"Can we at least put the couch down first?" They had been moving Michael into his new house for over an hour and the truck was almost empty. He was amazed at the amount of possessions he had. He was even more amazed at how many of them were once Richard's. "Western culture, on the whole, is moving towards a bad place, right? There are so many distractions now, so many ways to fill up one's hours, that there is no time left to think. Instead, everyone's in a state of constant distraction, never stopping to think for themselves. Why should they, when there are twenty-four hour news stations who'll do the thinking for them, only in easily digested bite-size chunks?" "And that's why you're giving me your television?" "Yes. I don't want it anymore." Michael shook his head. It was incomprehensible. "I loathe that life I had, Mike. I don't know how else to explain it. Sometimes I'd look at all the things I'd accumulated, the endless cluttered shelves of it, and I felt suffocated. It's better the television is here with you, someone who can still appreciate it.
