Sex does the trick too, but though intense, it is, compared to the longer span of time and dithering we face daily, so brief. Great pleasure but then, before you know it, you’re back into, well, this act of being called remembering, a.k.a. "life".

Lately, to the naturally occurring substances, we’ve been adding our own carefully devised molecules: LSD, Ecstasy, PCP. But not all illegal. Now 20,000,000 of us take a daily, sanctioned plunge into Lethe, the River of Forgetting, with Prozac and its kin. Most recently, commercials have been spotted for a drug (already allegedly taken by 10,000,000) for something called Social Adjustment Disorder (not, apparently to be confused with an earlier S.A.D.--Seasonal Affective Disorder).

2. The Pharmaceutical Arts of Disconnecting
A wise writer (E.M. Forster) got the process of life down to two words: "Only connect."

Another wise writer (Aldous Huxley) got it down to one word. In the utopian archipelago which he created in his last novel, Island, he had birds everywhere who had been taught one word: "Attention!" Or, in Forster’s way: "Only pay attention." Throughout the day, citizens of Huxley's utopia were exposed to random reminders to wake up from their trance and just pay attention.

Yet the culture now seems bent on giving us both the means and the encouragement to do precisely the opposite:

"Only disconnect."

"Only don’t pay attention."

That, surely, is the purpose of the psychoactives such as Prozac, Zoloft, etc.: only disconnect. Unplug certain brain circuits so that troublesome data can be ignored and one can get on with a life that moves only forward toward, well, toward what? Happiness? Wealth? Security? Status? Fame? Prestige?

Whatever the goal is, this culture focuses vast amounts of money on helping us get there through pharmaceutically selective forgetting, disconnecting.

While some might see forgetting as a high price to pay for that goal, the majority culture apparently views it as irrelevant. Better amnesiac than depressed. Better illusorily hopeful than groundedly doubtful.

3. The Cheaper, Mass Art of Forgetting
But what of the billions who have access neither to the wonder drugs of disconnection nor to the money to buy such relief?

For them, we offer a planet-wide Lethe Lite.

It’s called television.

Here I have to drop the omnipotent, invisible third-person of the essay writer, and enter the more revealing first-person of the tell-all narrative:

Over a period of years, various interests and activities combined to draw me away from television. At no point did I make a conscious decision not to watch television. It just happened, with the result that in the recent past, often months would go by when I would not even see a TV image. A strange development for a person who had spend several decades in front of the screen.

Not only did I not see television, I didn’t even think much about it. I was aware of it, aware of new programs, new video styles and stars, but my news and information came primarily from newspapers, magazines, radio, and the Internet.

In a sense, I had, without knowing it, regained my pre-TV virginity. Sort of.

Then along came one of those big cultural events that dominates everything for a while (the Olympics, if you must know). Though I was reading about it, I began to feel out of the loop, so I sat down one evening and turned on the television, wanting, I suppose, to feel a part of, not apart from.

InstantIy, I was again delighted (in my neo-TV-virginal way) by the oh-so-colorful moving pictures and the wonderful sound. And I was quickly filled to overflowing by the stream of "INFORMATION" flowing into me from those pictures and sounds. Filled with factoids, I felt increasingly hip, cool, quite up-to-date zeitgeist-wise.

Next thing I knew, hours had passed, and I was still sitting there, watching, watching, watching.

Huh? I thought. What happened? Where did the time go? Where did the world go? Why, it was almost as if I had gone to sleep, to dream a colorful dream shared by millions of others around the world.

Not as pleasurable, to be sure, as an opium dream. Not as exhilarating as a ride on the rocket-sled of an LSD trip. Not as sensual as a marijuana high. And far, far from the Mach 10 blast-off provided by cocaine. But, still, a cheap, very effective escape.

These days, forgetting is a many-channeled thing. With almost no hangover, and none of the societal rebrobation associated with stronger amnesiacs. Lethe lite.

<>

Yes, television has worked wonders in the world, spreading information and, even, hope into countries and cultures notably lacking in both information and hope. Yes, as McLuhan saw and foresaw, television has not only extended our senses (at least our visual and auditory senses) to the ends of the earth and beyond, but has also taught our eyes to see and comprehend faster and faster.

But: When television becomes omnipresent AND obsessive, as it is now, it is nothing more or less than a true Lethe Lite. A lovely, seductive never-ending electronic river of forgetting.

Turn it on, tune it in, and forget. Only disconnect from the world. Only connect to the evanescent, empty image. Only cease paying attention to the world. Heed only the glowing lines, the dancing dots of color. Sleep the sleep that does NOT knit up the raveled sleeve of care.

Sleep Lite. Lethe Lite. The little death of 500 channels.

Unsweet dreams for a planet in full flight from the kind of true connecting that Forster had in mind. Unsettled rest for a race of compulsive inattentives.

Television: the technology to legitimize Attention Deficit Disorder for everybody.