![](https://static.standard.co.uk/2023/01/12/11/newFile-7.jpg?width=1200&auto=webp)
Shortly after watching the Carabao Cup final on a free Twitter link, I half-completed a 10-minute workout on the Apple Fitness app, easily defying the effervescent American PT’s demands for more effort, and later watched the fake boxing match between Jake Paul and Tommy Fury via a live TikTok stream of someone filming the fight on his flat-screen TV. To the sound of my host breathing through his mouth as I piggy-backed his Sky Sports subscription, I suddenly had one of my now weekly existential revelations: my life is in Cheat Mode.
Video games always have a Cheat Mode where you can breeze through, allowing you to complete them in about five seconds without any pressure — well, that’s my life now. Of course, I could still be hit by a bus or bundled into a van and tortured by a gang of Andrew Tate-obsessed primary school children, but other than that, my day-to-day life is so smoothed over digitally that I’m essentially an avatar of myself and therefore barely alive at all.
Without wishing to show my age, this really is the digital age’s fault, and it’s getting worse. Soon ChatGPT and similar AI will mean I can Cheat Mode work; some bot can crank this out on my behalf. Seriously, if there’s one industry that’s at risk, it’s journalism: Mirror owners Reach have set up a working group to “assist” (yeah, that’s how it starts) journalists. My recent way of operating says: bring it on. Less for me to worry about.
Not that I have much left to worry about anyway. Calendar reminders mean I will never miss my girlfriend’s birthday, or Mother’s Day or even St Swithin’s Day; indeed, a memory is entirely superfluous these days, other than to bear grudges. WhatsApp groups mean I can Cheat Mode friendships; it seems “irl” meet-ups are not even suggested anymore, the raw physical sight of fellow ageing meatsacks both grim and simply unnecessary. Meanwhile, turbo-charged sex toys are there to pick up the slack in bed, bridging the orgasm gap so that I don’t have to.
Everything is a piece of p*ss. Which, on paper, I’m all for. Still, technological advancements should mean the creation of a utopia, where we can all devote more time to walking around in jump suits philosophising and taking “creatively enhancing” drugs. Instead of this, I’m just continually seeking the next thing that I can cut corners on like a cheat addict.
I can cheat staying informed with the trending tab on Twitter. I can cheat family responsibilities with Moonpig offers of the yearly generic digital birthday/anniversary cards. I can cheat bringing up my children with YouTube bike-riding tutorials. I can cheat meetings with Zoom dial-ins, cheat therapy by watching a few videos of The Rock and cheat kindness to other people with emojis. At this rate I’ll cheat myself right out of life without ever achieving anything. And no doubt people will find a way to Cheat Mode out of my funeral by simply “liking” my memorial page.
So much for the kindness of strangers
I just want to use this tiny space to say a warm thank you to all the Londoners who helped me when I had a “funny turn” on the Overground yesterday: nobody. Yes, despite me slumping down to the floor in an ashen-faced sweaty mess, finding it hard to breathe and on the verge of passing out, not one person asked if I was OK.
Without being all Little Lord Fauntleroy about it, surely someone could have offered me a seat? I mean, what does it take? For me to actually die on the floor in front of everyone? Get reanimated as a zombie and eat brains until someone stands up?
I thought we’d turned a corner and were a nice, “kind” set of people. I thought wellbeing “awareness” was at superhuman levels. Seems not.
Or maybe it just looked like I might puke. Or that they might catch bird flu. Or wussiness. Regardless, even big old smelly men need looking after sometimes, all right?