I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how so many things in our lives are designed to keep us distracted from what really matters. I’ve thought about it for years, but most recently it came up because a bunch of folks at my brother’s wedding were sitting around talking about sports.

I’ll preface this by saying I couldn’t possibly care any less about sports if you paid me. Playing sports? Cool. Good exercise and good for building teamwork and hand-eye coordination, etc. Watching sports? Please just shoot me now. I’d pretty much rather read a book on dental hygiene. In old Russian. And I don’t even speak contemporary Russian.

But it honestly kinda bothered me that we’re sitting at my brother’s wedding — his first and the bride’s first — and these people who are supposed to be his close friends are talking about some game played by a bunch of people they don’t know and will probably never meet.

It just seemed irrelevant to what was happening that day.

I realize this is probably the overprotective big sister in me rearing her bitchy head. I’ll own that. But it’s also indicative of a more fundamental reality we deal with every day. As a society, we’re more interested in what our favorite sports teams, movie stars, and video game buddies are doing than what’s happening in government or even sometimes in our own families.

The Roman satirist Juvenal, in his Satires said:

“… iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses.”

Which AI translates roughly as:

“… Already long ago, from the time when we sold our vote to no man, the people have abdicated our duties; for formerly they had the power of office, of fasces, of legions, of everything; now they restrain themselves and anxiously desire only two things: bread and circuses.”

So what, Jenifer?

So this. How sad is it that a quote from the late 1st century to early 2nd century CE, written during the height of the Roman Empire, is still so relevant today? Apparently, in two millennia we haven’t learned our lesson.

We’re still more interested in what the Kardashians are wearing than we are in whether or not our politicians are lying. How is that possible? And more disturbingly, what does it say about humanity?

Are we incapable of learning to be better? Can we learn from the mistakes of others or do we have to figure out every failing based on our own experiences?

We know how things ended for the Roman Empire. At least, I hope we all do. Spoiler: it didn’t end well.

As long as the masses were given some bread and allowed to watch men butchered for sport at the gladiatorial games or racing their chariots, they were willing to let Caesar and the politicians pretty much do whatever they wanted, regardless of how bad their decisions were for the common man.

Sound familiar?

It should. It’s not even the only example of that setup in history. France’s version was more crisis-driven and less systemic, but they delivered in their own way, too. When things got particularly bad, Louis XVI would order cheap bread sales or offer occasional public charity.

And the French monarchy used Versailles as a living theater of royal supremacy — ballets, festivals, coronations, fireworks, court masques. In Paris, there were fairs (like Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent), theatrical performances, and royal fêtes. They weren’t as bloody or gladiatorial as Rome’s games, but they served the same role: entertainment as social anesthesia.

Today we have DoorDash and Netflix, McDonalds and ESPN, pizza and reality TV.

I don’t know how anyone can deny the pattern exists. And each time, it ends badly for everyone involved.

It might not end in guillotines as it did for the French monarchy. Maybe we won’t be pensioning off our leaders like they did Romulus Augustulus in 476 CE. But it wasn’t just the rulers hurt by those falls.

They happened in part because the divide between the rich and everyone else grew so great that it could no longer be ignored. The poor would no longer watch their children starve while the elite 1% drowned in cake, lace, gold, and riches.

And we’re getting there fast.

The point I’m trying to make here is that we need to open our eyes, look away from our screens and pay attention to what’s happening in the halls of power before we reach a point of no return. Honestly, we might already be there, but I know we’ll get there soon if we haven’t yet.

We need to open the eyes of the people around us – our families, neighbors, friends, and coworkers. We need to stop worrying about who’s winning the Masters or the Superbowl, about which celebrity is getting divorced and which is getting a nose job.

We need to start worrying about what happens in twenty years when the 1% of the 1% owns 99.9% of everything, and the rest of us are living at a subsistence level. We can rise up then, but it’ll be violent and ugly and a lot of people will die. Picture the bread riots of Paris, but with drones overhead and the National Guard on TikTok live. Or maybe starving crowds smashing through Amazon warehouses while armored police protect pallets of iPhones.

Our current systems are still valid enough today (I think) to let us do it without the violence. The recent boycott of Disney after they fired Jimmy Kimmel is proof that when we unite, we have power. We should be using it.

I recognize the irony of posting this where it can only be seen on a screen. I really do. But writing is one of the only ways we can still really impact another person’s thoughts. And a screen is the only way I have to share it broadly. Plus, it’s about the only thing I do reasonably well.

So here it is – a wake-up call. (For me, too.)

WAKE THE FUCK UP!

Sadly, the people who’ll read this are probably not the ones who need it. But maybe it will reach a few who aren’t awake yet and open their eyes, because once the lights go out in the arena, it’ll already be too late.

---

---