By Miles Patrick Yohnke
© 2022 © 2009 All Rights Reserved.
EVERYTHING IS WRONG INTRODUCTION
In January 2009, I wrote a poem titled: "Everything is Wrong." I wrote it as I predicted lives walking while staring at their phones. This was a time when Blackberry was the most coveted phone. iPhone had very little market share, Samsung even less. 'Smart' phones wasn't even a term. Facebook was in its infancy. Twitter was new. Instagram did not exist nor did other social media platforms like Tik Tok. Please keep this in mind when reading the poem. At the bottom you'll find a 3-minute video. Made seven years after my poem was originally released and picked up by various inspirational websites around the world, it earned many enthusiastic reviews. The video is an extension, if you will of the poem; of what would become the culture of many. My hope in revisiting this poem is reversing the course many are on. Thank you!
EVERYTHING IS WRONG
"Technology is taking the human race on a reckless ride to nowhere."
- Ted Kaczynki, A.K.A. The Unabomber
"It has become appallingly clear that our technology has outgrown our humanity."
- Albert Einstein
Everything is wrong,
To me these moments are unbearable,
We've lost most of our self value,
Heart to heart we can speak no longer.
We used to lose ourselves in books,
We could lose ourselves to our imaginations,
Now we barricade our lives in Facebook,
The lost threads of our own fabrication.
This is another generation, a lost generation,
We have become fragments of what we were,
No longer able to manage one's self,
On the wrong path to question did not occur.
When o where did we lose our way,
We stare at our cellphone screens lost in the moment,
Not living for the present just lost in all our torment,
Lost so lost and waiting to be needed, liked, or maybe loved.
We seek to speak through our devices,
No longer face to face,
Now we hide in cyberspace,
Is this where all the truth is.
Technology seems to rule this land,
We hide under our own skin,
Longing for another to undress,
Undress the honest spirit that lies within.
Everything is wrong,
Where has our compassion gone,
Lost so lost and ever searching,
To find a place where we belong.
To watch 'Sad World' a powerful 3-minute video, please click here.
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