The Internet and Getting Older

The year is 2025. The COVID pandemic is technically over, global political establishments have been turned ass over tit and the only thing holding my precariously fragile sanity together is the plethora of dirty memes on social media that help offset the tsunami of opinionated mingewombles, ignoramuses, religious zealots and media outlets making mountains out of molehills. The New Zealand job market is currently tighter than a fish’s fanny and the political landscape is slowly but surely going to hell in a handbasket. The cost of living is higher than a depressed Rastafarian, people are still fighting over dunny paper whenever a natural disaster rears its ugly head, and Billy Joel will soon have enough material to write the perfect follow-up to his 1989 hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire” 12 times over.

And in my 43rd year on this God forsaken rock out in the middle of the space wop-wops that make up the Orion’s Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, I too struggle to make heads or tails of life in an era where people think the Earth is flat, scientists are allegedly witchcraft practitioners, and the insanely stupid are empowered to put their two cents in on some random comment feed on social media when in reality, they should stick to playing in their sandboxes and eating Playdoh and cat shit, or serenading their cousins at family BBQs and subsequently root them behind Uncle Daddy’s milking shed. Of course, by this I’m illustrating just how negative, polarizing and toxic the social media world has become. Like I said, funny memes, including the dark ones that leave me cackling like Gargamel about to spit roast a Smurf, are probably the only things preventing me from having an aneurysm. Humor is a positive thing – laughter is indeed the best medicine – so long as people can take a joke, that is. Some people can take satire quite well until it’s their turn to become the object of ridicule, and then they have a sook.

I remember when I turned 40 a few years ago. The following day I received an email from the medical practice I’m enrolled with, and instead of wishing me many happy returns, it informed me that I should schedule a checkup to find out what’s possibly wrong with me. I was even told that 200 years ago, 40 was considered old. My brain still thinks I’m 21. My stomach still thinks I’m 30. And I’d like to keep them that way – nobody’s going to piss in my fountain of youth. Admittedly, my back goes out more than I do, but that’s been the case since 1998. I’ve put on a bit more weight since then, but I’m not exhibiting gravitational lensing, and I can still fit into a pair of size 36 jeans just fine. I don’t give a fat rat’s clacker about whether 40 is considered old, because I live by my mental age and not by some arbitrary chronological figure. Billy Connolly, one of my many heroes, once advised against living by your number, and he was dead right. When the inevitable mid-life crisis rears its head, do your best to remember that, despite the fact your knee gives you grief at the least convenient moments, you still think you’re in your 20s and full of life with plenty of stuff to do. In simple terms, just don’t give a shit. You’re going to get old and cark it one day. So, live it up as much as you can. And stop subscribing to that superstitious religious mumbo jumbo and live a little while you’re at it.

And no matter where you go on the internet there is so much negative horseshit in the world, not just on social media, which is quickly turning out to be the most regrettable invention since fast food, but in our mindsets and attitudes. It’s easy to give a well-built rodent’s posterior gastrointestinal orifice about world events, and to some extent we should all give thought to what’s going on. But it might be time to give all those news pages on social media the flick and focus on the good stuff – the memes, the funny videos, groups dedicated to animated comedies that some of us relished in our youth and still do to this day. Instead of following your local news outlet, follow a “Shit Towns of” page or something like that. Learn to laugh at funny things and maybe watch more animal videos as well to satisfy the more serious and gentler side of your psyche. And if a thermonuclear warhead hits your town or city and kills you instantly, well, ignorance is bliss. Personally, when it comes to the apocalypse, I would rather see the universe succumb to vacuum decay, but then again, beggars can’t be choosers!