I couldn’t resist writing about another current ‘mode’ in people when someone said, “Father, I just removed the zombie you put in my cell phone!”
His companion could not contain his curiosity, “What do mean ‘Father putting a zombie’ in your cell phone? Is that a virus?”
“No, silly!” he smirked. “It’s a game that Father installed the other day.”
“A priest installing a game?” The friend reacted even more surprised hearing about a priest installing games.
“Father just wanted my take of the game’s graphic design and music quality,” he clarified.
“Oooh! Then why uninstall it?” his companion asked.
“Because it was consuming my battery fast…”
“Then you must have been playing for a long time?” the other concluded.
“Well… I have to admit that it was quite addicting.”
“Addicting…?” The other eyeball-rolled him. “So it isn’t really about ‘battery drain’ is it?”
“I guess not, but Father has it in his phone too. And he says he needs it to drain the battery!”
[YIKES!] “Did I say that?” I wondered.
* * *
What strikes me about their conversation is the evidently large number of movies, games and books on zombies. Zombies, or cannibalistic living corpses without souls, have probably been around as long as vampires and werewolves have stalked man’s imagination.
They became more rampant in the ‘60s with the movie, The Night of the Living Dead (1968). They came back with a vengeance in the sequel, The Dawn of the Dead (1978) and finally a devastating conclusion with The Day of the Dead (1985).
But zombies since then haven’t evolved very much. They are usually presented as boring, slow-moving and dimwitted objects that are easy shooting targets. This is also why these ‘poor dilapidated monsters’ are also the all-time favorite of FPS (First Person Shooter) games.
With a recent film World War Z, however, the concept of a ‘dull-snail-paced-cannibal monster’ radically changed. WW-Z CGI-ed them into a fast-moving hoard of monsters, capable of synchronizing attacks in waves, and forming killer-zombie pillars against helicopters. Yikes! How will we survive such an attack? Perhaps, Brad Pitt has some ideas.
Once I heard of an interesting theory, perhaps coming from one of these zombie fan forums, that zombies could actually exist. Not exactly like those in horror movies and games, but resulting from a virus. As it evolves, the infected host will then gradually manifest zombie-like qualities, whose last stage and worse symptom will be cannibalism.
Even though we may never experience such a virus, I do believe that zombies live amongst us. Thank God, they’re not violent or don’t have an appetite for your brain. But they have symptoms that set them apart from the rest of the world. They have been infected, and are also infecting others with the zombigital virus or Z-Virus for short.
In the same way that there are different types of zombies (i.e. slow, medium and fast-paced) there are also different manifestations of those infected by the Z-Virus. There are text-zombies, audio-zombies, surfing-zombies, game-zombies and tab-zombies, etc.
Am I just joking? Perhaps. But observe people today and you will notice that both young and old are either (a) plugged with earphones, (b) texting messages or (c) surfing the Net, and they manage to multi-task all these while (d) chatting with a person, (e) driving a car or a bicycle, (f) doing their homework, etc.
When you interrupt or try to connect with these ‘infected’ individuals, you will either get a ‘UHUH!’ or some generic nod of the head. They do manage to achieve many things, communicate ‘some’ ideas and scratch out some vague identity. But by being so connected or infected with the Z-Virus, they are losing their capacity to be in touch with humanity.
We’re not talking here of extreme cases like people playing games for three straight days and dropping dead, spending hours and hours updating one’s Facebook status using a faceless unidentifiable avatar, or losing sleep, homework and chore time because of Candy Crush or the many existing variants of ‘Temple Run’ on the tablet.
But there is a more serious phenomenon happening: people forgetting or losing their social graces, personal elegance and social rapport. With more emphasis on i-gadgets, myPictures, myMusic, and other self-centering zombigital strains, persons are slowly more disconnected from others and are drained of their capacity to enrich themselves and others.
The cure to the zombigital virus is relatively easy and free: personal awareness, moderation and a genuine concern to know and serve them in ways that our techno-virtual world cannot, in other words, to be human to them by offering: a warm smile, a firm handshake, a kiss, an embrace and the comforting look of understanding, forgiveness and a prayerful heart.
Want to ‘unzombie’ yourself if you’re infected with the Z-Virus? Set a ‘disconnection vaccine’ for a day, a week and a month. Example, for a day, Facebook only in the evening at a given duration.
For a week, don’t change your status; and for a month, don’t change your avatar. Keep at these targets and you’ll be cured of the Z-virus in no time! Be creative, don’t be a zombie!