Patriotic Omniphage (Part: The First)
The final day to vote for the next leader of the US is right around the corner, and the outcome doesn’t seem to be positive either way. In a country that values small-business and diversity (lol) - we sure seem to love a 2-party system. But, from the mouths of the candidates themselves, whoever comes out as alpha-dog in this election won’t be that much different than the others. And the global meltdown and spiral downwards will continue.
The masses responsible for the votes will continue to stumble about their daily live, oblivious to the underlying stagnation and decay of an unhealthy society. It is a part of their culture and part of their psyche. Our lives have become as the zombie; a near-infinite consumption of goods and services, blind to the destruction and scarcity that results. We’ve even crossed the ‘quarantine’ border and have consumed the lives and resources of entire civilizations.
How are we to act in a world where to media bombards us constantly with the images of our own destruction, flashing across our magic lanterns? The decay and rot we have inflicted on the world constantly surrounding us; glamorized on the screen and in print. Our subconscious minds absorb these horrors and turn back to the here and now - the protective bubbles we have made. But the knowledge is still there…the root of most of our anxieties and discomfort, our general unhappiness.
io9 recently made a chart comparing war and social upheaval with the proliferation of zombie films.The result is intriguing.
We did a study (with related analytical chart!) of how many zombie movies got released every year since 1910, created a line graph of them, and correlated spikes in zombie movie production with social unrest. It was actually quite eerie, because wars and social upheavals always seem to be followed by a giant leap in numbers of zombie movies in theaters. Coincidence?
The only way to be safe, as any weathered zombie warrior will know, is to remove the head of the zombie. We have to excise the tumor that is the mindset that we have been imprinted with. There is a current revival in the concept of survivalism and self-sustainability. We must change our brains rather than eating them.
Mmmm…brains.
“Zombie cell” image originally from wvs on flickr; Inspiration from Rigorous Intuition’s America Ate My Brain - Part 1 | Part 2
