This Is How The Internet Works

Here's how the internet works.  You surf around looking at photos while you drink coffee in the pre-dawn darkness and think about what a wonderful life it would be if you didn't have to go to work. There are many people who do not go to work, and some of them do fantastic things.  You have to concede, however, that the vast majority do nothing of note, but you know what you would do as long as you did not start drinking until the sun was (almost) down.

Then you come across a site that makes you jump up and down with excitement.  Like this one.  The photographs are so good that the heading, "Photos from Justice and Police Museum Collection" seems unlikely.  These had to be done by a very serious photographer, you think, and if you are anything like me, you want to throw away all of your cameras for not being this good.  But after going through the lot of them, you know that it must be true and the anxiety/depression sets in.  "Where can I get people who look like this?" you wonder, but you know you can't.  It is gone, all gone.

So then you click on the link to the site where this appeared, and BAM! there you go all over again.  Life is Drugs has put up a site to send you spinning, Everyday I Show.  And looking through it, you are rendered useless.  Where do these photos come from?  You see the name on one set:  Lasse Persson.  You go to his site.  Hayzeus Marimba!  Who is this guy?  And so you search for a biography. You sink further.  He is a fellow who just gave himself over to this sort of photography at an early age.  You think you should have, too.

"I have such a sensibility," you think.  "What is it I lack?"  You don't think about it too much, though, for you must hurry.  You have to get to work. And you know the very thing that makes you rich keeps you poor.  A nice variation on an old phrase.

I will write to Lasse Persson and tell him how much he has depressed me and ruined my life.  No, no, I won't say that.  I will tell him nice things, laudatory things.  And we will become friends and he will give me his photo collection.  I will go to visit him and we shall sit on a veranda and drink cocktails while he spins out the tale of his life.

But I must stop here for my heart is racing.  I have to get in the shower and get to work or face the consequences.  And I can't.  I can't face the consequences.  I have an especially long day, and I will come back tired to eat something I picked up on the way home.  I will open the wine or the beer and set up the dinner tray and turn on the television.  Exhausted.  I will watch something I've recorded and when the food is gone I will pour a scotch.  I will think about the things I wish I had the energy to do and I will wake up when the glass turns over in my lap.

I should have been a criminal instead.