A (Barely) Premature Millennial Epitaph

One millennial's take on the reasons behind our struggles, centered largely around that black hole we call the internet. The short version: Mostly, we watched Netflix.

Dear existence,

At the end of the day my head hurts right above the left eye, a reminder of how I chose to spend the time. My little cranial computer is so used to processing information that while awake I cannot stop searching for input. Every moment of every day I forage for water to fill my cup, but its bottom is filled with the holes I made on a long teenage Sunday afternoon. My default setting seems to include a foundation built on the concept of seconds wasted in this single string of rotations, and I have not yet found a way to quell the dubious bricks underneath my home. And although I know it all sits piled squarely at my dinner table, no amount of self-awareness can get me out of this kitchen. Freshly made thoughts are freshly moldy, never ripe never rotten. I crawl clumsily over faux wooden floorboards scrambling amid the debris for scraps and find only a laptop with a too-bright screen, that bioluminescent opiate of mine. Turn to a TV show for comfort in these tiring trying epochs to quench this insatiable thirst. I trick my brain every day to think I have been places I have not, spoken words I did not say. This is the curse of the Internet, given to me when I was not prepared for its offerings. Priestly hand outstretched over a grade school desk it beckoned me to a Quaalude soup of light and sound, and I have not climbed out of the bowl since. It is a dangerous tool in the hands of the modern existentialist, those of us who find so little reason to move upward in this society, who by neither fault nor faculty have reached certain conclusions regarding our place in existence. And we are not as rare as we would like to think. Many of us take our turn being a happily meaningless homo sapiens, but more often than not we forget our perspective, we grow petty, we want more than we need, and beg for recognition. Mostly, though, we just watch Netflix.

Sincerely,

Jared