Killing Ourselves to Live

The recent death of ultra-icon Ozzy Osbourne has left an unexpected chasm of loss in my psyche, catalysing a cascade of internal inquiry. Ruminations on symbolism, the person himself, and this precise moment in history have been ongoing in an effort to settle the mental and emotional indigestion that followed the news. There have been many questions involving the whats and whys, and this is partly an effort to crystallise the entire scene into bite-size packets.

Firstly, I had zero personal ties to Ozzy. We never met, nor have I ever attended any of his live shows. I was a lover and fan of his music, yes, but not a super fan. Okay. I must admit at this point that I was indeed that 15-year old who carved "O-Z-Z-Y" into his knuckles. And I performed a cover of a Black Sabbath song in a church. Long story. Ozzy's death uprooted surprisingly deep elements within me. His unmistakeable wail had somehow made its way into the very darkest reaches of my own heart and soul - encountering parts of me that had never before been touched. Something must be said about the magic of finding one's tribe in the sandstorm of troubled adolescence, and how maligned music serves as a sanctuary for maligned youth.

That aside, there was something entirely different about Ozzy, something that stood out among the crowds of superstars that surrounded him, swirling through the music industry. He was honest. Not in the "I didn't steal the beer" type honest, but in his presentation, artform, and how he lived his life. This is where the gap between him being a surrogate father to millions of metalheads and the wider, more symbolic picture begins to narrow.

See, this is now an almost completely manufactured world. Artificial Intelligence is on a constant surge, getting bigger, better, faster, stronger. It is becoming easier to access and use, and simultaneously much more difficult to detect. There is no inkling that anyone is pushing for authenticity, in fact, the younger brother to Cancel Culture is now Cringe Culture that's afflicting Gen-Z through and through. This contemporary culture of shaming is exacerbated by everyone's eternal connection to the internet, further complicated by the probability of something going viral.

The image of the supremely knowledgeable and always-willing-to-help friend is pushing AI into the nether regions of our psyche. A place, for me, that was nursed by monstrous riffs and visceral expressions of anger, despair, and everything in between - most often raging against systemic oppression, the global war machine, and much more. Contemporary metal bands sing about ecological collapse and raise money for reforestation projects. But today, we can outsource imagination to Large Language Models and Midjourney, adding another corrosive layer to the already existing illusion we have been wrestling with. The cognitive colonisation has well and truly begun, and we've all signed up in an effort to remain current.

Do note that I'm not entirely opposed to the use of AI, but the perverse thirst that drives the egotistical race to give birth to a sentient machine is abhorrent at best, and pure evil at worst. Ignoring ubiquitous sentience in nature, we are making all efforts to pour concrete over the last remaining patch of fertile soil such that we can generate a "nature-inspired mural", using AI, of course.

After all, people aren't going to know the difference. This is not a fictitious supposition, not another arbitrary rant - just have a look at the comment section under any AI-generated video of "mother nature" and see for yourself. A polar bear being hauled out of the sea being "rescued" by fishermen (because a polar bear clearly can't swim despite living off the sea)? Perhaps a whale having its barnacles satisfyingly scrubbed off by some helpful diver, or a fuchsia and purple eagle standing triumphantly over a rabbit it just saved from a rabid, three-headed ferret - they keep us hooked on things that do not exist in any realm, allowing us to drift hopelessly to a point where we won't have a single reference to base our lives off of. Only then, there truly will be no hope. While we are not wholly there yet, we are well on our way.

Further to this, I'm sure we've all noticed evidence of this phenomenon around us. There is simulated nature everywhere - from plastic plants to nature-inspired architecture. Walt Disney World is another prime example of our synthesised version of what we think the natural world should be. In fact, one can go on a "safari" at Walt Disney, instead of coming face to face with an elephant around a bend in the road. As photographer Zed Nelson elucidates, this is due to a desire to have some controlled and predictable version of an experience; one in which we decide what happens, and when. Repetition is key, as with repetition there is always predictability, and therein we find our comfort zone.

This packaged version of nature will remain despite biodiversity loss and climate upheaval. No snow, no problem! Polar bear enclosures will simply have plastic "ice floes" for the bears to lounge away their days as onlookers receive the message that it's business as usual. Tigers will be extinct in the wild but still be ready for (paid, of course) viewing at theme parks. As shocking as this may seem, there are currently 2.6 times more tigers in captivity than in the wild. There is now, therefore, a manufactured nature-blindness. Symptoms include, for example: despite us just looking at a video about the value of vanishing pollinators - we instantaneously reach for the insecticide the moment a bee wanders into our house. This dystopia is not as far-fetched as some are led to believe.

Zoos and nature parks serve one aspect of this delusion, while AI picks up the slack in the digital department. Disinformation and dishonesty are rampant, so much so that the death of one particular unapologetically raw and honest man leaves a void so vast it must be visible from space. The world does not necessarily need more rock stars or personalities - there are many - we need more honesty. We need to know humility. We need to know how to let go. We need to dispense with the concept of control. And of course, we need to get into nature and experience wild spaces and unpredictable situations.

Turning our attention to the natural world is us opening up to new, unknown possibilities. Icons and pioneers aren't created by following instructions. To forge a meaningful existence, uncertainty must be embraced fully. The world is desirous of homogeneity so it can decide which group we can be apportioned to; it thrives on mistrust and hatred. The day has already come where on a daily basis most of us put our trust in cold, soulless machines. Our great technological advances, however, will amount to naught if we do not maintain our pure, raw, and natural connections.

Travel well, Prince of Darkness.

I do not know which species of bat this is, but that did not stop me from basking in the glory of them gorging on nectar from the mighty kapok as the full moon rose in the east.

#Anthropocene #OzzyOsbourne #AI