Desensitized Daydreams

Desensitization: 1. To render insensitive or less sensitive. 2. To make emotionally insensitive or unresponsive, as by long exposure or repeated shocks.

There came the unmistakable hollow grinding of plastic on concrete from the street below. I rushed to my window and saw a kid lying in the street next to a moped, wheels still spinning, plastic parts spread on the concrete. He only lay there a few seconds, then rose to his feet, dusted himself off, and took stock of the situation.

Body intact? Check. Moped? Missing the left side mirror, various parts, large pieces of plastic. A pool of some motor fluid grew slowly, proof that the Chinese manufacturer never intended it to be ridden sideways. Or at all. The kid cocked his leg back and kicked it, twice, four times, the scooter shuddering with each blow. Then he picked it up, pointed it downhill, and coasted away, leaving plastic shards and an oil spot on the street.

This was passing amusement, and I soon returned to the day's chores of writing and editing, staring idly at the four way intersection down the street and wondering if anything interesting would go sailing into a telephone pole today.

Why is it curious to watch accidents? Why is it more normal than repulsive to watch traffic slow down as it passes a well-off-the-road accident so the gawkers can get an eyeful? Why is it normal for us to curse them for their twisted voyeurism, then tap our brakes and turn our heads in sheepish curiosity?

There's something changing in the state of Denmark, though I'm not yet sure if it's rotten. Every major revelation carries the question: "Is this a new age of perspective...or do I have a new perspective, with my age?" We only get twelve months experience being any one age: eighteen, twenty one, thirty, forty seven... So when we curse the latest generation of kids or shake our heads at the follies of the generation before us, we have to wonder: is the world different, or, as we're always changing...is it us?

I first started visiting gory, obscene websites (I won't name names...they're not paying me, fuckers) years ago, and got hooked immediately. There was a stretch of about eight hours where I abused a T-1 connection to look at every picture and video posted on these sites, and something happened in my brain. Maybe a sickness took seed. Perhaps somewhere, a devil got its horns. Whatever it is, it marked a progressive change when the macabre became amusement and the unclean, divine.

My girlfriend found her way into my bed a few months ago, and while her nearly perfect body graced my sheets, I was somewhere else in my mind. The moment was all she needed, but when I closed my eyes, I saw a midget gangbang fisting away to the beat of German heavy metal. This was my happy place, where mind and body met as one despite the distance between.

Desensitization. You can build up tolerance to caffeine and nicotine, illicit drugs and prescription medication, condition your body to perform more, faster, better. It takes more to excite a skydiver than just a low altitude static line jump. They freefall, they take up BASE jumping, while drug addicts shoot more heroin, fat chicks eat more food, marathon runners push for another mile. We like the envelope pushed: more graphic, more macabre, more hardcore, more, more, more.

And so I sit here, alone in the dark with her unreturned phone calls blinking on my answering machine, looking at more train wreck videos and suicide bomber photos.

But so do you.