Thank You for Playing
Feb. 1, 2023
A grid of alien critters appears before you, and begins marching sideways in formation. Slowly, slowly, to a rhythmic Bup - Bup - Bup beat. Left and Right control buttons move your cannon at the bottom of the screen, which is protected from the advancing horde by a number of barriers. The only other control button says Fire, so you begin mashing it repeatedly.
Taito changed the world in 1978 with the release of Space Invaders. It was the first of the true breakout arcade games, and my generation was awestruck. A licensing deal with Bally meant that Space Invaders would soon appear in every arcade, bowling alley, bar, and skating rink. One Quarter (25-cent coin, to the foreigners) got you three ‘lives’, and only God knows how many quarters I must have dropped into those machines and the many other games that followed. Entertainment back then came 25 cents at a time, and it seems my life was measured in quarters.
Dad gave me $7 per week, which included mowing the lawn. That is a lot of quarters when a boy goes to Mac’s Roller Rink on Saturday night with his cousins -- which soon got a new game-room addition. Old Mac was pretty savvy, even if he never repaired that rough patch in the floor on the first turn. Quarters in the game room, quarters in the juke box. Two quarters got you a can of Coke. Not Diet, not Zero, just plain old Coke with a pull tab. By the time my older cousin’s girlfriend was ready to leave, our pockets would be empty.
Insert Coin to Continue. Fortunately our entertainment only came in those little doses. The next day would be back to normal; no black mirrors in our pockets, no TV past 9 pm when Mom was on the prowl. There was no tether to technology the way our 17-year old has today, unless you count sneaking a little AM / FM radio under my pillow. Wifi connection problems were not an excuse when it came homework time, in other words, and teachers’ lessons were actually prepared in advance instead of screen shots on a phone.
It is from this Gen X perspective that I listened to our Pastor exhort about how the things we give our time to are the things we truly worship; pointedly asking us to reflect on how much time we spend each week staring at our gadgets. I smugly thought that I don’t even carry a cell phone. Ye Olde Blackberrie just sits on charge until it is time to go somewhere. Mrs. Outpost and The Teen are practically glued to their phones however, using them for all manner of transactions, entertainment, messaging, face-tubing, and whatever. But not me.
The self-congrats evaporated when I remembered my laptop though, and how many hours upon hours of my time it consumes. Your Honor, the defense pleads Guilty on all counts. It is my news source, entertainment platform, and writing console. My music player, research center, and design / work station. Especially since 2020 -- a.k.a. The Day the Earth Stood Still -- it is only rarely out of arm’s reach. After declaring a New Year’s Resolution just a few weeks ago to Reject Evil, this particular revelation is painful to admit, Readers. Literally, I’m staring at it right now. The Laptop Decade, that is probably how I will refer to this stage of my life when the memoirs are written.
Maybe connectivity is the true pandemic, infecting so many of us over time. It is like 25 years ago I installed Netscape on a Windows 95 machine, and *poof* we are in 2023. I used to read books, practice my guitar, and build scale models. There was always a car project in the garage, or home remodeling to do. We have morphed into a world that is captivated by the 24/7 spin cycle, as we stare into phones and yammer on our keyboards about foreign wars. It is important though…the Patriots have a Plan…the Deep State is trying to kill us off and make us eat ze bugs… Yes, yes, we know that already. It is happening, even the sleepy people are starting to realize it. The Borg don’t even deny it anymore, because they want it to be inevitable. We are coming, they seem to say, and there is already bug protein powder in your pizza.
The grid of aliens drops down one row, a little faster now, and begins firing back. The nature of the game is revealed…will you eliminate them all before they reach the bottom? Will you survive?
Alien critters march at us in lock-step formation. We call them WEF, WHO, ICANN, MI6, DHS, and assorted other acronyms. Each week we hyperventilate over a revolving set of injustices, from Pfizer to egg prices. Our laser cannons are firing furiously, just like in Space Invaders. Some of us might get our initials on the high-score board, but that is usually not me. I will keep pumping quarters into this thing until they are spent, and then it will be time to go home; because fighting these battles often obscures the fact that there really is life outside of the game-room.
Game Over. Those old arcade machines had the one essential feature that today’s gadgets are missing… a cord. You couldn’t take them with you. Could I give up my laptop completely? Not yet anyway, but I am working in that general direction. When our more sustainable living / working situation is complete, we won’t even care when the power goes out or digital currency arrives.
Living outside the bubble has shown me that the Western world is a giant beehive, constantly kept buzzing by the Imaginarium. Try as I might to make sense of what is really happening, the only firm conclusion to draw is that the evil cannot be put back into its box. Everything is a lie, controlled demolition just like Building 7. From the sources we used to trust to institutions we grew up with, to figures we used to count on. There are no longer facts, just myths; foreign policy doctrine, history, medicine, even culture itself. We used to ‘know’ who the enemy was, but now I’m pretty sure it is us. Or did I just hear that from a CIA-controlled Russian disinfo bot? I do think that America used to have a righteous cause. Science used to follow a method. People used to put their minds toward the pursuit of happiness rather than simmering over the latest depopulation plans discussed at Davos. Should we be grateful for the relentless I.V. drip of information? Or has it been the biggest enabler of a grand deception?
The crux of it, friends, is that we have a choice to make. Each of us must find core truths that we anchor to, and decide how we will live. My laptop does a lot of things, but it will never replace my Bible. I hope everyone can find something which gives life meaning, and I encourage each of you to not take the bait of Division, sown so freely online and germinating so swiftly in the soil of our consciousness. When I look within myself, I cannot find hatred there of the Chinese, or Russians, or Jews, or name-your-ism Phobia. I just see people, who want to live their lives without the crushing boot of totalitarianism. What I can find hatred and disgust for, are lies and managed narratives. The powerful elites and think tanks who want to take…and take, and take. The Deceiver and his minions who drive the whole ugly furball to its fruition.
2023 will be one for the record books, although the official version will be nowhere close to the truth as we will have experienced it. There are daily examples of the narrative crumbling, and people literally dropping dead or coming unglued on camera. But the waves of critters keep coming. I don’t know about you, but I am running low on quarters, even as I slowly Go Galt. More prayer time, less worry time. More outreach and reflection, less obsession. More thankfulness for life’s simple pleasures, and emphasis on doing rather than planning.
To the deep state Legion, I just want to say “You will never have us. Thank you for playing.” Peace be upon you in Christ, Readers.
Visayas Outpost
A great read that took me back in time too. I believe I'm probably a decade older than you if I have my history correct but, I can commiserate with you on that past, the present, and what the future looks like. I too, have grown closer to the Lord but, I still have a long way to go. I still allow too many distractions to get in the way of my walk. Too much time on my desktop PC and/or my smartphone. Too many articles and videos and other things that sometimes have me agitated at just how evil our surroundings are. Covid revealed medical tyranny along with friends and family members that were absorbed by the Borg. (Who still to this day are hypnotized to what is going on).
I could go on but, I know you get the picture.
Thanks for a breath of fresh air this morning!