The Deer on the Road

The other day, I was driving down one of those two-lane roads that cuts through the forests. The sun had just barely set enough to the point where the stars peeked through the clouds and a mystical darkness covered the landscape. There were no cars to blind me with their headlights, and my engine gradually entered a near-silent state as the slope of the road normalized.

Perhaps my reflexes were weakened by my mesmerization within this natural world. Right in front of me, a deer gracefully leaped across the roadway. While its majesty leaped out like nothing I had ever seen in my young, ignorant life, it seemed to fit in perfectly with the dark green pines and shimmering stars above me. Maybe that is what delayed my reaction. The deer did not yield to the inventions of mankind as it struck my car. I could see its shocked face through my window as I slammed on the brakes and veered to the shoulder of the roadway. It slid along the side of the car, tearing off the flare above the rear left tire. As I finally came to a complete stop, I noticed a blur in my rear-view mirror as it darted into the forest from whence it came. As I stepped outside, I noticed the car seemed completely fine and I was able to recover the flare, still coated with a thin layer of deer hair that must have been torn off by contact with the rubber of the tire. Although the damage to the vehicle was relatively mild, I stood in a state of surrealism as I realized I was not as immune to the outside world as I had previously believed, and the outside world was not immune to me. I injured something. And that something very well could have injured me. I was vulnerable.

Avoiding Feeling

I fear that the people of the world are ignorant to their vulnerabilities within their own hunks of metal. Just as there will always be deer and other natural forces interfering with our roadways, reality will always keep us in check no matter how secure we feel. In past times, the solution to this quandary was rather straightforward: face reality.

Today, we have means to avoid -- or at least delay -- this solution. The development of modern technology has veered away from the progression of society and towards the construction of a shield against the troubles of reality. Our phones and computers engulf us in an ideal world in which we possess absolute control over everything. We can control who we wish to talk to. We can control what we want to see, hear, or create. We can control what our image is -- we can post whatever we want and edit it as thoroughly as we desire to the point where it portrays us in an entirely unrealistic light. We can debate anyone -- say deplorable things to anybody. After all, this person is just an icon on an illuminated two-dimensional plane, right? This isn’t reality -- I’m not actually saying these things to a human being, am I?

We feel empowered by this control over our actions -- our ability to do as we desire without even an ounce of consequence. We feel anonymous, all-powerful, all-knowing, and immortal. We feel divine when we escape reality. We only view the undesirable truths of reality through the side window of our driver’s seat.

Unfortunately, for those overly dependent on the egotistical boost provided by the Internet, there is inevitably a time in which we must face reality. There is a time in which we must get out of the driver’s seat. What will we do when we face the people we just relentlessly honked at when they were driving too slow for our liking? What will we do when we hit the deer that we are used to seeing only in the distance through the protective defense of our windows?

Perseverance

The  answer to this question is my biggest fear for society. I fear it more than war. I fear it more than starvation, riots, political corruption, tyranny, economic depression, and natural catastrophes. All of the above -- while disastrous -- have happened to society before. We’ve gotten through them by means of the might of human perseverance. This perseverance -- this will to face reality and conquer its downsides -- is vital to the continuation of the human race. I fear that our attempts to flee reality are destroying this.

There are countless cases of our ignorance of reality doing cruel things to our society. Take, for example, the recent political division that has ripped the American spirit in half. What has fueled this hatred? There are many hypotheses. It could be economic struggles, a lack of societal progression, or dissatisfaction with the current state of the government. These are all great theories. In fact, I do believe every one of these problems touches a large portion of the American people -- but there’s one problem with saying that they have fueled our divisions: we have experienced all of these problems before. We persevered and worked through divisions by allowing our opinions to be enlightened by reality -- by the truth.

Truth

I believe political issues have been falsely accused of causing our divisions. The real culprit is our denial of reality -- our voluntarily ignorant behavior towards the truth. Our idealistic bubble within the internet has allowed us to surround ourselves solely with people that agree with us. This cannot occur in reality. The Internet allows even the most ignorant and radical of individuals to seem as credible as anybody else. It allows completely false and skewed information to find a home. If we are to believe everything that seems professional online, we lose our sense of reason and impartiality. We view opinion articles that reinforce our viewpoints as absolute proof that we are right, and when we see articles portraying opposing opinions, we ignore them and dismiss them because we have considered the reinforcement of our own opinions to be so objectively factual. We feel that we control the truth.

Virtual Control

I fear that we have become too comfortable in the driver’s seat. Our perception of reality has altered to accept a perspective where we have absolute control over everything around us, as the Internet has given us this virtual control. In reality, however, the Internet is controlling us. We can no longer distinguish between true and false, credible and sketchy, acceptable and immoral. Therefore, behavior and opinion that we would at one time consider radical inches its way into normalcy. Our habits online defy what we would do out in the real world. I fear that this infection of unrealistic behavior will detach us from reality -- rendering us unprepared for when it strikes. I fear that we will become mystified with the driver’s seat and ill-prepared for a deer innocently prancing through the forest only to be struck by a beaming object. Maybe such an accident could have been avoided if the driver knew its place in reality and was prepared for the forces of nature. Maybe.