The Shiny New Display

A bus stop erects a new digital interface to display its route.

Within hours that digital display is vandalized. The screen is either spray painted over, the display smashed or a combination of both.

The initial thought is to consider the vandalism to be the anomaly, to blame the vandal for their behavior. For not valuing and “respecting” nice things.

But In Truth the shiny new display is the anomaly. The display is the lie.

To acknowledge that the display is the anomaly would be to acknowledge that the vandalism is the world. It is to admit that the world is exactly what you see outside.

That acknowledgement alone is simply too much for society - the creator of this garbage - to admit.

So it washes off the spray paint and installs another shiny new display. All to be destroyed again.

The vandalism is the reality. The destruction is the constant. It is the Truth of the environment.

Look at any wall. Look at any public surface. Examine the bus or the trains. See for yourself.

The answers are there.

There is no “happiness” available. There is no joy and peace. Everything is simply a charade. Everyone is simply acting. From the government personnel, to the legislature, to the public outcry, to the protests.

All are simply a performance. A song and dance born of willful ignorance.

Because to see the devastation. To see the depth of this devastation. Requires no action.

It requires no protest.

It requires no collection of signatures.

It simply requires the desire to See.

The fixing is a clever attempt to avoid Seeing that society is un-helpable.

How can a thing that is designed to be ineffective be helped?

It is working as planned.

All of your mock outrage is accounted for. The corporations allow you to picket peacefully. They allow your criticism on their social profiles. They offer you the space to protest.

That is the evidence of the song and dance.

True protest isn’t a measure of volume and signage.

It is a quality of Seeing.

Seeing the entirety of the charade. Without any need to interfere.

For to interfere implies a knowledge that one knows the full picture.

But if one truly knew they would have no need to interfere.

No one interferes with dog waste in the street. They simply step around it.

The things one doesn’t see are the things he involves himself in.

That he believes he can “fix”.

And that fixing begins the cycle anew.

A brand new display.