Rejecting Media To Save Self

Almost every morning I read at least a part of the newspaper and every night I watch at least a segment of the television news. I guess I'm putting my existence in historical context. Each day I experience my life and add another page to my personal story; by paying attention to the news, as specious as it may be, I acknowledge that I am part of a larger story.

For a long time I have known that the media version of the world is as authentic as the flavors in fast food. It is easy to obtain but does not stay. I lose interest and walk back to my life, without having been truly affected. My connection to the world has been symbolic, ritualistic, and empty. I return to my solitary path, the unremarkable unfolding of my day.

Lately, the constant tide of new names, faces, reviews, plaudits and recommendations about who is important and whom I should be paying attention to has imposed a crushing on my self-hood. It is unbearable, this bombardment of news and opinions...I must remind myself that it is posted by press agents, public relations firms and people at dinner parties. It is not real. For if I broke down and believed it was real, I might capitulate and finally accept what the media want me to believe, that these people, these events, these names, these minds are more important than I am, and that what they say is more important than what I am trying to say, than the words that are formulating in my head. Sometimes the thoughts in my head are like those poor turtles who come ashore to waiting throng of predators.

No, it is not precisely a conspiracy because there is no one agenda. Rather, it is the elaborate construct of an oligarchy in which all parties know each other and cooperate for the good of the group. The show must go on, and it does not really matter who or what, so long as it does not undermine the political and economic order. The objective of the group is to make everyone stop what they're doing and look and listen to them and to believe that this is absolutely natural. They mean to establish an iconic aristocracy to represent the ruling class.

Plato's cave comes to mind. The artful puppeteers perform a shadow play for the cave dwellers who are too bored to protest, too ignorant to know that they are not gawking at reality. For Plato, a philosopher eager for truth, art without truth was a fraud. For the cave dweller, whose lives were circumscribed by sedentary darkness, the distinction may have been meaningless; the puppet show was the only escape.

The media show encarcerates my mind, while for others, it is an aid of the imagination. I am in a dilemma. To share my creative work with the world I will need the media. That is the market place. By staying outside it, I mute my voice, cut myself off, renounce my life objective. I know the media is not entirely real, but as a writer outside the media and cut off from an audience am I entirely real?