Are we living vicariously?

It seems civilization moves ever more rapidly toward voyeurism.  Modern man spends much of his life watching someone else do something or immersing him or herself into a virtual reality that bears little resemblance to real life.

We watch people act in movies, on television or at the theater.  We observe as entertainers sing or play instruments; we view dancers on stage.  We pay handsome sums to be awed by athletes performing their heroics on a dozen different fields of play.  We spend hours and hours entranced by social media and video games.

Before television, the cinema and mass communication; before the computer and the Internet; before organized professional sports; before video games and facebook and twitter and snapchat – there was a communal life: creative social, artistic and athletic activity that demanded local organization and participation.  People came together to sing, dance, play sports, create art, even make skits or plays. 

It seems there was a time when one didn't have to be a Pavarotti to sing in three part harmony with a group of friends.  Everyone was familiar with folk and popular songs and took every opportunity to join in song with their neighbors, whether in church or for celebrations, or whenever people came together. 

In those days every person who was fortunate enough to own an instrument found other musicians and contributed whatever talent they had to any social gathering.  Now, how many people study a musical instrument in their youth only to abandon it, the instrument rusting away sadly in a closet or attic? If one is not good enough to make a profession of it or compete with the virtuosos, then why continue goes the thinking.  But is watching a talented performer even half as fulfilling as participating, even if the standard is much lower?

There was an age when men and women danced for the sheer joy of movement and romance, rather than on the rare occasion of a drunken grinding ritual.  How many men past the age of 22 can one get out on a dance floor today? Where are the folk dances or even the parlor dances of yesteryear?  It is a sad indication of our cultural decay that a wedding is the only event these days that will inspire most people to leave their seats for the dance floor.

There was a time when weekends were an opportunity to go outdoors for walking and exerting oneself physically; to explore and experience nature amid the companionship of friends or family.  All too often now, the weekends are spent in stubborn isolation, anchored in front of a TV watching sports or a movie, or trapped in the addictive grip of video games or social media.

And where has the art and joy of communicating via the written word gone?  Letter writing, once an important component of any educated person’s social life, has now completely vanished.  Well-developed ideas and thoughts are rarely encountered.  In their place are the quick witticisms and the endless superficial patter of facebook and twitter quips.

Part of our addiction to voyeurism can be laid at the feet of the media – the insidious manipulation of Hollywood and Madison Avenue.  How can our trifling efforts to create and enjoy an active world of our own compare with the exotic super-lives that the rich and talented lead, or that movies and magazine conjure up, or a virtual reality offer?  And of course it is partly due to sloth.  It is so easy to watch - to sit and vicariously experience all that life and the world have to offer.  But what kind of ‘experience’ is that?

The true joys of living cannot come to us secondhand.  They must be experienced directly through a deliberate participation in the everydayness of life.  The glamorous lifestyles and the virtual realities that are offered up as wishful fare for spectators are spiritually hollow - a self-deception and a sham existence, where at best our voyeurism is self-indulgence and at worst a kind of living death.