I don't know how many people wake up in the morning thinking that today could be the end. I doubt someone gets out of bed and wonders am I going to be murdered by a random act of senseless violence? Is my mundane trip to the grocery store going to end my life? It feels like today there are so many external threats to our safety, even though if you look at the statistics, it's technically safer now than it's ever been. Somehow I can't shake the ever-present feeling that I shouldn't get too comfortable and should always be prepared for something horrible to happen. It's not because my life has a history of terrible incidents. I doubt someone who finds themselves in the middle of a mass shooting or forest fire could have seen it coming because they just faced that same kind of problem last year. I try to not give into fear mongering, however, I can't help but wonder how is my story going to end. I'm old enough now that death is not some vague thing that could possibly happen at some distant time, but instead it could be literally around the corner. This of course starts the runaway train of thoughts that has me wondering will I be ready when it happens? What will happen to my family? Granted when it does happen, I'll be dead so most of my Earthly concerns will no longer be anything I have to worry about. The thing is, I'm still alive, so I'm still worried about what the consequences of my death will be on the world around me.
The whole thing got me thinking about not just my own end, but the end of things in general. For instance, what is going to happen to my car when I'm done with it or the next person after that? What happens to the things in our lives when they're no longer in our lives? Maybe they end up in a festering pile somewhere. If you live in a fairly green place, you may have a vision that all the stuff you use will somehow magically get recycled and put back into the perpetual loop of usefulness. I recycle, but I'm pretty confident that most of the stuff that goes int the bin ends up rotting away somewhere out of sight and mind. For the most part I've been one to try and pass something along if I'm no longer using it. Eventually though, everything comes to its end. What is that though? Most of us probably don't get to truly see the final destination of the things in our lives.
If you were to go back and talk to people from the different eras, it's very likely that they all shared similar fears about the world seemingly spinning out of control. Each one convinced that things had never been as bad as they were right then. Today is no different. The country feels increasingly divided on fundamental issues. Each side is convinced that they are right and treats anyone opposed to them as the enemy. It's gotten to the point that I have to wonder if there is any empathy left in the world beyond the initial shock of sadness as you look at your phone and see that heartbreaking headline with numbers that represent people impacted by some tragedy. I've said before that you have to mentally and emotionally shield yourself otherwise you can drown in the sadness of the world. Still, it seems like the constant barrage of disasters and violence has gotten us to the point that we willingly forget until the next time something happens.
Mass shooting, we argue about gun control and the Second Amendment and how it wasn't the weapon that killed those people, but rather the mentally unstable person. Never mind that we've created a society where it's just accepted that if you want an instrument of death, you just need to go to the store and pick one up. If someone questions that ability, it immediately devolves into a screaming match between two parties who don't want to hear the other side, much less change their mind. So while we argue endlessly, the people who have been hurt by gun violence get drowned out by the rhetoric and posturing. It's easy to debate theoretical ideas in the abstract. When you're running for your life while someone is shooting at you or hearing that someone you love was a victim of unspeakable violence, it must seem that much more hopeless knowing that regardless of outcome, nothing will change. The next person this happens to will experience that same hopeless terror of being a statistic in some debate.
Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, mudslides, and forest fires all remind us that the Earth doesn't give a shit about our petty little problems. Storms are more frequent and stronger, but as a nation we still can't agree on the scientific facts because doing so would mean some major changes have to happen. That could cost someone money or force them to abandon what they've been doing their whole life. It's one thing to be skeptical of something you don't fully understand. It's another to dismiss it outright because it doesn't match with what's already in your head. It's another thing entirely to purposefully work against the greater good of people and the planet in order to appease those who profit from harmful industries. It honestly feels like our country is being run by cartoon villains. The problem is we don't have Captain Planet or The Avengers protecting us.
