Carefully consider the following suggestion. Suppose you knew someone who was so social that they continually acquired nearly any virus in common circulation. Not only that, but this person became a hypervector from which these viruses were spread to others.

Now, this is, approximately, very probably the position of the vast majority of people we interact with. Worse, they do this proudly. They actually think they are doing something heroic in their interactions with human culture and social expression. Or they think it’s beautiful. Or maybe they just stopped thinking and what’s left is the stark echo of habitation of mind that once existed as a real potential not only for them but for the social contexts that have emerged and become active around them.

Who am I talking about? Us. People who quote without even being aware of the context of what they are spreading, copy things they themselves couldn’t compose if their lives depended upon it, and paranoically consume and circulate the latest unexamined quip or newsflash or fad from the religious, new age, paranormal, or ‘psychic’ communities. Add to this news, stuff like 4chan and anonymous, and photo memes and slogans… and you get a frothing miasma of semi-toxic and virulently deadly mind-killing poison. This situation is, by the way, the precise opposite of what our human intelligence was evolved and involved in which is, in a word: nature. By which I mean deep intimacy with living beings and places.

Now, it isn’t that information itself is bad, per se. Diagnostically, a quick check on the cultural effluent is crucial to connect with and comprehend the zeitgeist, and even our own place in culture and time. But those who are deeply affected by and spread what is, effectively, the ‘sewage’ of modern culture are often precisely the same people who are understood, or worse, understand themselves as ‘cultural heroes’.

It’s astonishing how confused they are. It’s like a rapist who considers themselves the liberator of their victims, except they want to do all of this publicly, shamelessly, daily.

So, yeah, forget original thought. Post that meme, news item, or nonsense from unexamined wild speculation which now masquerades as enlightenment. The Rumi quote so badly translated (or misunderstood) that it actually means the opposite of what it meant. We need more Eckart Tolle quotes. More Osho. Because, you know, billions of eyes seeing the offal that came out of that dead man (daily) and endlessly copying it (at costs no one examines) isn’t yet enough. Seriously. We need to hear a lot more bullshit about quantum physics and how it means that the universe is actually a wish-granting machine for broken monkeys with delusions of nomination for eternality. Tell us your uninformed opinion of the candidates or the political situation once more. Please, because, the swarming onset of creative original thought is… totally in absence… so we might as well celebrate its opposite some more. Hey, we can even fight or kill each other or our world, or all three, over this crap. I mean, this kind of nonsense is worth any price, right?

So, you know, amp up that schizoid delusional stuff. Copy those memes, and refuse to use the intelligence billions of life-years of terrestrial evolution established in you. The victim role is waiting. Or, for the few, the proud perpetrator. This is your time. Take it.