When does a tool become a mental prison?
A thought experiment
You awake in a world of perfected digital technology. You feel no pain. Pleasure is unlimited and takes any form you imagine. All friction has an antidote. Effort is optional and generally considered irrational.
You have infinite options. Your mind is plugged in to this machine and it is the interface you use to control this world. Thoughts become objects. Anything and everything can be reshaped by idea prompts.
If you choose, you could dial the pleasure knob to 11 and cruise along in bliss for as long as your heart keeps beating. Alternatively you could use the technology to make things. This is the avatar you’ve chosen, you are an artist. As a creator you invent world after world. Each iteration gets a bit better, closer to the pictures in your mind.
And yet you are dissatisfied by what you’ve made.
The closer your creations get to perfection the more hollow they feel. No matter what you do, you never feel ownership of these simulations. Deep down you know, but you can’t bring yourself to face the fact that it’s the machine doing the work. Not you.
You overreact and do the unthinkable. You turn the technology off.
In a blink, the real world comes into focus and all the frosting and sizzle that felt so real an instant ago disappears.
Your digital experience is replaced by gray, pain, and confusion. Without the masking effects of the technology, your sensitivity inputs overheat. It hurts.
The air stings your lungs, the light burns your eyes, the texture of fabric grates against your skin. You are a soft, low-res reflection of the identity you cultivated in that digital world. You wobble around the space awkwardly, like a newborn animal finding its legs. You aren’t sure you can survive here.
And worst of all out here you are not an artist.
It’s at this moment that you realize what the perfect technology has stolen from you. Your reliance on the machine has become so great that you can’t function without it. You realize that surviving out here would require you to start over. And yet, that idea is strangely pleasant in a way that the digital work never felt. It’s a terrifying realization because you know that now you have to decide.
Will you turn it back on?
Thanks for reading. Stay creative. Your friend,
Ade
Love this post!