Based on my preferences, that intricate web of songs I have bought, or simply listened to, films, television programmes I have watched, organisations, people, poets, writers, actors, celebrities I have liked or re-tweeted... based on a list, cross-referenced with others, they have removed me from society as a threat.
In one night they took us all and brought us to a place where we would be together, yet completely apart- each of us receiving a cuboid of desolation in which to wonder why we never heeded the warnings.. while each of us, separately, learns to think and to love unconditionally.
*
As I crossed the platform I didn’t feel at all guilty for what I had done- neither in my conscience, or even in the legal sense. As the planks creaked under my feet, warped from the strain of carrying the deeds of my forebears, I felt light despite the sound.
To think, and to love, unconditionally. The rights things, the right people. These are things I could learn but not things I could do. Based on my preferences I found myself inside, away from society. Inside, away from society, I became a threat to it.
I’ll smile when I hang.
In one night they took us all and brought us to a place where we would be together, yet completely apart- each of us receiving a cuboid of desolation in which to wonder why we never heeded the warnings.. while each of us, separately, learns to think and to love unconditionally.
*
As I crossed the platform I didn’t feel at all guilty for what I had done- neither in my conscience, or even in the legal sense. As the planks creaked under my feet, warped from the strain of carrying the deeds of my forebears, I felt light despite the sound.
To think, and to love, unconditionally. The rights things, the right people. These are things I could learn but not things I could do. Based on my preferences I found myself inside, away from society. Inside, away from society, I became a threat to it.
I’ll smile when I hang.
Note: Based on your preferences was inspired by an article I read on the Guardian app about the Vinyl's difficult comeback, written by John Harris. In it, a manufacturer of vinyl who grew up in East Germany, when talking about Spotify, says that such mechanisms as the world wide web would have been the Stasi's wet dream, that a list of preferences might one day be used to label people as threats. This idea, with added Nineteen Eighty-Four, created that. What have I done was an idea going nowhere, so I turned it into a sequel.
No comments:
Post a Comment