Chandler Bing has been on my mind a lot recently.
Or—to be more precise—Matthew Perry and the sitcom universe which he navigated, and what happens when that sitcom universe has its sitcom apocalypse. Like a stand-up comedian confessing to being a serial killer, or someone having a heart attack on SNL. Our illusions unravel.
Of course, our illusions are unraveling because a legitimate apocalypse is underfoot, and illusions cannot stand the unsettling of our world.
But also. Furthermore. To be clear, when I speak of apocalypse, I am speaking of an ending of things as they are. How the Mayans described the apocalypse or a Navajo understanding of the end of history. History never ends. It only has its psychotic break and then begins again somewhere earlier in the story. Maybe it’s agrarianism, or hunter gatherer with a smattering of bizarre tools that no one remembers how to make go anymore. It could also fragment, such that there are the Star Trekians living in orbit, when it’s all Dark Ages down below.
Who knows?
And it is specifically because we are facing this terrifying unknown that our world has lost its ability to dream anything but the most derivative of dreams. (We are the proverbial deer in the headlights and we have just proverbially shat ourselves.) And this inability to dream new dreams is fueling the unwinding of things in an endless cycle of imagination abuse. As in… Our panic makes us unable to imagine any solution, and our inability to imagine any solution fuels our panic. That sort of thing. And somewhere in there, we start intentionally using our imaginations in ways they weren’t meant to because we’ve forgotten what they’re there for.
Spoiler alert. Imaginations are a tool to help guide you through the universe. Not a blow-up doll to replace actual human contact.
(You may argue that an imagination can be used however the imaginer likes, including like a blow-up doll human replacement, but I think you’ll find it’s like trying to make love to a blow-up doll amoeba. It keeps frustrating your intent.)
So. We have all retreated into our sound stages and are televising our reactionary beliefs to a readymade audience of our peers. Our media universe has compartmentalized. Mitosis has begun.
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