Some of the worst aspects of all this is the affect it's had on me internally. I find myself more likely to stay away from people. I'm constantly concerned that people are in it for themselves and will take what they can, when they can. The logical part of my brain keeps trying to remind me that most people are good. They want what's best for their family and the people they care about. Still, as I'm driving down the road, I just see the opposition. Everyone is trying to take. There isn't enough for everyone and someone is going to get left behind. The whole world is not the enemy, but it sure feels like it's not a very hospitable place right now.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Monday, June 5, 2017
On Today
As a species we seem to hate ourselves. It's almost as if we are pre-programmed to be self-destructive. Even when faced with overwhelming information that is contrary to our beliefs, we still manage to barrel forward into harm and then cry out about how the world isn't fair, that we weren't warned. I often wonder how we've made it this far when literally every day you can find examples of people falling back on their base instincts to mistrust and hate things they don't understand, including others. It scares me to think that at this point we are the most enlightened than we've ever been in all of human history and we're still having debates about the very nature of our species. How can there still be people who believe that a person from a different race is less than someone else? How can there be men, who are so afraid of women doing anything, that they would threaten them with death? I'm not talking some developing nation that hasn't figured out electricity or clean drinking water. This is happening here in America. This is happening in my town. How can we still be so backwards in our thinking? The most frustrating part is that no amount of logic is going to change their minds because they don't want their minds changed. I've talked before about how perception shapes our reality. So if someone comes along and says or does something that upends that reality, we tend to react with hostility and even violence. I sometimes wonder if mankind just needs a different thing to focus on hating. It wouldn't exactly fix the fundamental problem we have, but it could potentially push off our eventual extinction at our own hands. Sorry alien travelers, but humans are a bit like determined toddlers, we need to be distracted and redirected otherwise we will put our hands on that hot oven burner, even though someone smarter than us keeps saying "No, that will hurt you". We need something or someone to focus our anxieties on. Someone to blame for our troubles. Because obviously it's not our fault.
I'm still trying to figure out how to explain to my daughter that our society will likely be working against her in ways I've never experienced. How do I tell her that even walking down the street means being careful because someone bigger than her may see her as an object rather than a person? Which is at the heart of the problem, we stop seeing each other as people. There are so many humans on the planet that we can't possibly know them all, therefor most of them are strangers and not people we can care about. I don't know if there were less of us if it would be any different. Maybe it is all a matter of scale. Numbers too large lose all meaning to most people. Picture a million people in one place at one time. The individuals stop being a person and just become part of the mass of people. If a million people die, it's hard to really comprehend what that is like. Instead think of everyone you know and love. All the people you like and interact with on a daily basis. All your Facebook friends, even the ones you don't really know why you're friends with. All of those people would still only be a fraction of a million people. Now imagine all those people just died. That is what's happening around the world. People, along with everyone they know, are dying on a regular basis and our brains can only register a number. Because if we were to try and truly empathize with that level of suffering, I think we would break. We read about disasters, accidents, and attacks with the number of people dead as a highlight of the story. Dam breaks killing 48 people. Shooter kills 12 people in a shopping mall. I can't imagine losing 12 people I know in a single event and yet when I look at the headline, I have to somehow disconnect the reality that those were people. They have families and stories that came to an abrupt end. Their lives end and the people left alive will potentially use their deaths to further promote their agenda or try to prove a point.
I've taken a break from writing because I really haven't anything to say. And in rereading this post, it feels like our world is rather bleak. Then I remember that we as a species are miracles. The fact that the universe aligned in such a way that we are able exist should be celebrated. It's taken for granted that we're here. Think about what has to happen just for you specifically to exist and continue living. Maybe the meaning of life is living. Maybe it's trying to find hope and joy among the sometimes overwhelming sense that the world and our own species doesn't care about you. Will we ever be enlightened enough to stop hating ourselves? It's possible. I think it just takes not giving in or giving up. Maybe it takes standing up and knowing that your purpose is to make the world better, not just for yourself, but for everyone around you. Maybe then we have a chance.
