Staring Into the Abyss

Last night we had the opportunity to walk into what could easily be described as one of the recruitment stations for Hell. We had a community event that was being hosted at a conference venue that is attached to a casino. Casinos, working as they are to maximize exposure to the machines so that one will be enticed to spend his or her money, make it so that you have to walk through the machines even if you aren't "there to gamble." And so, dressed for a formal dinner, we walked through the casino.

Now I want to say this carefully, because I don't want to fall into some overarching judgment of the people in the casino -- but my feeling was one of sadness and entrapment. Here were these immortal souls -- caught in their mostly aging and failing bodies -- sitting by each other in a communion of longing -- some even tied to the machines by an actual tether that connected their "rewards" card to their belts -- like some sort of human machine interface -- vaguely borg-like drawing them in further into the wanness and wanting. It was very similar to a multitude of science fiction tropes where the protagonist walks into a laboratory or alien lair and sees the people who have been taken captive/half eaten/become inthralled by the alien/government/evil scientist/vampire clan. I was full of pity and revulsion. Pity for these poor lost people who found a place like this to be somehow compelling in its tawdriness and revulsion for a species for whom this is the apex of existence.

But it is easy to judge the other when I'm not the one caught in this particular web. It makes me wonder, exactly what is it that I'm caught in? What levers am I constantly pulling? What rewards do I seek? What emptiness do I stare into?