By ERIC SEO

She was birthed with us. She has grown as we have. She has pushed us to create and innovate–she made us who we are, people who read and write and paint and draw and cook and eat and watch and listen and learn not for necessity, but for pleasure. In all our history, we have given this pleasure, in part to ourselves but, mostly as a thankful gift, to her, our sibling in the search of meaning and prosperity. We complain about her annoying presence and pushy insistence, but without her what have we become? Indeed we are without her, for we have killed her.

She went out not with a bang but with a whimper, smothered by the blue-gray monotony of fluorescent stimulation, which bewitches its users into a trance of seductive tantalization. The tantalizer consumes attention with an insatiable gluttony, leaving a glazed apathy in the shells of its wake. We created this behemoth of entertainment to distract our sibling. But it seems as though we are, in fact, not her keeper.

She, growing up with our kind, was given a promise. A promise that she would be with us and help us to learn and flourish. Unfortunately, promises are like secrets, which themselves are like laminated glass, prone to a webbing of cracks as soon as a small chip is made, despite a purported strength. The promise matured with us, provoking greater thought and invention over the years. This implies, though, that the promise was made when we were of a low maturity; a child professing a life-long love to their schoolyard pal with whom they have barely communicated. That promise, it seems, was like a November weather forecast on the morning news: a complete and utter lie. 

When we were all stuck inside, we thought our friend had betrayed us, brandishing her sword of tedium against a caged foe. It was an illusion of a friendship, of course; we will make memories she is not a part of. This time indoors was the climax in a one-sided bout that, like lunch-table high school drama, only we had perceived. She was trying to help us, as she always has, but we fought back with a violence against her that has been festering since the turn of the century. 

Then, it was pencils down, turn in your tests. We emerged from a lockdown indoors with her replaced by an ersatz companion. We are Bradbury’s nightmare come to life, crawling out of singed pages with an indifferent look and lips drawn to a line. Boredom is dead, and we have killed her. Dead are the days where we give her the gifts of our pleasure. We exist enraptured by the flame of machines and their limitless media. There is no time to fraternize with her corpse, for we have not the time to even find it, distracted by the illumination of our screens.

She was hated, and life without her is too easy. She gave us discomfort and pushed us, reluctantly, to learn and grow. Instead, we now invest our time not with her, but with weekend bed-rot, sliding a finger across the screen again and again. A three inch oscillation for hours: north, south, north, south, north, south.. a dull pendulum with the flavor of over-boiled chicken. We yearn to be entertained, to be fixed to an object of our own creation; there is no satisfaction in speaking to her remains. 

We simply could not put up with her presence, so we have removed the option all together. Boredom is dead, and we have killed her.

Featured Image: Reader’s Digest