I'm still trying to figure out how to explain to my daughter that our society will likely be working against her in ways I've never experienced. How do I tell her that even walking down the street means being careful because someone bigger than her may see her as an object rather than a person? Which is at the heart of the problem, we stop seeing each other as people. There are so many humans on the planet that we can't possibly know them all, therefor most of them are strangers and not people we can care about. I don't know if there were less of us if it would be any different. Maybe it is all a matter of scale. Numbers too large lose all meaning to most people. Picture a million people in one place at one time. The individuals stop being a person and just become part of the mass of people. If a million people die, it's hard to really comprehend what that is like. Instead think of everyone you know and love. All the people you like and interact with on a daily basis. All your Facebook friends, even the ones you don't really know why you're friends with. All of those people would still only be a fraction of a million people. Now imagine all those people just died. That is what's happening around the world. People, along with everyone they know, are dying on a regular basis and our brains can only register a number. Because if we were to try and truly empathize with that level of suffering, I think we would break. We read about disasters, accidents, and attacks with the number of people dead as a highlight of the story. Dam breaks killing 48 people. Shooter kills 12 people in a shopping mall. I can't imagine losing 12 people I know in a single event and yet when I look at the headline, I have to somehow disconnect the reality that those were people. They have families and stories that came to an abrupt end. Their lives end and the people left alive will potentially use their deaths to further promote their agenda or try to prove a point.
I've taken a break from writing because I really haven't anything to say. And in rereading this post, it feels like our world is rather bleak. Then I remember that we as a species are miracles. The fact that the universe aligned in such a way that we are able exist should be celebrated. It's taken for granted that we're here. Think about what has to happen just for you specifically to exist and continue living. Maybe the meaning of life is living. Maybe it's trying to find hope and joy among the sometimes overwhelming sense that the world and our own species doesn't care about you. Will we ever be enlightened enough to stop hating ourselves? It's possible. I think it just takes not giving in or giving up. Maybe it takes standing up and knowing that your purpose is to make the world better, not just for yourself, but for everyone around you. Maybe then we have a chance.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
On the Rollercoaster
There are a lot of people claiming that 2016 is a terrible year. I suppose I can get why they feel that way. In some cases it had some pretty low moments. Without doing too much research into the bleakness that is previous years, I wonder if it's roughly just another average year with ups and downs. The thing is that 2016 probably means a lot of different things to different people. For me it will always be a great year because my daughter came on the scene right near the beginning and she's pretty much set the tone for me ever since. With that said, almost right after she was born I lost an old friend very suddenly. I had no idea that the weird dichotomy of joy and sadness would pretty much be how I'd end up describing the year.
We may as well talk about the election. I've kept my opinion offline because honestly the internet really doesn't need yet another extreme view, which only serves to further divide people. That's the part that makes me sad. I've never been a very political person to start with so maybe I've been blind to this kind of divisiveness in elections and politics in general. Like some kind of idealistic fool, I always thought that the things that divided us were smaller than the things that brought us together. And while I initially wasn't a fan of our current President, I eventually came to the conclusion that he was trying to do good, even if he wasn't always successful. For the most part my life in the last eight years hasn't really changed all that much because of anything he or any other elected official was doing. Apparently that can be seen as being wrapped up in my own little white blanket of privilege. Because even though I've worked hard for what I have, there have always been advantages that I've taken for granted, blissfully unaware of many people out in my country who struggle every day in a system that seems to be actively working against them. A lot of those people see the President as someone who doesn't represent or care about them. And this is one of the many reasons why the election results came as such a shock to someone like me.
