not meant to be

this hubris of human kind
this belief that we have
conquered nature with technology

**

the age of telecommunications
was meant to aid connections
between people far and wide
only to find that
the most calls, still, are local
are between people we know
and see and touch and smell
 sure in the age of newspapers
and radio and TV we got overexcited
about being able to hear the news
from all over the world
mighty theories were made
drawing comparisons and parallels
between various countries,
continents, and worldwide trends

and how they mighty ideas have fallen
in the age of the internet when
we are bombarded with
trivialities from all the over the world
like 27 pictures of potatoes
that look like superman
and many other things

and trying to draw up connections
theories, worldwide trends
leads you into a quicksand
from which there is no way out

**

this pride that we can be in touch
with anyone, anywhere, anytime
and actually, human connections
are not meant to interrupt you
at all hours, like they do now

your boss is not supposed
to spy into your life at 7PM
comment on where you have been
spending your free time
lecture and moralise you

your childhood friend
that you lost in touch with
is not supposed be around all the time
available at a click on viber and facebook
And constantly poke you with
a vague sense of guilt
about not being in touch more often
not caring like you did
when you were physically together

no, it wasn't meant to be like this
the distance was supposed to make you pine,
grow sad, and then develop a mechanism
for coping with it
if they are gonna be around all the time
how are you gonna learn to cope with anything?

***

among many other things
that were not meant to be
was the internet
you are not supposed to have
concrete reminders of
minute moments of your  life
every day
it gets so overwhelming,
you are supposed to deal with
every day as it comes,
and memories only
once in a while, naturally

and now that the internet is
so chock-full of memories
that it doesn't know
what to do with them
every few years it rehashes them
and sends them out to terrorise people
again and again and again

what are we supposed to do
with this overload of information?
when are we supposed to have the time
to go through everything
wasn't it more natural when
one person could only access
 the information that one could digest
in a lifetime?
to have time to slowly process
and ask questions and formulate theories?
what are we gonnna do with
thousands and thousands
of counter theories in a second?

like an old person
who has their memories confused
is the internet now
a tangle and a mess
of things it doesn't recognise itself...