commonplaces

I work in the part of the OU library where we digitize old collections for internet use and where students and faculty may ask one of us "student assistants" to xerox copies if they desire to pay more than twice the normal price per copy. It follows of course that this is not a highly stressful job. My position entails little responsibility, and I'm not asked to interact with the public too much (and when I do I'm not required to be friendly [and I'm not]), and this suits me fine.

But I am asked to sit at my computer desk for up to six hours at a time, depending on the shift length. I've been doing this regularly since January, and I'm beginning to think that it's destroying my mind and my soul. The internet might be evil. It's most likely destroying our culture and making us stupid. It seems obvious that this would happen; drugging ourselves with television for the past 50 years has taken its toll, and we need something stronger.

And our post-cultural malaise may as well eat itself away from the inside out as far as I'm concerned, but that doesn't mean I need to be a part of it. But this is hard to do. I already have a hard enough time staying away from the internet, and now I have a job that requires I be on it. But then again, what else was I expecting when I got a job in the library? No one actually reads books in this building anymore. They just play farmville and experiment with their various anal proclivities in the stacks.

Down in lower level one, there I am staring at a screen filled with light. I check my e-mail. Check Facebook. Check AL Daily, Google Reader, OU Daily, NY Times. Post a link on Facebook. Look at photos. Facebook status update. Read blogs. Read articles. Do Latin homework (maybe). Click, click, click, type. Switch from tab to tab in Firefox. I have no attention span. I'm barely aware of my body any longer. I'm becoming a gnostic. I can't form coherent sentences. Listlessness takes over. I need a cigarette to remind me I'm real.