The Lights are too Bright

Aren't you glad that you were born before the rise of mobile phones, ipods and the internet? When lugging around a CD player that played your song CD's, and modest, cheerful people dancing and colorful captions for karaoke music videos, the Recycle song, and owning a bicycle was cool? When ice cream was chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, and maybe yam and durian and corn, and not exploding mango, brownie and ribbons of odd flavors and cheesecake, and when Rainbow was radical enough? When candy was 5 sen? (I think it still is, somewhere) When TV's were small and boxy and you knew things inside were not real because the picture wasn't so sharp you could hurt your eyes? When the films of the 1980's were grainy, washed-up, far away, and seemed so real yet not real enough, that you want to return to the real world after? When Disney made cartoons that made sense? When Pokemon was the coolest thing in the world, when blackboards and chalk and paper and pencil and wooden desks and chairs were your life? Before everyone had a mobile phone, when you had to schedule your appointments face-to-face and you had to get there on time because there wouldn't be a way to contact the other person to tell them that you'll be late?

When food was real. When people were real. When I still felt that we had an identity, a vision, a place to head to. Perhaps then I was a carefree child full of nothing and worry-free.

Why did it felt like the world went to waste at around 2004, to 2005? Why did it seem a sharp decline? The first things I noticed were the goods. Suddenly they felt cheaper in quality. They tore easier, lasted shorter. Then the colors became more vivid. Bright, unreal, hurting. Suddenly the distinction between the real world and a created one, one that told stories and one that marketed goods, was blurred. Suddenly two pots of soup were mixed, poured onto the ground, stomped on and mixed. Suddenly the world was a mess. 

It has been a mess since. What happened? Why did the food taste stronger, but more bland? Why did the lights become too bright, piercing almost? Why did the smiles seem so out of place, the tone so fake, the people so distant and unsatisfied? Why does nothing last?

The lights are too bright. That's what I use to describe this most. They hurt my eyes, then they hurt my ears. It's like that buzzing, whining sound you hear, off those fairy lights. It's so bright and so loud and so hot, and the smell is so sharp that I want to smother myself and hide away under my 1998 blankets and 1998 mattress, maybe crush some flowers in my 1998 garden and smell the smell of dead leaves. 1998 felt more real than the world now.