Written & edited by Trevor Knapp.

As I sit here and begin to type, I sit in the corner of my sage-green living room, by the window listening to the sound of the rain, the sound of water falling from heavy, dark clouds onto metal, concrete, into the dirt and trees, yellow half-light filling the room. I sit here, to make sense of current times, current conflict within our digital sphere and within my own mind. And then I come back to the rain, and then I come back to the digital screen.

I see where it all begins: within the addiction of this digitalized world I live in here, from my screen. I wanted to talk about the propaganda machine (the government, the corporations, the media, etc), and I think it has its role in strong-arming me into thinking this way or that, but it all begins right here… by turning on my computer, looking at my phone, watching advertisements or general television. I keep trying to make sense of that deeper war within this machine, but then I pull back from it all and realize… wait a second, just turn it all off. Enjoy the rain and talk about all this mumbo jumbo another day.

I see this constant back and forth that goes on deep within the interwebs, and all I can do is shrug my shoulders. Is this what I am supposed to do? To further the debates on every small thing and be angry at anyone who questions this or that grand narrative that unfolds before our eyes? Is that what I am doing right now? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I feel like I’m being led around by a carrot, to test what I will fall for next, or what I am to be steered into so that I comply with our leaders’ demands. To protect us from the unknowns. Led around by fear.

If that is the case, the propaganda machine has me by the balls. I feel like I’m just falling trap to each thing the algorithm, internet, media… (you name it) throws at me, so that one day I will accept the silencing of people, or accept the violence that our governments must enact in the name of peace, or accept I cannot have agency in my life, the sense of coddling the mind into catastrophe…

Then I hear the dropping of rain again, the puddles and the water reflections showing the trees, the storm clearing, a nice sunset. Perhaps I’m better to shut this computer off, live out here: in this world we all actually survive in. I hope to meet you all out here to have a conversation someday soon.

I’ll be here on the interwebs, too, as I have, one foot in nature and one foot in the internet, heheheh.