It may be my age?
Once you hit half a century, things are meant to be pretty sorted and life is reaching it's pinnacle and looking sweet, right?
Only it isn't. certainly not here in "sunny prosperous stable and strong " England!
If anything it seems to be turning into the opposite, pretty much everything is centred around money, saving it, cutting it and trying to make and accumulate more. The higher things like art, culture and promoting a fairer more peaceful society have been squashed almost out of existence. Any notion of sustainability or resilience in any context appear to be ignored if not actively subdued in a wave of short-term consolidation; if it doesn't make money or save it NOW, then it is of no use- those in power see as far as the end of their influence. After that, they intend to hide away and live off whatever they have squirrelled away for them selves, often far from the scene of the crime..
The temptation to hide away and subdue the anxiety with escapist behaviours in combination with complicated tales from netflix et al is so strong, but this cannot last forever- box sets run out!
The irony is the blurring between these realities and the one in which we live. The ultra-violence is spreading and the suspicion that we are actually living in a alternative dystopian version of our times is getting over whelming.
The fictional news in these visual tales and the "reality" served up as live action is getting closer in content, too close for comfort and the consequences are looking to be far -reaching and will affect us all.
Orwell has now been superceded, big brother has been joined by the rest of the family and the monitoring and influence on our lives and outlooks has become so invasive that we voluntarily carry our screens in front of us where-ever we go!
The hive of the matrix looms nearer, but sometimes it is worth questioning this- how bad could that be?
Is it worth trying to escape after all- as they found- perhaps the true reality is too harsh to bear and we might be better off immersed in a "false" one where the sun always shines and life appears to be sweet?
Fact is always stranger than fiction is a common truism, but reality is an illusion is another!
And there is the rub, however awful it gets, will we be able to stop watching? - I guess that depends on which side of the camera one finds oneself at any given time...