Our Own Personal Twilight Zone
Imagine waking up.
You activate your phone and scroll through your news feed, reading through a hundred different headlines resting atop a hundred different articles meant to convince you of one thing or another, each written by someone who has been molded and skewed by external sources of information and conversation. Every day, hundreds of these articles; every week, thousands; every year, hundreds of thousands of written accounts compiled of a mix of fact and flaw—billions of words, too many of which are twisted by bias and misinformation. And it’s all masquerading as trusted documentation.
You read a few articles for the day, absorb some of what you read—effectively redirecting who you are, at least temporarily, for as long as you can remember this novel data—and then move on to social media where you skim through hundreds of different posts created by hundreds of different people, many of whom are affected by the same day’s news—individual thought patterns redirected based on where they’ve chosen to educate themselves that morning. Much of what you see in your feed is visceral—happiness, frustration, anger, sadness, resentment—feelings that vary depending on the poster’s decided truth. Others comment, some agreeing, some debating, some fighting—but most unable to decipher nuance, most blinded by the illumination of another’s perspective and drowning in their own foregone conclusions.
With your new perspectives in hand, you venture out into the world, perhaps to a gathering of family or friends. After an hour of two, once all the pleasantries have been exhausted, someone inevitably asks if others have consumed the same newsworthy information he or she has recently. Some relate and agree, but others insert new points of data. These unknown perspectives begin to create confusion and self-doubt in those who were unaware, which in turn beget psychological barriers that can lead to frustration and maybe even hostility. A few are open to digesting and dissecting everyone’s divergent information—willing to listen—but many wish to defend who they’ve chosen to be that day based on what they’ve accepted as truth. Talk turns to discussion, discussion turns to argument, and argument turns to combat. As time passes by, gatherings of friends and family become smaller, more selective, more exclusive—more opinionated. Tribes are formed out of the most absurd of things: fear of being wrong and ideological intolerance, much of which is driven by misinformation and a laziness to listen or think. Ideology becomes intertwined with the self, bound in tight knots that can be almost impossible to loosen and cut free. In this world we’re creating—a world of endless choices on where to focus our attention and an environment that encourages self-infatuation—the truth doesn’t matter. What matters is your truth.
There was a meme circulating a few years ago that lauded this type of mentality, shared what was likely millions of times by those who found solace in its message. In the meme, the number six (or nine) appears horizontally on the ground, and there’s a person standing at each end of the number. The two people in the picture are arguing, with one claiming the number is a six and the other claiming it’s a nine. The caption below them reads: “Just because you are right does not mean I am wrong. You just haven’t seen life from my side.” While others saw this meme as unifying, I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel some degree of dread from it. Yes, dread—dread that many fellow humans seem grateful to live in their own separate subjective realities as long as it helps them avoid confrontation and the uncomfortableness that comes with occasionally being wrong. When I saw this meme, I began to wonder why these two fictional figures didn’t start asking questions. Why not take a closer look at the number in question to see if they can find any clues in the markings as to where the number may have started and where it may have finished when it was drawn? Why not try to find the artist who drew it (or someone who witnessed the artist at work) and ask why it’s there in the first place and whether the damn thing is a six or a nine? Well, I suppose they didn’t dig deeper because it’s easier to assume they’re both right. Again, there is laziness and fear in avoiding a conversation where you may discover you have it wrong. It’s a win-win to assume everyone has their own truth and that that’s okay, at least until a struggle for power is involved, then it devolves into a war to solidify one’s chosen truth. And that’s why adopting an attitude of absolute subjectivity can be so dangerous, because if we don’t figure out how to come to terms with what is reality and what isn’t, armies will eventually be formed to defend your truth and destroy the other.
Not only are we constructing divergent realities from one another—some may refer to these as “bubbles”—but we’re also pulled apart by a plethora of entertainment mediums competing for our time. Everyone’s watching different shows and movies, listening to different music and podcasts, playing different video games, and reading different books. Mix that in with the fact that we harbor different truths, and besides enjoying food and having regular bowel movements, it’s clear that people are losing ways to relate on arguably a daily basis. If this persists much farther into the future, we could all end up living in our own personal episode of The Twilight Zone, a realm where each person exists in his or her own version of reality and perceives everyone else as either uninteresting, uninformed, or simply crazy.
In a sense, we’re being pushed farther and farther apart from one another because individuality, while important, has become the focus of the human experience and commonality has been left behind.
But of course not everyone is without a clique. After all, there are nearly eight billion universes on this earth, each encased behind a quarter inch of bone, with many coalescing around the same axis and generating atmospheres to protect the territory they’ve established, keeping them temporarily safe from the uncomfortable truths that are threatening to crash down into their purview at any moment. These man-made safe spaces, these atmospheres, often produced by a simple click of “subscribe,” “follow,” “block,” or “unfollow,” are allowing for false senses of security to pervade our everyday lives. When safe spaces are constructed largely out of unbending ideals, no one who lives in one of these makeshift microcosms is anything close to safe, not if they ever wish to voice an original and especially contrary opinion. And what exactly is the point of life without fruitful conversation? Are we to accept that life is at its best when we’re all safe from syllables that challenge us? Are we to believe that true happiness is found within the circumference of a never-ending circle jerk?
