"THIS, Anatoly! THIS is reality, right here in this room, in this world. This is the real world. With sight, and smells, and touch, and taste. The net isn't fucking reality. Reality is excitement, and boredom, and space, and pain, and sex, and heartache, and joy, and happiness, and sadness.
"The net is just a fucking dopamine feed. When you are jacked in, you might as well be a bodiless brain, hooked up to a bunch of chemical drips. It might make you feel excited, or in pain, or happy, or sad. But is it real if it's just a concoction of chemicals pumped directly into your brain with no REAL. LIFE. TRIGGER?
"You know that experiment with the rats, right, Anatoly? They take a rat and teach it to pull levers. One lever gives it food, the other gives it an orgasm by stimulating the neurons in the rat's brain. You know what the rat does Anatoly? You know what it does? It gives itself orgasms, repeatedly, until it fucking starves and dies.
"Were those rat's orgasms real? Was that rat happy? I am sure it felt happy, but is feeling HAPPY because a fucking lever gives you repeated orgasms true happiness? Is that why rats evolved 50 million years ago from the primordial soup to sit in a box fucking themselves with a lever until they starve and die?
"Don't you see that's what the net is doing to you Anatoly? You're like a rat in a box, except the net isn't even good enough to give you fucking orgasms. It just gives you a little spike of dopamine. Every new thing you read, or learn, or see, every "communication" you make with another "human" on the net. It just spikes the dopamine in your brain, making you feel good. How is that different from the rat Anatoly? Tap, read, dope, tap, read, dope.
"You see a picture of a beautiful sunrise over a green meadow, and your stupid brain sees the red and orange yellow and green - an image it's evolved to interpret as warmth and life and safety - and it triggers a flood of chemicals into your brain that make you feel good. But they're just pixels Anatoly. There is no sunrise. If you gave your computer enough time, it could randomly lay out different colored pixels on an image, and eventually it would draw the most perfect fucking sunrise the world has ever seen. Except the world wouldn't have seen it because it never fucking existed! You haven't even seen a sunrise this year Anatoly - you've either been sleeping or jacked in every. single. day!
"You don't think any more - you just, do. There is no time for reflection, no space. The net has no boredom. There is no downtime. It's just dope hit, dope hit, dope hit. Do you think the world would be where it is today if everyone was injecting themselves with dopamine every thirty seconds? You have so much potential, there is so much intelligence, and goodness wrapped up in you Anatoly - but it is being destroyed bit by bit, byte by byte. Would Babbage or Turing or Hopper or Berners-Lee done any of their great work without some time to think? Some time to be bored, and reflect and THINK?
"Every single spare second that you have, you flip your glasses on and start hacking, reading, typing. It's ridiculous, no gap is too short. It's like you only turn your glasses off for the shortest period of time necessary for survival, and then they're back on.
"How do you think I feel about that Anatoly? How do you think it makes me feel that every possible spare second you have you dive back into another world. A world where I don't exist, where nothing truly exists. A relationship isn't just conversation and sex Anatoly. It's about intimacy, connection, cohabiting the same space, living through the banality and boredom and stupidity that comes with life - together - and making each other's lives better because of it. How can we do that if you are jacked in, getting high on dopamine hits as soon as anything that resembles boredom happens?
"I hate to see you like this. You think you're being productive. You think you're learning. You think you're saving the world from the silos. But you're no better off than any of the other doped up chumps out there. Sure they may be getting sucked in by something less, by celebrity or entertainment or gossip. But you're no better than them. You're just addicted to a different feed. But it's just the same. You have no agency. You have no view of reality. You're sucked in by the same vices as everyone else. But even worse you THINK you're doing something better, but you're not.
"You need some balance Anatoly. How can you save the world if you don't know what the world is any more? What are you saving? Why fight to save people's privacy in the real world, if everyone's just getting sucked into the net anyway? Don't you see that just plays right into the silos own game? You need to wake up and smell the roses. Real roses, with your real nose. Smell their perfume. Choke on their pollen. Prick your finger on their thorns. Watch it's beauty blossom and wither and die and rot.
"Because that's the real world Anatoly. THIS is the real world. Right here in this room. With sight, and smells, and touch, and taste and excitement, and boredom, and space, and pain, and sex, and heartache, and joy, and happiness, and sadness.
"Because I don't know how much more I can take of you being jacked in permanently. I love you. With all my heart. But I love you in the real world. And I wish you would join me sometimes.
This was written as part of NaNoWriMo - an attempt to write a 50,000 word novely before the end of November, and will fit somewhere into the novel.
If you enjoyed it, (or if you didn't but want to support me anyway) you should totally sponsor me for charity! It's going to a great cause, the Scottish Association for Mental Health.
<3 Phil