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Requiem
for a Lost Unconscious
The
modern human must intake, process, and apply more information
in any one week than prehistoric humans had to deal
with in a lifetime. For a college student carrying 12+
units and a full-time job, one can probably substitute
“any one day” for “any one week.”
Despite the information overload, I decided to go to
college because I want to know the answers. Instead
of being told the answers, however, I’m expected
to think for myself.
Second,
whenever a new timesaving device is created to help
me out, I seem to end up with less free time. Life just
gets more and more complicated. To make matters even
worse, there are all kinds of movements out there to
raise my consciousness. Now that my consciousness is
raised about little furry animals, I cannot bring myself
to wear my unoffending little old 1966 rabbit jacket.
And heaven forbid I should put a plastic bottle, glass
container, or can in the garbage. Now I feel obliged
to wash and dry it, walk around the apartment house,
and throw that precious recyclable in the proper bin.
Every
time someone raises my consciousness it means I’m
going to be doing that much more work. Years ago I took
an Editing Workshop at U.C. Berkeley and now I cannot
read anything without mentally correcting it. Then I
made the mistake of taking a fine arts class. Now I
can no longer walk blithely through life unconsciously
observing art. Instead of just thinking "what a piece
of junk" I feel compelled to analyze why it’s a
piece of junk. When the artist soldered that train gear
onto the lawn mower chassis, wrapped it up in a blue
blanket, and put it in a baby carriage, was she dealing
with texture, making a comment on modern life, or simply
manifesting a mental illness (or just showing a sense
of humor—after all, someone displayed it).
Anyway,
you can imagine my dilemma. I feel vaguely envious of
those people who still inhabit a black and white world,
unconscious intact and blissfully unaware of all the
gray surrounding them. While here I sit, pondering overpopulation,
global warming, soil salinization, and the multitude
of problems facing the future. I started college to
learn the answers but all I only find more questions.
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