Rapture, anyone?
We are all a bunch of consumpting whores. And no, I didn’t forget to spell check.
The dictionary describes a consumer as “a person or thing that consumes”. And yes, I did actually pull out my physical copy of Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, as opposed to just looking it up online.
The verb in the above mentioned description is the word “consumes”. And a verb, according to the same dictionary, is “any of a class of words expressing action”.
Action requires energy, and there is absolutely zero energy required for what we do on a daily basis. It’s the passive sucking up of all that crosses our computer screen, and what I call consumpting.
You have only to look at your current behavior to recognize my point. There you are, passively soaking up words and images on a screen, be they this rant, the news of some uprising half way around the globe (even further than Canada), or the latest celebrity shenanigan. In what way are you being active? Mindlessly Googling random names and topics or chuckling at the latest viral YouTube video doesn’t count.
But what’s wrong with a little consumpting?
We all know how harmful too much TV is for a young child, leading to problems such as language delay or ADHD. I have even heard it argued that too much television can prevent the natural, and much needed, folds on the brain from developing in infants. Zombie, anyone? Shudder. So can all this passive consumpting be any healthier to our fully developed adult brains?
I’m being too harsh, though. After all, consumpting is what it’s all about these days. It’s what keeps people working (so vital in today’s economic climate), what with all those people producing the marvelous reality shows from which we learn so much. Or the folks who rise from obscurity to hit it big on YouTube (Justin Bieber) and keep everyone hoping they’re next, no matter how embarrassing (Rebecca Black). Or poor old Harold Camping whose rapturous message to the world was only heard because of all our consumpting.
Consumpting has become de rigueur, a necessary evil to keep our wheels spinning. All I can hope for is that we are aware of our own proclivity to this mind-numbing behavior. Hell, I’ll be happy if you even made it all the way to the bottom of this blog entry. In today’s passive world that took a lot of energy on your part. Congratulations.
