Believing the Fire Alarm (or not)

Enough of the doomsaying and the one thing that keeps us alive and progressing—hope—becomes buried and suffocates like a child in a 75,000 gallon ball pit.

In my many years I've never had an in-apartment fire alarm that talks to me.

[KLAXON SOUND] "There is an emergency in your building. Please cease operations and exit the building at this time. Do not use the elevators. Use the stairs down to the street." [KLAXON SOUND] "There is an emergency in your building. Please cease operations and exit the building at this time. Do not use the elevators. Use the stairs down to the street."

It's downtown Wichita so by the time I've put on my shoes and pants and get down seven flights of stairs every firetruck in the city is out in front of the building. Scores of fireman and firewomen, complete with gear and axes, enter the building with utmost seriousness.

About a month ago, the building across the street (owned by the same management company) was flooded from the roof down by a homeless cat who both figured out how to get up on the roof and knew how to turn on the top-down water mains. It destroyed the first two floors with the seventh floor walls collapsing in some places. The woman standing next to me on the sidewalk has wet hair and a towel. She tells me that she was on the sixth floor when the ther building flooded and had just moved into an available apartment in my building today. She was unpacking, decided to take a shower, and was visited by low-grade trauma when the alarm started barking at her this evening.

She and I chat—about her family in San Diego, about my family here. Neither of us care much for Wichita but I’m here for my reasons and she is studying at the medical college across Douglas Ave. The firepersons(?) give the okay and we wish each other well. No one tells any of us why the alarm was engaged so we all sort of shamble back to our respective cubbies.

Back in the loft, I get comfortable again. My beer is still sitting where I left it and the television is paused, a frozen Mandalorian in mid-flight on the screen. I settle back in. Twenty minutes later the alarm starts yapping at me again. Again, I hop into clothes and shoes, gather my iPhone and keys, and head down to the street. Fewer trucks, fewer emergency crew, fewer people bothered to heed the alarm. The turnaround is about half the time.

An hour later I’m crashing. Teeth are brushed, television off, I’m reading a book of essays from the sixties to slow myself into sleep and the goddamned alarm starts shouting again. I get up, walk over to the shelf where the Monster Jam headphones are sitting (less headphones because they dampen sound rather than transmit it). I put them on and the Lady of the Alert is only barely present. I go back to reading. If the place burns or floods I suppose I’ll fry or drown but I’m not playing her game again tonight.

∞∞∞∞∞

We live at a remarkable time. Despite what the Rage Profiteers would have you believe, human rights has never been better than right now. Civil rights, public education, healthcare—all better by a long shot than any other time in history. There is less racism, less sexism, less violence by a significant margin from even thirty years ago. We have access to computers so much more advanced than the ones that guided the first moon landing and they fit in our pockets.

We also have allowed ourselves to be made overwhelmingly anxious about the possibilities of disaster. The human brain is advanced but the muscle to process the sheer amount of information cascading around us, pointed at us, has not yet been properly exercised. We’re drowning in alarmist bullshit every waking minute of the day. Listen to the radio, read the news, watch television and the messages are simplistic in the pessimistic fear-tactics. Democracy is on the brink of extinction constantly. Transgender people are being attacked so aggressively it’s a genocide to even question the ideology. White people (and specifically white police) are murdering young black men in astonishing numbers. The climate is so fucked, we’re only moments away from living out The Road. Children can’t read but are being indoctrinated by the Left. Books are being banned in record numbers. The banks are on the brink of destruction. Mental health is in crisis across the entire planet.

More people are voting than in the history of the nation.
There is no ‘genocide’ of transgender people and the number of black men killed by white men is statistically so small it is astonishing the narrative holds.
The climate is a bit screwed but the road to recovery is right in front of us.
Reading scores are low but recognizing the issue has teachers doubling down and preventing children from reading what interests them is counterproductive. That said lots of books are being targeted but very few are actually banned.
The banks are just fine as usury and white collar crime is as American as gambling, liquor, and guns.
The definition of mental illness has expanded but diagnosable and treatable mental illness is not on the rise.

If one were to listen to the noise, the alarm—

[KLAXON SOUND] "There is an emergency in your country. Please cease operations and be afraid. Be very afraid. Stay tuned in to the endless warnings of impending doom. Learn to lump whole groups of people into categories based on completely useless characteristics like gender and skin color and language." [KLAXON SOUND] "There is an emergency on your planet. Please cease operations and let your fear transform to rage. Rage sells, gang. Fear and rage make you more stupid than you were when you bought those yoga pants and that penis pump."

—no wonder eighty-year-old men are shooting random kids ringing the doorbell and the yout in Chicago are losing their minds. Enough of the doomsaying and the one thing that keeps us alive and progressing—hope—becomes buried and suffocates like a child in a 75,000 gallon ball pit.

The solution is not, as many nihilists will mumble in a dirge-like monotone, to give no fucks. No, fucks are always given and anyone who claims he has no fucks to give has the same legitimacy as a thirteen-year-old girl who declares adamantly "I don't CARE!" Yeah. Yeah, you care. The solve to this dire information deluge is to choose which things are worth a fuck or two. Dig into those things and ignore the prognostications of those who profit from your angst.

Try this. You watch the news at fairly habit-formed times. Tomorrow, instead of cranking up the tube or app on your phone, listen to some music for the time it would take to watch or listen to the news. Just sit there and listen to the words if your musical taste trends in the lyrical direction. Consume nothing. Just listen to the music. I like to sit and listen to classic rock or jazz or the brilliant new Apple Classical Music app.

I know that getting rid of your social media is like asking a drug addict to maybe just put the needle down. Maybe instead delete all of them. Completely delete them. Twitter, Faceborg, Instagram, Tik Tok. You can always start a brand new account, fresh and clean. The people who are genuinely interested in you will understand and follow. The rest? Who gives a shit?

Take a walk. Anywhere or nowhere. Just motorvate those chubby footsies and stroll. Hop in your car (if you have one) and just drive with the window down, your arm hanging out, and Led Zeppelin IV blasting out of the tiny speakers. Read a book you wouldn't ordinarily read.

Sometimes you have to ignore the alarm just to get some sleep.