Global civilization of zombies

A few years ago, I regularly accompanied a friend to the hospital, who had to undergo a bone puncture every three or four months. As this took place in the capital city, there was no anaesthesia so as to free a room as quickly as possible. I found the session absolutely unbearable, even for the simple spectator I was. The operation consisted in extracting a bit of bone with a syringe mounted with a very large needle at the end of which was something resembling a small sugar pincer.

Make a long story short, I sought to know if there existed a powerful antalgic with immediate effect. Nothing. So I asked a doctor friend to prescribe ampoules of valium with the idea of administering an entire ampoule to my friend before her next session. My doctor buddy said: “All right, I will prescribe this to you, but valium is not at all an antalgic, it won’t do much for your friend”. “No matter, I’ll try it nevertheless.”

After the next session of prehistoric medicine, whilst I was driving my friend back to her place, who was completely out of it, I asked if the valium had relieved her somewhat. She mumbled “it’s curious, I felt the pain as usual, but it’s as if I didn’t care. I was thinking to myself, “Hey? It hurts a lot! I don’t care…” It seems that some have a similar biological capacity to secrete a natural valium of sorts which enables them to observe in the same way not so much pain as emotion: “Hey, I am roused! I don’t care…” Thus, emotion is considered for itself, as if it were on the side, isolated, and it gives fruit to nothing nor does it entail an action.

Extrapolating on the principle, I realized that those people are spectators of reality, and thus spectators of themselves! For example, in light of a distressing scene, not a problem, they like the emotion it procures them before anything else. They look at themselves as experiencing an emotion and they please themselves in this manner. You think I am exaggerating? I fear not. There is for that matter quite a bit to see here, the word aesthetics having the same root as eisthésis: sensation. Thus emotion is a sensation, and its provenance matters little since we can live it separately, for itself, without consequences. I assure you, there is a lot there that enables to better view the global civilization of zombies which is putting itself in place. As a matter of fact, that is how one sets shackles to a soul, by making it limp and by causing it to collapse unto itself. Moreover, this can be achieved quite easily, whilst announcing the best of intentions: who would reproach anyone of giving emotion to the largest number? Hmmmm? No one.

In the near future, I “prophesize” the birth of supermarkets of emotions. On sale: massacre of infancy as if you were there. In the mystery department, treat yourself to a Tibetan genocide. Promotion on the ground floor: the last Don Quixote’s of humanity having had faith in man… Christmas week: 50% off sundry obscenities, barbarities and massacres.

Credit picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thivierr/

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