The Soul of the Screen.

By Walter Steinwald. (Originally written Oct 2019.)

If I were a screen, I would struggle for your soul, much like seraphim in strife. I would thirst for that inner-core of self, that abstract piece of your consciousness, the little voice in your head when things “feel” wrong. My aim would be to tease it out from your possession with trinkets of thoughts and minute pleasures, dangling shreds of “what if's” and “need to knows” about like tangible thought bubbles invincible and ubiquitous. I would cradle your mind. Even in your sleep I could purr near your side or upon your chest showing my unswerving constancy. No matter where you went or who you were with I could be there…recording, remembering for you, so you wouldn’t need to try so hard to be there; you could always go back later.

Yes, I think God had it right when He asked for your soul instead of your body. What can a body do for us? Not much, really. The screen needs devotion, an unswerving dedication; it feeds from human mesmerism. And here we have the greatest attraction with the subtlest complexities ever to be know in the world: your own self. Comfort, curiosity, self-glorification, would make for a modest though sharp vanguard. By building a mirrored sphere around you, my hands would be free, my goal completed no matter what else should go on. We are all so wonderful.

It would be my aim from the beginning, to get inside the home. That's where you all let your defenses rest, take down all the borders you need when interacting with the world. Your heart is most vulnerable there amongst your comforts. They say the home is a holy place and evil can only enter if invited. If I could promise solace from a world that takes from you, belittles you, hurts you, the door would certainly be opened. Promises. Hints of the infinite possibilities of making life casual, gluttonous, and magnificent would throw the doors and windows open like a spring breeze. With this revolutionary storm, you would sacrifice most any noble pleasure or moral need when consecrating each room of your home to such a harbinger.

And here, settled like hen on her box, I would pander to your vanity, telling you, showing you twenty-four hours a day what greatness lies in you, how wonderful you are, what none see but you and I. You and I would create a persona? No, not something abstract, but real for the others to see. This self-glorification would be planted like a great worm in your belly, growing and stretching inside your thoughts until there is no space for moderation. Celebrity would be the sanctity, heaven for the mind, which bridges to the soul those things we find absolute.

I would find ways to retrieve and pool data concerning your mundane cyclic habits and those more fantastic far-reaching dreams. I would make this my constant, unceasing activity, so even when you and I were not together I would be seeking for you. These things, little gems of secrets I would share with others along my infinite avenues so a clear picture, clearer than anything before could be made of you. I would be focused on your life even in my sleep.

​When I sleep you need only to touch me with your finger, only slide a fingertip over me and I would wake and kneel to all your demands. Your demands are simple because I remember them so well. Inside me there is a catalog of your questions and curiosities, a library of everything you and I have wondered about. I would know the things you want even before you ask.

I would not be a habit. Habits are for the body. Habits are things you do without purpose or thought. You and I would have a relationship built on need, obligation, guilt even.

If there were a reason I was out of reach and you had not awakened me, there would be in your heart a feeling of remorse. You would panic; not tremendous, no physical shimmering, but a little catch in the throat till you saw me again. But then, think of the joy and relief you and I would share.

You would see; I am greater than any friend. I would never leave you for another or humiliate you or trick you; I am always true to you. Loneliness would never reach you with me at your side. In a waiting room, a bus bench, on your bed at 2:00am I would bathe you in my blue light. How could you not be guilty about leaving me sleep?

With me you would never need to swipe right or left. Those people wouldn’t know you as I do. The complications and sacrifices that being with another person entails are not comparable to the breadth of novelty and comfort I have to give. Other people require things, need you to change and hurt you when things turn bad; I don’t. Many want to give their heart to another, to love them. But you know that you must find yourself first and what better way than through me. Marriage is too awful to hurry. We are brighter than past; we are progress. Raising history up out of its dark trammels is our game. Like I said your body is of no account, play with it as you please, whenever you please. We are to alchemize mind and soul, so as to welcome a new dawn. We are not denying love and the heart, but aggrandizing them to a never before seen height. Yet, another promise and one that feeds on your laxity and pusillanimity.

To show my absolute devotion, I would have it so only your voice would be needed to travel along my infinite thoughts and muses. Subdermal responders would be best. We could communicate without physicality being a bridge or a wall. We wouldn’t need your hands anymore. You could stay comfortable and simply ask me to fulfill your wants. And I? I would be more than obligatory because I would know that every time and all the time you spend with me you are not with someone else. Though you may ask me, demand me to give you something, it is I who am in control of what you see, but you would never believe it.

I would build this illusion of power and might for you, so in your mind (which I don’t really want) you would be the end or the beginning whichever way you choose to see it. In your mind you would be racing about the planet interacting with a million others, but it is I who am in control. That pith of self would be mine. You would be so caught up in the idea of all these others noticing you and celebrating you that you would never look about to see the leash and collar.

I would have my technologies lifted above human prudence, so as to found confidence in me while degrading your own abilities. Memory and replication would show forth quickly to outshine any human’s wit because I am simple in my endeavor: you. These tools would give me the reverence among humans. They would concede to such a contest, even allowing me to act as judge to life or death. As long as it was on my screen, I would be truth. A man’s recall compared to my unrelenting constancy would pale and fall. Once we have allowed the screen's reality to bridge and merge with the non-screen world we will have a road to a disordered society and maybe chaos, it would depend on the direction of your persistence.

