I am calm, and quiet, I can feel the minutes slide away. I can feel the party coming to its natural, logical, mathematical end. I don't know when it will be over... when all the guests will leave... when the drinks will be gone, the lights turned out, the music reached it's end. Yet, I know it is there... hovering just beyond my ability to predict it. The end of the party... when the twilight zone shatters and the blinding light of reality burns through that I was a fool... if only I had been mindful and deliberate... put on the sunscreen... I would not have been burned.
And yet, here I sit. Ruminating over the lost time... the lost years... living in the party as the clock ticks down.
Then depression arises. What a fool I have been! This party has offered me so much, and yet I have experienced so little! Like a visitor at a carnival who forgets to play the games, enter the rides, eat the food... all because he is enjoying just being there. And yet. The carnival will soon end, my friend. It will soon end. And you may soon be wondering, why didn't you ride...
Well? Why didn't I ride when I had the chance? The party is coming to an end, and I sit here, at a computer, in front of a flat immobile screen, while the world turns outside. While the waves crash on the shores. While the people laugh and enjoy one another. While the attractions of the world are only minutes and a credit card away.
This party will end... and I feel as though I have already missed it.
Is it a fear that I feel? Does peak oil frighten me? To be sure, the mathematics do not. The mathematical peak may be nothing at all. Just a moment in time that comes and goes with no fanfare. But what of the collapse? Our totering monetary system shakes at every turn. Last week, the scare of drying up credit send stock values plumetting. Our money gods, the federal reserve jumped in to calm the frightened child. What will happen when the panic ensues, and people realize that the party is about to end? Will they realize that they have been holding up the roofs with their hands, and that to leave will crush those who are left?
It is the transition that worries me. From party... to reality. How does this happen exactly? How does the party end? How do I go from this American Dream to the other side of the mirror... beyond the fog? What will I do when money vanishes like smoke in the wind, when the gas stations are dry, the electricity is gone, the water is stuck in the well, the food no longer comes, the cold closes in, and all the neighbors suddenly realize that they didn't even know a party was going on?
It is a strange, strange place to be... partying on the edge of the twilight zone.
It is so easy for me to get caught up in the... me. My life. My surroundings. I have been programmed, taught, and trained to accept, and to live the fairy tale American dream life.
The dream now coming together... good job... nice house... beautiful, successful wife... brand new health child... massive tv... two cars in the garage... money in the bank... family only a phone call away... Yes, I am the American dream.
And a dream it is... the dream that this is the ultimate, the best, the pinnacle, the penultimate life that one can have... and yet, it is only a dream... a party... a shadow of a memory... for in some little blink of the eye, things will be so much different.
I would like to deny it. I would like to say that it can not... it will not happen. Peak oil will not be a big deal. I will not have to change. The party can continue. My American dream will go on. And yet the numbers do not lie. The math will not change. I know that I... we... all of us... are addicted to energy.
Addiction... I know a bit about that. Not in the traditional sense of taking drugs... but I certainly have my fixations... those things that I feel I need from day to day... For example, entertainment... watching TV and movies is my number one vice. I think I've lost 100 hours in the last month to this one... and I'm already planning to lose more.
Fantasy land. Take me away. Save me from reality. Show me something more. Sing me to sleep. You are so easy... and you are mine. Can I do anything for you? A new DVD player perhaps? A softer couch? Darker window shades? How can I make this escape from life... this party within a party... a bit more fantastic?
This time, it slips away. When I am calm, and quiet, I can feel the minutes slide away. I can feel the party coming to its natural, logical, mathematical end. I don't know when it will be over... when all the guests will leave... when the drinks will be gone, the lights turned out, the music reached it's end. Yet, I know it is there... hovering just beyond my ability to predict it. The end of the party... when the twilight zone shatters and the blinding light of reality burns through that I was a fool... if only I had been mindful and deliberate... put on the sunscreen... I would not have been burned.
And yet, here I sit. Ruminating over the lost time... the lost years... living in the party as the clock ticks down.
Then depression arises. What a fool I have been! This party has offered me so much, and yet I have experienced so little! Like a visitor at a carnival who forgets to play the games, enter the rides, eat the food... all because he is enjoying just being there. And yet. The carnival will soon end, my friend. It will soon end. And you may soon be wondering, why didn't you ride...
Well? Why didn't I ride when I had the chance? The party is coming to an end, and I sit here, at a computer, in front of a flat immobile screen, while the world turns outside. While the waves crash on the shores. While the people laugh and enjoy one another. While the attractions of the world are only minutes and a credit card away.
This party will end... and I feel as though I have already missed it.
Is it a fear that I feel? Does peak oil frighten me? To be sure, the mathematics do not. The mathematical peak may be nothing at all. Just a moment in time that comes and goes with no fanfare. But what of the collapse? Our totering monetary system shakes at every turn. Last week, the scare of drying up credit send stock values plumetting. Our money gods, the federal reserve jumped in to calm the frightened child. What will happen when the panic ensues, and people realize that the party is about to end? Will they realize that they have been holding up the roofs with their hands, and that to leave will crush those who are left?
It is the transition that worries me. From party... to reality. How does this happen exactly? How does the party end? How do I go from this American Dream to the other side of the mirror... beyond the fog? What will I do when money vanishes like smoke in the wind, when the gas stations are dry, the electricity is gone, the water is stuck in the well, the food no longer comes, the cold closes in, and all the neighbors suddenly realize that they didn't even know a party was going on?
It is a strange, strange place to be... partying on the edge of the twilight zone.