Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five
Issue 28 - Trapped
Hello and welcome to my weekly email newsletter, Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five, where I share five things I’m enjoying, thinking about, and find interesting. I hope you enjoy issue 28 and feel free to share your own reflections.
Here’s my Friday Five this week.
1. What I’m Reading
The Trial. By Franz Kafka.
Few writers have captured the feeling of existential angst and societal alienation quite like Franz Kafka. The Trial is one of his most famous works, written between 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously in 1925. It remains a disturbingly accurate critique of institutional power structures.
Josef K, an everyman and perhaps a stand-in for Kafka himself, faces an incomprehensible situation as he gets arrested for a crime that is never disclosed to him or the reader. This begins a claustrophobic spiral of destruction as Josef tries to clear his name amid an inscrutable labyrinth of bureaucracy. From absurd courtrooms to inexplicable laws, Josef's pursuit of clarity and justice is blocked at every turn by a system that appears intentionally designed for misdirection. The absence of any concrete charges against him heightens the surreal, helpless state in which he—and by extension, we—exist.
“But I’m not guilty,” said Josef. “There’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.” “That is true,” said the priest, “but that is how the guilty speak.” This dialogue reminds us of the ways systems of authority can manipulate perceptions of guilt and innocence.
Josef represents each one of us, cogs in a vast machine that generally lets us function without disruption. But what happens when an individual is randomly, absurdly removed from that stable environment? That’s what Kafka captures with precision—the nightmarish struggle for freedom in the face of powerful, impersonal, and incomprehensible forces.
Kafka's vision still resonates because we, too, are susceptible to the same arbitrary forces that can upend our lives. This insight into the human condition and a world that often seems beyond our control is why Kafka’s name is held in such high regard a century after his death.
2. What I’m Watching
Network (1976). Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Connected to this week's theme of individual freedoms versus uncontrollable systems, Howard Beale's exasperated cry, “I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE,” encapsulates the fundamental frustration many feel toward systems beyond their control. This line, one of the most famous in cinematic history, is from Paddy Chayefsky’s award-winning satire of the media, Network, directed by Sidney Lumet.
Beale, a veteran TV news anchorman, faces firing for declining ratings and personal struggles, becoming a symbol of the human struggle against bureaucratic apathy and systemic indifference. However, rather than quietly exiting, Beale broadcasts his grievances and even announces plans for an on-air suicide in two weeks. Far from being silenced, his network exploit his emotional collapse for ratings, highlighting the moral bankruptcy of a corporate entity chasing revenue at any cost.
Though unmistakably rooted in the 1970s, the core vision of Network is still both relevant and prophetic. Chayefsky challenges us to scrutinise how the media crafts an “informed” public. Much like Orwell's 1984 warned of the dangers of totalitarian regimes, Network forewarns of a media environment that thrives on outrage, misinformation, and polarisation. Of course, this media landscape has evolved and fragmented to reach far beyond television today.
Chayefsky’s “Mad as hell” line rings truer than ever, cementing his work as an intelligent critique of systems that feed on human despair for profit. Beale's implosion serves as an allegory for the human pawns in a media machine, ultimately losing his agency to a monolithic, inescapable system.
3. What I’m Contemplating
We might consider Josef K and Howard Beale as representative figures for the 21st-century individual, each trapped within complex systems that are both vast and impersonal.
Josef's entanglement in a faceless, inscrutable bureaucracy is more than a struggle against an abstract system; it’s a battle against existential doubt and uncertainty, much like the anxieties we face in today's digital age. These modern systems, which I call “personalised bureaucracies,” not only dictate our media consumption but also paradoxically limit our individual freedom by narrowing the information we encounter. Just as Josef sought clarity and agency in a system designed to evade and confuse, we too are often frustrated by media ecosystems that claim to serve our interests but actually narrow our perspectives.
Howard Beale's emotional unraveling in Network serves as a mirror to our collective doomscrolling and consumption of media that thrives on outrage and polarisation. Here, too, the idea of “personalised bureaucracies” applies, as Beale becomes a tool in a manipulative media system that trades his sanity for ratings. This cycle becomes self-perpetuating: we seek information to gain agency, but the nature of that information often leaves us feeling more powerless. The rise of “citizen journalism” is a dual-edged sword. While it allows more people to share information easily, it also blurs the line between fact and opinion, often framing views in a right-versus-wrong dichotomy, complicating our understanding of truth.
As we navigate the third decade of the 21st century, we find ourselves in a world overflowing with information and choices. While these systems have limitations and controls, they also offer unprecedented avenues for personal exploration, understanding, and growth. The challenge now lies in effectively using these tools and systems in a way that truly expands our horizons rather than narrowing them.
4. A Quote to note
“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
5. A Question for you
How can you make the most of the information around you to question and improve your daily life?
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Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
James