{"id":2388,"date":"2018-06-02T19:57:04","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T19:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=2388"},"modified":"2018-06-02T19:57:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T19:57:04","slug":"holding-up-a-mirror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/02\/holding-up-a-mirror\/","title":{"rendered":"holding up a mirror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim and I have been watching a series on Netflix called Black Mirror. \u00a0It\u2019s an anthology series set in the very near future where technology is not your friend and you can\u2019t swing a cat without hitting a dystopia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, I love me a good dystopia – Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Logan\u2019s Run – but I wouldn\u2019t want to live in one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Make Oceania<\/em> Great Again?<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, the series is dark. \u00a0Like, really really dark. So well written, well acted, great production. \u00a0And really really dark. Like \u201cHoly shit, they went there!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m eating this up and really enjoying the show, but the last episode we watched – and it might really be the last episode since it\u2019s Jim\u2019s Netflix account – was the darkest yet. <\/span><\/p>\n

I could see where it was going and was thinking it was one of the most probable of the near futures. And I was enjoying the thought provoking nature of the show.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jim, however, was not enjoying it. \u00a0I could tell he wanted to stop watching at one point, but also wanted to see how it played out.<\/span><\/p>\n

And when the ending was even darker than he expected, well, he was troubled. \u00a0As the ending credits rolled, he turned off the TV and said he didn\u2019t want to watch the show anymore. We talked about it for a few minutes and he tried to re-write the ending to make it a little<\/em> less terrible. <\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of calling it a night, he sat up with the puppies and looked at Facebook and Youtube for a while. \u00a0And when he did go to sleep, he said he didn\u2019t sleep well and had nightmares.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for me? \u00a0I thought about it for about 2 minutes and determined how I would react if put in the situation of the characters, and then dismissed it. \u00a0Totally unphased – and I didn\u2019t lose a wink of sleep over it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kind-hearted Jim doesn\u2019t want to watch anymore. \u00a0And I\u2019m hoping the next episode is even darker – figuring that \u201cpeople are terrible\u201d and \u201ctechnology makes people worse\u201d. \u00a0Bring it!<\/span><\/p>\n

And I\u2019m maybe a little worried at how little this bothered me. \u00a0Does my immunity and enjoyment of this kind of dark fiction mean that…ummm\u2026 maybe things aren\u2019t quite so rosy in my cranium? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean, we\u2019ve already figured that I\u2019ve got the \u201cfun\u201d parts of a Schizotypal Personality Disorder<\/a> – the unconventional thinking, unusual attire, peculiar speech patterns…while still being grounded in the real world and being able to interact socially with other people. \u00a0Mostly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Could it be worse than that, though? \u00a0Could those voices in my head – the ones with really great\/terrible ideas – be a sign of something…ummm\u2026 sinister?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ummmm\u2026 no.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean, I\u2019d totally be a super-villain if give powers or a budget, but I\u2019m really more on the whimsical end of whatever spectrum I\u2019m on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The immunity to Stephen King, Clive Barker, American Horror Story, and Britney Spears is more about having built up a tolerance over the years for things that show the dark heart of the human soul. \u00a0I mean, have you listened to her lyrics?<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was a kid – maybe 7 or 8 – I got ahold of a copy of the Amityville Horror. \u00a0And read it, cover to cover. When I was done, I announced that I was never going to sleep again. \u00a0Ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seemed like the best solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

My dad sat me down and had a talk about what was real and what wasn\u2019t real.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was based on actual events!\u201d I countered, but he eventually settled me down and – worn out from a long day of scaring the shit out of myself – I did go to sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I started in on Stephen King in earnest a few years later, it troubled me a bit. \u00a0But, I was pretty well grounded by that point and shrugged it off. Even to the point where I would read \u201cIt\u201d about 20 pages ahead of my mom and tell her what pages to skip. \u00a0The late 700\u2019s were a rough…<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve faced down\/ been raised on a self-imposed diet of evil clowns and vengeful ghost\/demon\/zombie things, it\u2019s tough to let a little thing like a less-than-optimistic future society get to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

—————–<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wrote the above before Jim got up the gumption to watch another episode and this one was as sweet and joyful as the last one had been dark. \u00a0It even had, dare I say it, a happy ending?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, looks like we\u2019re in it for the rest of series. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll have to break out some Lovecraft if it stays sunny.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim and I have been watching a series on Netflix called Black Mirror. \u00a0It\u2019s an anthology series set in the very near future where technology is not your friend and you can\u2019t swing a cat without hitting a dystopia. Now, I love me a good dystopia – Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Logan\u2019s Run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2389,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions\/2389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}