It was past midnight and I was running as fast as I could in the near pitch blackness, other than the stars of a summer's night. Suddenly, I fell and was unable to stand, my leg awkwardly snagged, a coldness pressed hard on the sole of my foot.
I reached down with my hand and tried to feel what had stopped me and what was cold on my foot, to discover the prongs of a pitchfork carelessly left in the grass. One tine had pierced through the thick rubber at the the point of my sneaker, through my sock and had come to rest against my skin, the point sticking out the back in a perfect skewer.
I knew, an inch higher and I would have had a limp for the rest of my life. Small variations in position matter a great deal.
Currently, we seem to be socially testing how close we can get our nose to the passing train without it ripping off our face, how near we can get to disaster without being covered in gore. It is like we are goading ourselves into plunging over the edge - but will we pull back in time?
It is hard to recognize how close to the point of no return we are, but I think we are heavily flirting with it. I wonder what the social tipping point was in the past, at what point did a political movement become preparation for war, a social movement for revolution. I am guessing the seeds were sown and grown before any official declaration was ever made. I kind of feel like that is where we are in the world now - the growing phase, the seeds of economic disparity, societal polarization and social disconnection, were planted long ago.
We never really know how many near misses there have been, as we tend to count the strikes. We don't know how many times a car accident was close, but was narrowly avoided. Or the occasions a finger was on the trigger with the target in sight, but didn't squeeze back. So much of our lives are am inch away from losing or gaining it all. The loss probably more prevalent than the gain, as we ourselves are fragile and are never far from the end.
But we experience and create experiences as a species too, communities of varying sizes that subscribe to one view or another, drive for one change or another. We are incentived to push the boundaries to get what we want, but each step takes us closer to the place where return is impossible, toppling over inevitable.
We seem to be playing political chicken, with all sides seeing how extreme they can get without being hit by the speeding train. And with the rapid spread and monetization of information, misinformation and disinformation, the ramp is steep and the incentive to keep climbing is high, with none willing to back down; all or nothing - whatever the cost.
We have created a world where polarization is the norm and there is no space to discuss and no avenue to reverse. Public discourse is handled by companies driven by advertising revenue, politics driven by the same. When politicians are asked what platforms they are running on, the answer should be near invariably, Twitter and Facebook. Platforms monetized through clicks and impressions and nothing drives transactions and shares as well as drama and anger. When people joined Facebook in 2017, did they recognize it as a tool to start WWIII? Perhaps in history, it will be considered a turning point, a digital Franz Ferdinand moment.
But life is full of close shaves and those that were not - an inch forward or back, an inch right or left - and everything would be different - A bullet whistles by or ends a life. We cannot count the number of bullets we have unknowingly dodged as individuals or a society, but it seems that the absence of hits has given us an undeserved confidence and belief that we are invulnerable, that we can keep firing without at no cost. Perhaps from behind the safety of our screens we feel that we cannot take a hit, but the digital world is bleeding out onto the streets of reality, to keep pushing us closer to the edge and that position of no return, where damage is guaranteed, pain and suffering unavoidable.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]