Decorous thoughts strung from profiles, posts nailed to a slat
The Scroll (II)
II.
To be taken by the slipstream, to be raised upon the tide, a requisition is in order, your name upon the Scroll. You must not only speak at the meetings when you arrive, your record of attendance must be noted on the roll. If you would have the public take your words seriously they must have access to the contents of your character, to measure, as atoms in a tube, with scrutiny, your soul. Five to seven posts daily to make yourself known. An avatar, a self stitched together of opinions, carved of curiosity, beliefs and proclivities made into a graven image, an altar to an idea to be admired and judged, exhibited in galleries. Decorous thoughts strung from profiles, posts nailed to a slat. The halls are wide and deep, the statues must be looked at.
The reason the opinions of others don't define you isn't because your opinion is the only one that counts, but because you are not reducible to any human efforts of definition. The only being who can fully know you and understand you without reducing you to a stereotype or an idol is God. This does not mean that you don't have a 'true self.' You do. But it is just not one that you are burdened with creating. - Alan Noble, You are Not Your Own
I agree that the scroll magnifies negative social and personal dynamics (insecure self-presentation, need for prestige, pretension, swirling mobs of hate, master manipulators, the whole dunciad). I see it especially in younger people, and painfully, in my own children. I waited until high school to get them phones and macbooks, and still regret it. All that said, I do enjoy a good satire from Robert Charbonneau now and then, so the scroll isn't a complete waste of time!