Hello all,
Below you will find a prose poem that I wrote a few months ago. It’s a little dense but I hope that the rhyme and word play keeps it enjoyable. I am a very pessimistic person, as I am sure you will soon conclude. Let me know what you think, if you decide to read it.
All the best,
JCO
Identity in the Information Age
I am empathetic and this malapropping neologism propping up our zeitgeist is the destruction of the word: empathic. It is this perverted altruism of social media that is fresh selfishness and the eggcorn of our truth. Let me explain:
Our absurdist obsession with identity is idolatry of the exemplary—holy highlight reels, innumerable influencers, and venerated vloggers are lord to our peasant present. The profligate propaganda of comparison breeds commiserate misery and mystery unto the self. Quiet contemplation is the contempt of the nation, bringing the defenestration of our individuation. In other words, the contagion culling confidence also swallows my self, satiated instead by an indulgence in others, an obsession with the inferior ulterior as if I’m motivating myself. That’s another eggcorn, as precedence is given always to perusing people’s postings rather than pulling myself together. Outsourced introspection is obtuse, an amorphous amalgamation of others’ desperation and their insinuation of decency when they are deceitfully lying to me. Personality blurs by the monitor, its black reflection obscures, and manifests a destiny deadened and desperate for introspection, yet I never learn my lesson; I am empathetic and understand nothing, least of all myself.
Jogging the Mind 