The Modern Zombie Apocalypse

Isn't that everyone's goal? Some brains?

Have our lives really become so mundane that we've been reduced to nothing but tedious tasks?

Are we really so disengaged that we can be related to a bunch of brainless, sagging, creatures that resemble a human, but is really more a shell?

Okay, to be fair most of us are only that way when we haven't had coffee yet that day.  

But! It is an important point to make. A lot of the tasks we do in the modern day require less physical effort than they used to, back when you couldn't order a pizza to your door, or lock your door from work! While these improvements are great, they also create some problems. Mainly that involving instant gratification and a sedentary life. Although Klosterman in his essay, My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feel Rather Undead, talks mainly about tedious tasks involving work, and the struggle to remove oneself from the daily routine, I think that allowing the brain to go on autopilot, however, is something everyone deals with, though some would say the younger generation is more prone to it than the average person who can recall 'a simpler time' ( as it is always put ).

One very common complaint is that teenagers are too invested in their little hand computers that they absolutely cannot go without. I believe there is certainly truth to the idea that 'we're all constantly distracted! we aren't engaged and alert and aware like all the adults! No one has real conversations anymore! This generation is so spoiled!'; however, I think that last part is something everyone thinks of the previous generation. This isn't a unique thing to the millennials and it won't be unique to the next generation either. Going back to the point, there is something to be said for the constant attention we give to our smartphones. It does interfere with our presence in certain situations and cut us off from those around us.
However, I don't think this is anything new.

 

Pictured: The archaic way of ignoring everyone around you.

For generations, we as humans have become more and more complex with the way that we keep to ourselves. Before it was reading the newspaper or a book on the train home. Now, If one is to look around on the Light Rail, most everybody is giving their attention to a smartphone, and occasionally, a novel. 

The point is, maybe the way we see things now are really updated versions of the tasks our grandparents used to go through. At one point in your bloodline, maybe someone in your family watched the weaving machines during the industrial revolution or fished off a trolley boat. If you got back far enough maybe your family has someone that crushed and ground nuts for food, No matter how far or wide you go, it seems that at one point or another doing some menial, repetitive, or tedious task was just a part of life. We still stand in line at the same place every day waiting for coffee and we still sift through junk mail. 

Of course, despite all this, I think it is still important to be aware of it. And to understand that despite it not being a perfect parallel, there is a point. Have human beings really changed so much? Maybe there is more to it than thinking zombies are cooler in any circumstance. Don't let that stop you. Be aware of the autopilot so that you can remember to think and learn, not just passively completing tasks one after the next. Now go out there, and get some brains!