Space

Yesterday, I went out for a little while just to go to the gym and was pretty quickly overwhelmed while changing channels on the car radio. After so much silence you really notice the sped-up chatter of commercials. It's like they're blasting garbage into your mind with a pressure washer. And then on public radio - the alternative to commercial-crammed-junk-air - which I'm generally a fan of, there's this over-delivered message of unity. We are alone in this together. The message was transmitted with a professional presenter's articulation and inflection. The calculated emotional delivery made it fall flat and sappy, at least to my ears. But I was already sick now with sales pitches and branding and I felt a great deal more alone than when I was good and alone inside my silent house. Get out of here! I turned it off on the way home and watched the round orange sun setting down through a leafless oak forest with a pristine white carpet of snow beneath it. I felt a claustrophobia of some kind rising.