Doom Scrolling

And God bless Ray Bradbury

Random noun: Cascade. 

Meaning: Falling or rushing forth, in quantity. As in, Her hair was a cascade of curls. Or, The waterfall cascaded over the cliff.

Bad news can cascade. If you “doom scroll,” you know what I’m talking about. You can wake up after a refreshing sleep, get the coffee going, check your email, but the moment you get onto any social media or news site, boom, the cascade begins, and before you can take a shower you’re showered with gloom.

You could call it “Gloom scrolling.”

Or on dating sites for women: “Groom scrolling.”

Stop me before I pun again.

Scrolling itself, as a practice, often looks ridiculous. As when someone is scrolling as they’re strolling. I’ve seen so many instances of a man or woman pushing a stroller down the sidewalk on a nice day, head bent over their phone. What ever happened to just taking a nice walk and looking around you (and especially at where you are going)?

Worse still is when the tyke in the stroller has its own device to lock eyes on. Birds are flying through the air, trees are changing colors, houses are decorated for holidays, clouds form shapes in the sky, but little Liam is moving digital bunnies around a peppermint forest on a tiny screen.

It’s time to re-read “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, from his classic collection, The Illustrated Man. Two little kids, a boy and a girl, have a virtual playroom that can give them any setting they want, like a jungle with wild beasts. Finally, the parents say enough is enough and try to pry the kids away, only to get locked inside the room and feasted upon by lions. The children are satisfied, though. They have the room all to themselves now without parental interruption. Ever again.

I read The Illustrated Man in junior high and it blew me away. It opened my mind up to the wonderful possibilities of story writing.

That’s why I was thrilled to meet Ray Bradbury when he gave a talk at the branch of the L.A. Library where I hung out as a kid and now as an adult. I brought my highlighted copy of his book Zen in the Art of Writing for him to sign. 

“Are you a writer?” he asked.

I quoted from the book: “Stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

He laughed and said, “Oh, you must!”

I asked him if he set himself a daily quota, and he said, “I let my love determine how much I write.”

“Ah, so you fall in love daily?”

“That’s right!”

He signed my book. “Do you write every day?” he asked.

“Five days a week,” I said. “Weekends are for my family.”

He laughed again. “That’s the way to do it!” He offered his hand and said, “God bless you.”

Dr. William Bierer died at the ripe old age of 87. “Ripe old age” means a long life that has been relatively healthy, like mature fruit. That seems to describe Dr. Bierer, who was a pulmonologist, taught at UCLA medical school, and served with the United States Air Force. Of course, there’s another meaning of the word “ripe,” and that’s when it’s used ironically for something odoriferous. That shows how flexible our language is. 

Flexibility is a good thing. It will help one to get to a ripe old age. Do a lot of stretching, just not of the truth. There’s more than enough of that going on right now. 

Indeed, the idea that there is such a thing as truth itself is under attack. When the Greek philosophers were walking around talking about truth, it was accepted that what corresponded to reality was true. Especially in math. Two plus two equals four…truly!

Or does it? Not if the Ministry of Truth has anything to say. That’s the arm of the government in Orwell’s 1984 that makes you state that what is untrue is true—to control your mind, body, and spirit. Two plus two equals five, right? If you demur, you get shown by Sir Brad to the Pit of Misery.

That last reference is to a Bud Light beer commercial that became hugely popular. A king is accepting Bud Light packs from his subjects, approving them with the words “Dilly dilly.”

Until a smiling fellow sets down an unmarked bottle. The king wonders what that is, and the fellow says, “This is a spiced, honey-mead wine that I have really been into lately.”

Unimpressed, the king calls to Sir Brad to escort the fellow to the Pit of Misery. 

“I’m sorry, what?” says the fellow.

The crowd shouts, “To the misery! Dilly dilly!”

We’ve got a lot of shouting “To the misery!” going on. Just like in ancient Rome, when bloodthirsty crowds packed the Coliseum to watch gladiators fight to the death, or lions feast upon the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

“Bread and circuses” was the metaphor coined by Roman satirist Juvenal (55 A.D. – 128 A.D.) to describe this strategy of the emperors to distract the people from societal problems. They exploited two desires, for food and entertainment. Today we might say “Pop Tarts and TikTok” or “Funyuns and Mario Kart.”

How about we laugh more and do misery less? Thus:

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, "A beer please, and one for the road."