Vicarious

    You’re sitting on the couch, watching a movie. There’s bit of popcorn in your lap and stuck to your shirt. You haven’t been paying attention as you shovel it into your mouth, because you’re captivated by the show. The show reminds you of some aspect of your life, or what your life was, or what it’s going to be, you’re not sure which. It’s a movie about rich people, and intrigue, a murder mystery. Everyone in the movie has an expensive laptop, and knows code. Or do they all wear Aero-Postale and American Eagle? Or do they all have meaningful tattoos and piercings, muscles, vacu-formed breasts? You’re not sure, but it’s something like that. Something like what real life is, your life. Honestly, it’s hard for you to pinpoint.

    Maybe it’s the time that, that one character transferred all of the wealth of the corporate thief. Then a life was fixed forever. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was the time that douche bag finally had his ass beat, and the girl he was objectifying was free at last to self realize, and love you. It’s just really hard to remember.

    The show is over. The commercials prep you for the next reality. They prove to you that Aero-Postale is self realization, and American Eagle is love. They remind you that life is lived in the moment, and a good credit score will actualize you.

Your life is somewhere in suburban oblivion. You work at whatever, but it’s not investigative, Pulitzer prize winning journalism, that crosses cultural boundaries, and brings peace to hundreds of thousands oppressed, un-actualized, unloved, unknowns. You never busted a cap in anybody. But you did get a tattoo once, hoping your mythos would be there. It cost you 500 dollars. Six months of scraping at your whatever wages, from your whatever job, after paying whatever bills. There are no Olympian muscles, or perfect vacu-formed breasts on your horizon. You jog though, and play ultimate. That’s good, right?

The commercials are over. The next show starts. Giant non-existent weapon systems piloted by a solitary hero whose integrity is peerless, and flawless, battling the ultimate corporate sociopath pursuing Caesar’s seat, with the help of a pair of self-actualized vacu-formed breasts named Karina, or Krista, or whatever. “Just like that time I took out the trash at work, and I dropped a box,” you think, “and Jessica, the girl from the other cubicle picked it up and walked down to the trash chute with me.” You two had coffee later to celebrate the victory. Her breasts, like your muscles, hidden beneath the layers of poorly fitting clothes you both purchased at the thrift store, like Macklemore, are formed of lackadaisical despondency, and shame. You can tell by the way you both walk, looking at the ground, with rolled shoulders.

You heave a big sigh as the title and beginning credits roll, and walk to the kitchen to get a refill of popcorn. It’s the most honest, genuine thing you have. Popped in a kettle, not that microwave crap. Authentic, patient, earthy, kettle corn.

Why can’t you be like kettle corn, you think?

Why do you feel ashamed, except when you watch TV?

The moment of raw honesty ties a scary knot in your stomach, and anxiety rises up into your throat, squelching your soul’s activism. But the smell of honest popcorn comes to the rescue, like a gargantuan mechanized weapon system dropping out of a louring sky, blazing away its plasma-beam- simplicity, against the despot lie. The lie that you are insignificant unless you commoditize, and go vicarious, and accept as reality these things that you have never really done except on the screen, and buy their useless shit.

But what makes you a valid person then?

Not knowing the answer makes your stomach knot again, and again the plasma bolt fires back, enveloping your soul in a protective womb of honest energy. “I don’t know,” your soul declares, “But it certainly isn’t this tepid porridge I’ve been eating at the trough of popular culture.” Then a lightning bolt of truth strikes your lifeless heart, with one million volts of authentic shameless poetry. Kettle corn is probably the most honest, genuine, valid thing you have. Why not be like kettle corn? Its value is in its lack of sophistication and pretense. It tastes good that way. It’s harmless, but not impotent. It doesn’t smell sexy, or intelligent, or heroic. It doesn’t look chic and fashionable. But it does smell wholesome, and very, very worthwhile.

The television has become a frenetic, pulsating disco of gibberish. You can no longer understand the guttural, filthy inflections, and diphthongs of lies, as you walk back to the living room and turn it off.

You reach for a book, but decide against it. Instead you pull out your cell, and give Jessica a call. Maybe she’d like to go out for coffee, or a walk.