There’s an article in the New York Times, a piece written by a black gentleman on his distrust in the medical industry and in America as a whole. In one paragraph, the writer explains a myth about an African-American actress named Dorothy Dandridge. As the legend goes, she once dipped just a single toe into an all-white swimming pool sometime back in the 1950s, causing such disgust in the management of the hotel that they drained the pool of every drop of water. The writer admits it’s an urban legend, an event there’s no evidence for, then goes on to say, “Maybe it ain’t true, but it also ain’t exactly a lie.” Now, it’s not that I don’t comprehend the point the writer is making, and it’s not that I’m unaware of the many horrors of the past, but if something isn’t true, a lie is exactly what it is. By embracing these kinds of untruths, by accepting feelings as truth instead of questioning those feelings, we’re adding to the tragedies of the past and whipping up even more negative feelings that we in turn don’t allow ourselves to question, creating a cycle of self-defeat not just for the individual but for society as a whole. Not only is this kind of mindset accepted, it’s often encouraged, and anyone who dares question it risks being demonized out of social circles and occasionally out of work.
If you’re anything like me, you must find all this quite overwhelming and disheartening. I often find myself wondering how we can best communicate with each other when we hold such disparate truths that we may as well exist in different dimensions—on other planes of existence entirely. How are we supposed to get through to one another when we believe such radically different things? How can we connect when we perceive our neighbors as if they’re encroaching on our existence? How can we coexist when so much of society insists that every individual has a right to his or her own version of reality? In other words: What can we do to carve a path toward improvement? Is there a way to reverse this cultural insanity? Are there any hopeful prospects for coming together as a species? …I’m doubtful, but let’s explore some possibilities.
What exactly would it take to pull the plug on this deranged Twilight Zone episode we’re quickly becoming main characters in? I believe it’s safe to say there’s no profound piece of art—whether movie, book, or song—that’s going to enrich our souls and move us closer towards one another. In the past, when entertainment was more selective and there were household names that almost everyone could partake in, that was much more of a possibility. But not now. Besides, whether it’s great fiction or great nonfiction—names like Jordan Peterson, John McWhorter, Douglas Murray, and Bret Weinstein come to mind—the cultural climate tends to find a way to use positive voices as further division by labeling them with overused and overblown toxic pejoratives that keep those unfamiliar with them from giving them the time of day. So, I don’t believe we can count on artists, intellectuals, teachers, or philosophers to pull us out of this. But what about some kind of grand, unifying tragedy? Didn’t wartime bring people together in the past? Well, if COVID has shown us anything, it’s that a catastrophic event only serves to divide us even more than we already are. The masks. The vaccination statuses. The mandates. I have the sense that if another country attacked the United States, half its citizens would side with the attacker. It’s almost as if people yearn to be separated from one another nowadays, and that’s likely because tribal identities are being fabricated from an excess of faulty information and built on top of the ashes of traditional religion. Every little difference of opinion sets us apart and forces us under a different political label, keeping all of us distanced from one another. Again, commonality has been left behind.
So what’s left? Besides a complete overhaul of our news media and learning institutions—those oh so influential and turbulent organizations that have been overrun by a mix of obstinate activism and narcissism—and besides the miracle of everyone simply waking up one day with a curious mind and open ears, what’s left? The classic story Watchmen probably nailed it: it’d take an external force threatening all of humanity to get us to overcome our differences and start writing on the same page. But something tells me we can’t count on that, so…
How about the adoption of bravery? What if all of us who are paying attention spoke up more often? What if we stated our opinions and accepted whatever came our way with aplomb? What if we started making examples of the loudest mouths in the room and showed everyone that despite their volume, these vociferous mouths actually have the least amount to say worth listening to? What if we sat down with those willing to listen and pushed back against the current trends of the status quo with mostly calmness and kindness, slowly changing society’s point of view one mind at a time? And then those minds could go on to change others. That could work, could eventually eject us from The Twilight Zone, but what about those who aren’t willing to listen? There are plenty of those. Do we leave them to figure out how to change the channel on their own, knowing they might be stuck in The Twilight Zone forever while constantly attempting to suck others into the divisive dimension from which they derive meaning? There may be no other option….
I have close friends and family, people I’ve known for decades, who I feel disconnected from because of their staunch biases and the misinformation being peddled by the mainstream narrative. Often when I broach an important topic, I’m met with either mockery or awkward silence. I have loved ones who support vaccine mandates to the utmost authoritarian degree. I have loved ones who support rioters and looters, and who, if not for their responsibilities holding them back, would be out on the streets with them. I have loved ones who don’t believe Donald Trump ever did anything wrong. I have loved ones who refuse to allow anyone who voted for Donald Trump into their lives. I have loved ones who believe Jesus is the only way to salvation. I have loved ones who relish the death of god. I have loved ones who don’t believe Antifa is a real thing. I have loved ones who think throwing people into prison based on their feelings over a supposed crime instead of the actual law is morally acceptable. I have loved ones who are critical of anyone digging for truth. I have loved ones who think I’m far-right. I have loved ones who think I’m far-left. I have loved ones. But I don’t have many people to converse with, not unless I settle for banal conversation. None of this is to say that banal conversation is never satisfying. It can be. It’s also not to say that I never make headway in my relationships. I do. With some people, I do.
Every day I listen to people who are sick of our current divide, but every day I also hear more and more people willing to embrace it—to see the United States ununited and scattered into alternative political havens. So I can see a glimmer of hope, but if I’m being honest—which is all I know how to be—I largely see this ending horribly. I believe things will only get better once people have had their drunken orgy and sobered up. Only after they’ve become black-out drunk and expressed their savage catharsis with their carnal urges, only once they’ve woken up the morning after to witness what they’ve left in their wake—a mountain of bodies, used and abused, and a sea of spilled bodily fluids flung from floor to ceiling—only once they’ve seen the awful things they’ve done and then say to themselves, “What the fuck have I become?” do I see real hope for a breakthrough of self-realization. And that, my friends, is a Twilight Zone climax that I do not wish to participate in.
And though I, like everyone, enjoy being right—here’s to praying that I’m wrong.
That’ll do it for now. Stay safe out there.