"I shopped on the internet for all sorts of useless crap that I thought would make my life more interesting, more entertaining, more impressive to anyone who came along to inspect it, but I never really thought about how everyone else was doing the same thing, and no one was taking their head out of their ass for long enough to notice anyone else's collections of absolutely useless junk - except for those occasions in which you saw something that you envied. It was a repeating cycle of economic roulette, one that you'd always lose, you know?" he looked at me with an expression that asked if I was still following him.

"I'm following you," I said.

"You know, I thought about retail therapy for a long, long time. I’d get depressed about the state of the economy, or that the rent had gone up, or that the interest rates on my credit cards had increased by three quarters of a percent. I’d feel anxious about America's place in the global society, and how a lot of people out there didn't like us, and I’d worry about the path that our leaders were taking us on, just like everyone else. All the time, while driving to work and listening to the news and talk radio stations, with their DJs spreading strongly biased opinions out across the airwaves, never saying anything that wasn't incendiary: everything out there was intended to cause a reaction, and I’d get frustrated and angry at the way that things were going, and I’d want to protest and riot and petition, just like everyone else, just like the talking heads wanted us all to feel. I felt played, like a puppet; I felt manipulated and disposable."
 

The possibilities are endless.


 What would you like to experience?

A moment as someone else?