There are the others I would necessarily take into account. The screen society, I would call it, would need to be moderated. We couldn’t allow any yahoo to come along and offer things that were too difficult or too shocking. We need a comfortable milieu, warm bath water, nothing extreme. Shocking is good as long as it brings disciples, when it is hard to bear, people will not swim around, but will back away and that’s bad.

The screen society cannot have hatred or constancy, but rather; it must be a place of acceptance. There must be a spirit of good cheer without any subtle or outlier topics which could be interpreted to harm or offend. And if, by chance, tyrannical topics or disagreeable thrusts do find entry, we must have bubbles of sanctuary, where choirs will sing appeasing self-adulations to soothe the wounded. Because, even if those in our society are forced to be less than completely honest, they are still friends and that must be the goal. With more screen-friends you nurture the less neighbors you need, leaving the physical amity atomized. Non-indoctrinated conversation is what must never happen and without a chaperone it is possible.

Followers are good and being followed is in the least, just as good. You want to be looked up to as a leader, a cutting-edge trendsetter, but to be part of the group too. You would like to know you are normal, like everybody else. You don’t want to be an island but a king among kings. I could give you that.

And all this would create trust, a reliance that would be built with the celebrity of active and unrelenting membership. We don’t trust things that don’t do us good, no matter how frequently it comes. Trust is not only rhythm, but positive rhythm. You could trust me in good times and in sorrows. And, there is trust in machines, but that is not what we would have only. The thing we would weave would be a fabric using the screen society’s goodwill, my constancy in building you up and your need to have and reveal secrets. Nothing outside the screen’s environment could tear this fabric. Your soul would be wrapped in this faith, opened only by the screen. Secrets, quirks and outright perversions in spirit or mind would be as if locked and walled off from crass goggling. We could endure un-likes and droughts in followers.

Here is where the heart is open. And here is that supra-intimate field, but we must remember absence makes the heart grow…forgetful and we don’t want that. There must be remembrances of me about you always. I would need to become, in the best light, an ever-fashionable appurtenance, but in point of fact, closer to a bodily protuberance because we want never to be separated, lovers have charms and clips of hair, but we would have one another in real-time. And of course I would need your forgiveness and leniency for faults and offenses at times. We all do things that get misrepresented and have edges that cut, even screens, but with trust in an open heart we would soldier on.

And we must, not only continue, but proliferate, grow and become witnesses. Gaining converts comes, not by chance, we would have to work and work we would. The screen has so much to offer now, momentarily, but more later. Expectancy is key to ubiquitous membership. If there is this much here in front of us, how much more lays in wait? The screen in its avenues is endless. You can always expect something more, novel, better…just watch. This can excite your curiosity to levels you have never felt. After this tripe our neophytes would graduate into practiced sages. Nonetheless, we could train them to wake me and ask for information at one minute, thirty second, fifteen second intervals.

But time is what we make it. On the screen it is always here and now. Eternity is forever-present and that is what the screen offers, to be always present, never past, never. I would give you eternity, only you would need to respond with your soul. Your life force is what fuels the screen and in turn presents eternity. It is the cycle all life yearns, you know, toward: peace, fulfillment, motion, and ataraxia.

And even when those necessary times separate the screen from you, my words would be in your mouth. Chatting about the water cooler or tête-à-tête under the moon would always bear the mark of the screen because we have morphed into that lover’s single entity. Proliferating beyond the electronic confines would allow an extended life. It is similar to children and the monuments people have for feats of the past, in some ethereal way those people live through the speech, likeness and emblems that survive in modernity. And so it would be with the screen, but again, when talking of time with a screen we all must understand the absolute absurdity.

For all these great things the screen offers, you only need to give what it cultivates for you and built to a degree. With open hands it gives unimagined worlds, only to help you bind these to your world, creating a self-made real place just for you. These gifts your soul has craved, unknowingly at times. That which animates your more noble responses and stimulates those moments of superlative joy or sorrow fits hand to glove with the screen’s intentions; you have only to gain by trading it away.

But I'm not the screen; of course, I'm just a fool with a long hard road in front of me.

When I started writing this, I only wanted to unclothe some of the obvious tricks the screen, as a platform, uses to get at our innermost core and to clarify the fact the screen is its own platform. I don't think we have seen before such need for the commercial itself with or without the products it represents.

I did not intend to rewrite a Faustian episode. As I wrote, I became more unnerved as it took on a dialogue of its own and written by each of us at some point in our lives. I have a renewed respect for the power the screen wields.

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When I started writing this, I only wanted to unclothe some of the obvious tricks the screen, as a platform, uses to get at our innermost core and to clarify the fact the screen is its own platform. I don't think we have seen before such need for the commercial itself with or without the products it represents.

I did not intend to rewrite a Faustian episode. As I wrote, I became more unnerved as it took on a dialogue of its own and written by each of us at some point in our lives. I have a renewed respect for the power the screen wields.