This is great. I hadn't considered the insanity of the modern world through this angle - everyone is LARP'ing all the time, without realizing it. Trying to point this out to people makes them mad because now you're 'ruining the show.'
This is a great post. Your best yet. There's a bit in Infinite Jest and DFW's subsequent interviews where he talks about lethal entertainments. The attraction of the channel we tune into overpowers other needs or futures, like living together sanely. The woke revolution and the neo-reactionary goose-steppers emerge from our many small choices to live something more exciting, and take the place of life's hard and banal work. Unfortunately, those roles are a drug and LARPing ends like a drug habit. You bottom out. You are forced to remember what war is like, and long for banality again. That's the scary part.
This is great. I hadn't considered the insanity of the modern world through this angle - everyone is LARP'ing all the time, without realizing it. Trying to point this out to people makes them mad because now you're 'ruining the show.'
This is a great post. Your best yet. There's a bit in Infinite Jest and DFW's subsequent interviews where he talks about lethal entertainments. The attraction of the channel we tune into overpowers other needs or futures, like living together sanely. The woke revolution and the neo-reactionary goose-steppers emerge from our many small choices to live something more exciting, and take the place of life's hard and banal work. Unfortunately, those roles are a drug and LARPing ends like a drug habit. You bottom out. You are forced to remember what war is like, and long for banality again. That's the scary part.
https://tonyreinke.com/2018/03/05/david-foster-wallace-on-entertainment-culture/