Sticks and Stones: A Tribute to the Book "Lullaby" by Chuck Palahniuk

Hello, Reader,

Whenever I read a book that really speaks to me, I gather up some of the simple yet memorable quotes from it, and turn it into a kind of mini-book-tribute. I do this this to, not only praise the work, but also to give those who have never read an idea of how the book is written, to show what idea(s) spoke to me, and to give the simplest version of that written idea in a smaller, semi-creative way.  This is the second tribute I've done, but its the most recent. Hope you enjoy.

"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can hurt like hell.

     Imagine immortality, where even a marriage of fifty years would feel like a one-night stand. Imagine seeing trends and fashions blur past you. Imagine changing religions, homes, diets, careers, until none of them have any real value. Imagine traveling the world until you’re bored with every square inch. Imagine your emotions, your loves and hates and rivalries and victories, played out again and again until life is nothing more than a melodramatic soap opera. Until you regard the birth and death of other people with no more emotion than the wilted, cut flowers you throw away.

I think we’re immortal already.

      Anymore, no one’s mind is their own. You can’t concentrate. You can’t think. There’s always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion.

      Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled.

     And this being [filled], it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.

Here’s Big Brother, singing and dancing, force-feeding you so your mind never gets hungry enough to think.

     We’re living in a teetering tower of babble. A shaky reality of words. A DNA soup for disaster. The natural world destroyed, we’re left with a cluttered world of language. Big Brother is singing and dancing, and we’re just left to watch. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but our role is just to be a good audience. To just pay attention and wait for the next disaster.

Power, money, food, sex, love. Can we ever get enough, or will getting some make us crave even more?

What I’m talking about is free will. Do we have it, or does God dictate and script everything we do and say and want? Do we have free will, or do the mass media and our culture control us, our desires and actions, from the moment we’re born? Do I have it? I don’t know the difference between what I want and what I’m trained to want.

Here’s Big Brother singing and dancing so I don’t start thinking too much for my own good.

     No one wants to admit we’re addicted to [entertainment]. That’s just not possible. No one’s addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it: more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can’t bear to be without it, but no, nobody’s addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted.

[And] these people who need their television or stereo or radio playing all the time, these people so scared of silence: these are my neighbors. These sound-oholics; These quiet-ophobics.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but here we go again.”