The Reality of Today
Of course, with the advent of the coronavirus, many things in our lives have changed, but the most interesting thing is that this news affected not only each of us individually, but also all of us together as a community. All over the social media began talking only about the dead from the virus, new cases of infected every day and all about the pandemic, which took over all social media and television. Important topics such as education, healthcare, politics and social life suddenly became insignificant and quickly gave way to the new big news.
That's why I was surprised when I saw the topic of the competition, because absolutely everything is already related to the cоrona virus, and here we are looking for the abstraction from it and return the gaze back to the somewhat forgotten problems. This is exactly what made me express my opinion on an issue that I think it is time to address again and that deserves to be discussed by more people who are living in 21st century.
As soon as I read the topic, I'm sure that more than half of the readers are set to read reflections on issues such as racism, sexuality, the impact of social networks on teenagers, climate issues - you know what I mean. Of course, discussing these topics is also important, but I feel that too many opinions have already been expressed to try to add my own, so I chose a topic that has been deliberately avoided for many years, because of course it's so convenient not to discuss it. A problem that I have been excited about for some time, and I began to notice that it is becoming more and more honest a topic for reflection among my friends. A problem that affects everyone individually, but still unknown why it shouldn’t be on the news, namely the truth of our existence and the limits of our so-called "boundless" freedom.
It is very likely that anyone who has seen which problem I have chosen to address will say to himself, "Here is another layman who will make an in-depth description and be considered very well-read, making an unprecedented analysis of George Orwell's book -,,1984 " . As ingenious as the book is and it touches very directly on the topic I have chosen, I want to escape the already banal and make a comparison with a number of other examples, which I think can just as well serve as a means of what I want to explain.
I'm sure each of you, at least once a week, happens to say, "I feel like I'm being watched / I feel like I'm being followed." A feeling of doubt arises in us, such as when we walk alone out of town on the street, feeling that someone is watching us, but when we turn around there is no one. Such an impression most often remains in our country from, for example, seen advertising on one of the social networks, depending on which one we use, of a product commented by us during the day. It has happened to everyone to go out with friends or even to have lunch with their family and talk about, for example, the recently purchased phone. After lunch, respectively going home, you go to bed, unlock your phone to see what's new on social networks and boom Facebook - "Buy our new phone, at the moment at a unique price", then boom Instagram - ,, You are looking for a better camera, you need more megabytes - do not hesitate to order our new phone model "and the same happens with every application you open after that. As the ads that are presented to you are not of some random phone model, but of the one you commented on earlier in the day. I wonder why, maybe, because all our data is ,,protected and no one is watching us''. Now is the time to ask the question why, when we turn off our phone, its microphone continues to work and to hear every word we say without our consent? Suspicious, don’t you think?
Everybody is speaking about how strictly our data is protected and how everything is on the user's side, but why, in order to enter a simple site, I am forced to enter personal data such as name, age, place of residence, etc. ? Because everything is for direct marketing purposes. That is, after you have already entered this data, because you actually have no other choice, you indirectly forcibly confirm that they can follow your interesting ones, such as what you are looking for on the Internet and start monitoring what sites you visit, which products you target more often, they listen to what you comment and put an individualized advertisement in order to see how you will react. And all of this can serve as an example of us being used as an experiment to find out how different people react to different situations. At one point, one begins to feel like the protagonist of The Matrix (Keanu Reeves), who is horrified to discover that the universe in which he lives is actually a computer program created by a giant robot scout. This, of course, is a bit exaggerated, because we are still talking about a science fiction movie, but what can we say about the Simpsons then. An animation that predicted dozens of things that happened many years after the series aired.
And since I started with the topic of films, because I think that this is the most non-committal way that somebody can take stock of the situation, I also want to pay close attention to a film that I think can best support my statements. As most of you have probably noticed, the same movies are repeated on television, most often from the 90s, no matter if it is a comedy or drama at least twice a week. But do you know which movies are televised once a year, if you're lucky enough to happen? And the more important question - have you ever wondered why some films are obviously less marketed than others? Maybe because these are the films that show what the reality is behind all the facades and ready-made scripts. The film that touches on the subject for me in the best possible way is The Truman Show. To the people who have not yet had the opportunity to watch this film, I can only say that I highly recommend it , because it has an excellent plot, that you can think about for more than a day, and to those who are already familiar with the film , I can only ask the question - "Do you still believe that everything is as it seems?". First, I will summarize the plot in a few words so that everyone can get a clear idea of what it is about. The Truman Show is a film that will make you rethink the reality of your life and all the events that take place in it. The main character - for those of you who want to know who plays the role - Jim Carrey - is the most ordinary person who has a stable job, family, friends and has the simple dream to travel to Fiji. But the truth is that millions of people watch his life all day from their home TV screens, because he is part of the world-famous TV show called The Truman Show, in which he serves as an experiment from birth. And even the people around the main character are nothing more than ordinary actors and extras. One day, while driving to work, a searchlight falls next to him and since then various "disturbances" begin to occur, which make him filled with suspicion and he takes on the task of revealing the truth about his life. I would say that this is a brilliant film that very accurately illustrates how everything is presented to us in the way we ourselves want it to look. A world full of monotony, in which we find ourselves lost in a vicious circle, because the society told us that this is the way it should be. But at some point we have to doubt the correctness of this life and think about what our role here and now really is, because otherwise our life remains under the complete control of who knows who.
An interesting theory on the subject was also developed by the German physicist Silas Beane from the University of Bonn, Germany, who argued that if we actually live in a computer simulation, then our universe should have a certain resolution or in other words, there should be a limit to this how small something should be to exist, just as nothing can be less than a pixel on a computer screen. An interesting fact is that the scientist found something called Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin, and it is believed that this may be the first evidence that the world around us consists of artificial bits created by some other intelligence. So far, nothing has been fully confirmed, because Silas and his colleagues are busy inventing new ways to find the computer we may be living in, but I think it's all a matter of time.
I think that what I have said so far has served precisely enough to defend what I had to say on my subject, so I will not hesitate any longer and I will leave your thoughts to you, concluding only: "Dear reader, look up and say cheese to the camera ”.
About the artist: Neli Dencheva
My name is Neli Dencheva and I am from Bulgaria. I am 19 years old, a student of Economics and Business Administration (second semester) in Stuttgart, Germany.
I hope that the topic I have chosen to discuss and the way I have tried to recreate what I wanted to prove will be fascinating for more people, because more and more often I have started to notice that this problem is gaining popularity among a wider audience. We all ask ourselves the same questions, which unfortunately remain unanswered. The purpose of my essay is to express my point of view in an accessible and less engaging way so that everyone can clearly understand exactly what I want to say.