one

i wake up. the sun is shining outside, birds are singing, a child is laughing on the street. i have 45 minutes to hit the shower, take a quick breakfast and get on my way to work. it's thursday and the weekend is almost here. it looks like a fine day. a perfect day. i turn on the radio.

"just a sec, let me check...yes...we have clear skies and a great sunny day today", says the guy on the radio. "so get out of the house and take a walk, have some fun", he says. come to think of it, thursday isn't actually a very fun-filled day. this year you're lucky if you get 4 to 5 thursdays free from work, out of a total of 52. that's under 10% of thursdays each year. not that mondays would be any better. or tuesdays. do the math and the radio dj guy looks like he's mocking you. "i know i'm gonna have a lot of fun with you guys, that's for sure", he says, optimism bursting from the speakers. he only got two free thursdays this year, because the radio is a highly demanding business. five years in the job and a promising career in the media seems to be turning into a phony, repetitive life with no real purpose. the guy takes a break and now the radio is playing a song from the latest house sensation, a two girl band that's about as original as an industrial sewing machine.

"wake up!" the dj yells, with his trademark screechy voice, that people seem to like for some reason. two rating points and 12% more booked advertising space this month, and he will get a raise. the extra cash will help pay for a cooler car, and our fellow is gonna be happier and make better jokes. it's all about cause and effect. i hit the shower. brush my teeth. have breakfast. there's certain stability and comfort in the daily routine. if you're in your mid twenties, you're looking forward to brushing your teeth for another 30.000 times before you die. if you're careful with your health, by then you'd have used 320 toothbrushes. you'd have spent an average of 4.1% of your life in the bathroom. 29.4% sleeping. 3.7% eating (spend less than that and you will get ulcer). you're going to spend an average of 26.7% of the rest of your life at work, and that's the case if you're not the hardworking type. 8.3% watching TV. 6.2% in private and public transportation vehicles. statistics is a very depressing science. subtract all that and think about what's left, about the life that you have.

for the 31,937th time since i was born, i eat. "have you tried the new whole grain bread at sandy's?", the dj asks me. "i hear you get 50% of your recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals in just one loaf. and it also tastes good, man". and then you think. by the time you're old enough, you'd have eaten an average of 11.8 tons of bread. 355 hectolitres of milk. 0.4 tons of chocolate. you'd have had thousands of recommended daily allowances of all the earth's vitamins and minerals. "virgo. watch your health today", says the radio guy. "minor problems at work, but nothing you can't handle. libra. you meet an old friend of the opposite sex. if you're single, this could be an opportunity for romance". fortune telling for the masses. millions of libras are going to meet an equal number of old friends of the opposite sex today. out of these, some millions will have the opportunity for romance. rejoice. "capricorn. aren't you lucky today? you're gonna get an unexpected raise, do your best at the office today". and with the recession, decreasing second quarter profits and all, you think: where will several million raises for several million capricorn natives come from? won't this make at least several thousand employers file for bankruptcy? won't this delay prospects of coming out of the recession? on the radio there's dance music, with r'n'b and clever techno influences.

hit the traffic. 35 minutes to work, with a tolerance of 12%. "now i want y'all to smile. do you hear? i want you to smile, 'cos it's a fine day and the weekend is almost here", the guy on the car radio says. in passing cars, some people actually smile. the kind of blank, plastic smile you see at the movies, if you turn your head back and look at the crowd exactly when the somewhat idiotic but charming real estate agent returns to the administrative assistant of his dreams with 33 red roses and "i'm sorry" written all over him. in passing cars, people smile, but the woman in the red dress is worried that she's getting too fat. and that this might be a medical condition. the gentleman in the blue suit is thinking about his wife that left him 4 months ago. and about his employer that filed for chapter 11. the blonde girl in the green sedan is thinking about her three month pregnancy. and whether her boyfriend really loves her.

there's a different person on the radio now and he says "today's theme is your goal in life, ladies and gentlemen. call and tell us about your goals and dreams. why did God bother to create us, to what end?". interactivity. "our first caller is sue on line two. hi, sue, how's it going?". "fine, jim", says sue, whose sexy voice improves the show's audience by 0.2 rating points. "jim, in my opinion our goal in life is the quest for perfect love", she says. what sue does not know is that perfect love is a statistical improbability. the person of your dreams might be a legal advisor in auckland, new zealand or a construction worker in lyon, france, that you will never meet. your perfect love could happen to be in the same bookshop as you, on one particular day. but you won't know that. you'll be busy tying your shoelaces. and than that special person will be gone and will never be seen again. because life is random, even though we want to see order in it. "the miracle of giving birth, of raising a child, that's our goal in life, jim", says another caller. that's so nice and touching. for real. and you think, if this was a show for cats, or for cows, they'd be having the same goal. reproduction. perpetuation of the species. "and i love her so very much", says yet another caller. love. for your body, the chemical equivalent of eating a large bar of chocolate. proven scientific fact.

"god bless you all", says jim. "may your lives be peaceful and filled with love". stability. order. jim doesn't mention anything about the average six fatal car accidents that will occur today. random. you could be listening to the latest drum'n'bass hit sensation from dj whatever and get your face smashed by a blue SUV whose driver suffered a heart attack. with a frontal collision, you can get in a situation where you'll never eat solid food for the rest of your life. and it can be worse. you could get skull fractures and you'll never have control over your short-term memory for as long as you live. and it can still get worse. with massive head trauma you'll never ever have to get another haircut. or buy clothes. or find a trendy, hip bar. "drive carefully", jim tells me. and i reach the office. millions of professional looking people hurry to their offices. copywritters, tax consultants, legal advisors. half of these peoples' jobs didn't even exist a few hundred years ago. the roman empire had no copywritters and art directors; no wonder it collapsed. back in the old days, there were no mergers and acquisistions, leveraged buyouts or stock option plans. you just have to wonder: if michelangelo had internet relay chat and instant access to 4.3 billion indexed webpages, would he have achieved more? would he have achieved less? had the renaissance had broadband and virtual private networks, efficiency would have been greater? would it have been lower?

i reach my desk at the office. the voice on the radio says "and now it's time for the top 10 best songs of the month, voted by you people". and the song playing is a fast trance track with jungle influences. "if millions of people enjoy this stuff, then it definitely must be quality music", says the radio dj. i start doing my work. and what a surprise, number two in the top is a new entry, a catchy hip-hop track with rock elements. and all of a sudden i remember that i don't have a radio at home. i never listen to the radio in the car. i notice that there's complete silence at the office, and no EBM track on first place for three months in a row on the radio. "have a great evening", says the voice. "the time is coming".

proceed to part two