A Lost Metaphor

Not a metaphor referring to the television show Lost–I mean, who remembers Lost now?

I mean, a metaphor that we really cannot use in the 21st century.

Static.

I was driving along this morning, taking the oldest to school in the darkness for his marching band practice, and I thought about writing a poem about moving through the tunnel of the night, and I thought perhaps I could work in a line about static, but no.

I mean, who under the age of, what, forty has experienced broadcast static?

Most kids these days have not experienced over-the-air television nor have seen a playing of the national anthem and then television stations signing off in the middle of the night nor dozens of UHF stations on the second dial that show nothing but white noise.

On the radio, the Seek buttons and digital tuning eliminates that sound between the stations, and although one can still experience some weaker signals when driving out of range, who listens to the radio in the car any more except we old men, and by we, old man, I mean I.

So I got to wondering whether the removal of the concept of static from the mental makeup of modern man has had any impact. In the digital media world rife with social media misgivings, have we lost the ability to discern signal from noise, the ability to not accept everything presented to us as equally true or just surface impressions?

Eh, maybe I’ll use the metaphor anyway since I don’t expect young people to read my poetry anyway. Or old people for that matter. I’ll just write what I want.

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