Because You Never Asked

WHY PEOPLE LIKE MOTION PICTURES 

     (Author's note: When I decided to put this essay and its sister, "Why People Like Sports", up, I discovered a Ying-Yang quality between them that had gone unnoticed before. Both the need to flee and connect with reality is respectively summed up in this duo.)

      For most people, one of the more tedious, unattractive aspects of being alive is "doing the laundry". Although I don't look forward to doing the laundry, I don't approach such necessity with the gloom most members of my species grudgingly embark upon this task. I try to make the best of it by considering these weekly interludes as an hour of mindless relaxation spent scrutinizing the vaudevillian cross section of humanity drifting and wending its way through the same, unavoidable chore. I've always found a small degree of comfort in Laundromats because there are no ulterior motives in such places. If you are there, it is for the exact same reason as everyone else. The Laundromat is an honest place, a great leveler of humanity. People are generally pretty nice to each other when they are doing the laundry.

     You can even meet girls in the Laundromat.

     Most operators of these venues understand the tedious nature of the task and will try to mitigate such boredom in a variety of ways. This includes a cacophony of video games and pinball machines, which provide the background music for the reading of a tawdry library of periodicals blanketing the place under drifting dunes of newsprint. This impromptu newsstand will range in quality from gratuitous piles of local, weekly publications, to the machine dispensed pseudo-wisdom of such world class mind polluters as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and USA Today.

     Being that one of the fundamental cornerstones of my life's work is to never buy a newspaper, I view the Laundromat as a perfect place to hold true to my principles by reading them for free while "doing the laundry".

     The last time I washed my clothes, I was carelessly picking through the journalistic debris, when an article with the following heading caught my eye: "55 New Releases, A Holiday Record". The article was referring to motion picture output. Although my intellectual curiosity fell far short of that necessary to provoke my reading it, it did set me to thinking about the incredible fascination we've developed for these flickering images set before us on varying size screens. Perhaps the most natural pose we might associate with "Santa Monica Man" would be that of sitting in front of the TV or movie screen.

     These thoughts were broken, ironically, by the vague sound of the Laundromat's TV, droning away in an out of tune, off key, disharmonious concert with the video games and pin ball machines. Televisions have almost become a permanent part of the ecosystem, be it at home, in the convenience store, at an airport or train station, in a security guard shack, the bank, a waiting room, at the beach or campground, or any number of countless places where people try to ward off boredom in this oh so trivial way. It's as if the sound of canned laughter, TV "muzak", action hooting and hollering, or just the familiar drone of a theme song or commercial, along with that concentrated glow of light and color, were now some kind of rudder in our lives, a North Star that keeps us oriented, that keeps us from losing our way or falling over from dizziness.

     What is this fascination with these images?

     There has always been a running debate as to what it is that makes human beings unique in the animal kingdom. For those of us who love animals and have habitually lived in family with domestic critters, the idea that they only have "instincts" and don't really think or reason becomes a ridiculous concept. They think, they reason, they figure things out. They make friends, enemies, and become emotionally attached. They can be gregarious, aloof, aggressive or docile. Some trust and some are paranoid. Sometimes they even get jealous. Each and every animal in close evolutionary proximity to their human relatives is a singular personality, just like us.

     I can only think of one emotional feeling that sets human beings apart from the rest of the fauna on this planet.

     Vanity.

     The other animals do not have a self-image of themselves. They don't care how they look or who they are impressing. A mirror, except for the momentary surprise an animal might feel when blundering upon one, is a thoroughly meaningless object in their lives. Animals are not self-conscious. They are never embarrassed. They don't feel guilt or shame and the idea of "conscience" is not a factor. Domestic animals certainly know what is expected of them and try to adhere to their master's quirks --- don't sit on the bed, stay out of the living room, etc. --- but they obey not so much to be praised, but more for the harmonious maintenance of the environment that nourishes them. The domestic cat that shows up with a dead lizard or bird as a trophy-gift, is not trying to impress the master as much as they are trying to please the master. The master is their livelihood, their survival, not some ego-centered source of self-esteem. 

     Vanity is a logical result in minds so highly developed as the human one. Our intelligence has made survival such a mundane chore, that we have given ourselves the time to concoct such an emotion. Keeping ourselves alive has almost become a non-factor in our existence. We had to start impressing ourselves with other things in order to make life more stimulating.

     This obese fascination for the motion picture could be tied to this ever-burgeoning vanity, a trait that might now be approaching some ill-defined, hazy frontier separating sanity from lunacy. It is a part of our personality that seems to be gaining terrain at the expense of such concepts as humility, compassion, modesty and such. We are the only creatures on this planet who will even briefly pay attention to a TV or movie screen, let alone sit in front of it for hours on a daily basis. It's as if we simply can't get enough of ourselves, that the daily reality of every day life, with its overwhelming dose of average people going about their usual tasks, has become an embarrassment that the human mind has put in a permanent state of denial. No. This is not who we really are, this anonymous stew of potbelly, flabby-ass flatulence with imperfect skin, starched hairdos, and all the good taste of a monkey with a finger up his ass. Surely we are more than that beer-stained tee shirt sitting in front of the tube rooting for " da Skins or duh Beahs", or that femme fatal in curlers glued to her daily soap opera. No. We'd rather see ourselves as the most beautiful man and woman living the most passionate love story, as the bravest warrior doing the most heroic things, as the shrewdest being solving the most difficult problems. That's who we really are! We are us and we are wonderful.

      I remember saying somewhere in this mass of dubious philosophical patter that we should go on an "ego diet". (I looked it up. See essay "Europe".) This exaggerated fascination with ourselves might hold the seeds of our own destruction.

     Relevant Material:  "And the Great Pyramids will lie in ruin once again." From the essay "Technology", from the book of essays entitled Because You Never Asked, currently being written by this writer.

     The speaker is a horribly deformed human being. "I have survived, and in spite of my looks, I form a part of the human race. Look at me well, my love. Recognize me and recognize yourself." From the novel Elogio de la Madrastra (Praise for my Stepmother), by the incomparable Peruvian, Mario Vargas Llosa.    

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Email: JerryG@postcman.info