Click. The deafening noise, at my fingertips. With a push of a button, rainbows - not one, two - but infinite rainbows of bit sized-information come pouring into my infant mind. The numbing content splurges into becoming the many chattering minds lobbying my head. But the observant me knows better – for too many colours don’t make art; for too many voices don’t make rhythm. Click, click. I can’t stop. I can’t stop succumbing to those dopamine-packets made of memes, tweets and likes. I am addicted. I am addicted to the never ending stream of electronic ecstasy. Click, click, click. LOL. - Ruiz Asri, June 2015
The above was a poem that I wrote back in June 2015. It was a 100 word text submission for EnglishJer’s HundredHundred event in the Cooler Lumpur Festival in KL, Malaysia. It was a part of the event’s “Dangerous Ideas” segment.
My poem above entitled, “Clicking my mind away” is about people who are constantly tapping and clicking their phones/computers in their everyday lives. These individuals are gradually losing awareness of how their minds are slowly growing addicted to the content online. Consequently, in exchange for that addiction, they lose their ability to think critically.
Funny how the poem that I wrote 5 years ago, still rings truer than ever in terms of its message. Funny, but scary.
Let us claim ownership over our own ability to think. Do not ever sell it for anything less.
Ruiz