Fading – From Colors to Grey

Logically speaking, social interaction has been reduced by 90% or more

Photo by meriç tuna on Unsplash

20 years ago, I got mail.

20 years ago, mailmen and women, politicians, Jehova’s witnesses, and all kinds of other people would regularly ring my door bell to hear if they could make me interested in whatever was important to them.

20 years ago, the neighbors’ children would ring the dorr bell through the intercom, to ask me if I would open the door because they had no key. Plumbers, electricians, distributors of advertising newspapers, drug dealers, the police, and virtually everybody else would do the same, for the same reason.

20 years ago, recruiters would call me to talk about an interesting job opening, they felt I was the best possible candidate for.

20 years ago, banks would pay me to move my engagement to them, from whatever other bank I was using.

20 years ago, former colleagues, study mates, and other people I know, at times even just faintly, would call me on the phone to just hear how I was.

20 years ago, I would go for a walk in the city, enjoying the sunshine, buy an ice cream, and be happy for all the happy life there.

20 years ago, I subscribed to several, various magazines in print, being a pleasure to receive, open, and read. It was economically possible then, with the goverment contributing to the postal costs, which by themselves were much lower back then. And the magazines where indeed available in paper editions, not only on the Internet.

20 years ago, I had dreams about the future. I believed in the future.

20 years ago, today was the future. And it was different then.

20 years ago, I thought that life was moving forward, getting better all the time.

19 years ago, and 18, 17, 16, 15, and so on, it became worse.

Every year: fewer letters, fewer phone calls, fewer job offerings, fewer of everything.

I can count several good things that happened instead. But – instead. I lost something, and something else came into my life.

Now I have LED lamps. Wow. I have a different car, where the air condition works, but which I can’t afford to fill with fuel. Wow. And I have all my CDs on a harddisk now, to compete with the stream of music from Internet services.

I have all kinds of Internet this and Internet that.

Internet is the main ingredient of everything now. Simply everything. Apart from my shoes, and my cup of tea. But the tea kettle is connected to the Internet. And the shoes were bought on the Internet.

And now, I don’t get mail. If a rare letter shows up, it is something bad. A creditor who also sent emails and other messages, and found that they wanted to stress me as much as possible by also sending a physical letter, for a 12 € fee.

Now, I don’t have dreams. There is no future. At least, I can’t see what should get better 20 years from now. Everything is in a decline.

A bank has canceled my account. A credit card company too. Just like that, for no particular reason. No more paying me for becoming their customer.

It happens once per year, at most, that a former colleague, friend, or someone else contacts me for something else than making me help them with their needs. Just to ask how I am.

The Internet replaced the people. No more postmen and women. No more politicians visiting, or Jehova’s witnesses. Not even any drug dealers or the neighbors’ kids ringing the door bell.

And I am scared of life. Don’t enjoy it when seeing it, don’t go searching for it. Don’t go for a walk in the city anymore. Can’t afford the ice cream anyway. But the life I see there is not happy anymore. People look angry, or sad. If they are there at all. Sometimes, on a Sunday, there’s nobody. They are all indoor, surfing the Internet.

So, life has faded. Most of it has been replaced with the Internet.

And now the Internet is fading too. Fewer readers of my blog posts, if any at all. Fewer followers, people vanishing – they were there, then they weren’t. But more boilerplate marketing posts coming in, more nowsletters that carefully avoid talking about anything that could be important to other people. More AI slop.

On the few platforms I attend, I’m often talking to myself – telling about some thoughts I had, but nobody cares.

20 years ago, at least the mailmen and women, Jehova’s witnesses, and the plumbers and electricians, and even the shop clerk selling the ice cream on my walk in the city, would show some level of interest in me. I could say something, smile, and they would answer and smile back.

Now, the only interest I ever meet is that occasional angry letter from a creditor.

Somehow, the colorful life of the near past has been wiped out. Mostly by the Internet.

So, tell me: why is it that people want more of that? Why do we have to digitalize and AI-inflict every last bit of life we still have left – those 10% that hasn’t yet been destroyed? Or have we already done it, just waiting for the results to show?