I live in a pretty liberal state and a very liberal city. It's the kind of place where people are well off enough that they can be concerned about the name of the cow that supplied the steaks in the artisan butcher shop next to their favorite organic juice bar. People tend to be socially conscious of the world and while I don't know if there is a lot of actual activism, there is at least perceived activism about issues. Granted, like many Americans, we have a very short attention span and move on quickly to the next moral outrage or internet meme that is trending today. So many of us gathered around our cable-free televisions to watch what was going to be an obvious victory for the seemingly obvious choice to run the country. When it became obvious that things were going in a different direction I, like many others, were trying to figure out how it was possible? How could this have blindsided me, when 24 hours before I would have been pretty confident that we'd have our first female President. I hadn't taken into account the sheer amount of hatred for the Democratic candidate. She was a politician and their very nature means they are going to do some shady things, but somehow she had managed to have normal people foaming at the mouth when they would even say her name. There had always been a part of me that wanted to sit down with some of these people and get a real accounting of what it was they disliked about her. By now, the term 'echo chamber' has been tossed around a lot and it makes sense. We tend to surround ourselves with comfortable things and that includes information. If someone or something challenges our ideas or beliefs, it's natural to shy away from that. Toss is some good old fashion misinformation (or propaganda) and you've got millions of people who believe something that isn't always based on fact. Or worse, based on a portion of fact, that has been isolated to prove their point. Somewhere along the way we start to villainize people who disagree with us. Social media was full of people who were saying not only did they disagree with the other side, but the other side was now bordering on evil, stupid, or brainwashed. I found myself even falling into the trap of taking my disagreement on one thing and making it seem as though I was fundamentally opposed to these other people, who may as well been aliens because their beliefs were so different from mine. I'm sure there are some truly awful people out there. People who are excited to see hatred making a comeback. Maybe it stems from fear or jealousy or ignorance. Maybe it's simple greed. I don't know at this point. I would have thought in 2016 that pettiness and racism would be something we talk about as a thing of the past. If not the past, then something that was getting better. If anything, this year has made me wonder is the world really as good as I thought it was. Then again, maybe that's what certain people want. They want you to be afraid. Afraid of the people around you that aren't on your side. If you're not with us, then you're against us? One has to ask, who benefits from us being afraid and hating those who are different from us?
As we close out this year, it feels like the nation is divided more than it's been in recent history. Or maybe it just feels that way because I started paying attention. There is a whole group of people in our country who have felt left behind. I've been very fortunate to not know what that is like. I don't know if those same people felt that the Republican candidate was the best candidate, but it was the one that they got. The alternative being more of a government that wasn't listening to them. In the end there was a massive shift from the status quo, which is how things tend to go after eight years with one party running the show. People were bound to be upset either way, but now it seems to go beyond that where the winning side is taking victory laps and the losing side, still in disbelief, is doing anything it can to halt the inevitable reality that is coming in 2017. It feels like a fight with a loved one. Lots of things were said and done. It seems like everyone now has this emotional bruise that's still tender. I don't know how long it will last with people still holding their animosity towards each other. Maybe like many things for our country, it too will pass. At least right now it seems to be the capstone on a year that felt a bit bleak.
So as I think about this year, I have to remind myself that there has been some pretty great things as well. The Cubs broke a 100+ year streak to finally win the World Series, giving the people of Chicago something to cheer about. Our good friends had adorable babies, that will hopefully become friends with my daughter as they grow to be adorable together. A private company, headed by the closest thing to Tony Stark, has successfully landed a rocket vertically, getting us one step closer to leaving Earth. Doctors and scientists have created cybernetic implants that helped a man move his fingers for the first time. Stem cells have been injected into stroke patients allowing them to walk again. Someone with a lot of time on their hands discovered a new prime number, although I don't know how that helps us, but it's more to prove that we can keep finding new things, even when we think we've seen it all. By the way, they've confirmed (again) that there is a ninth planet in our solar system. I remember growing up with Planet X as a possibility so it's good to know that we've got people staring out into the cosmos and seeing things that have been hiding from us for longer than we know. And finally, we got a new Star Wars movie. Being the same age as Star Wars, I will always be thankful that I get to go back to that galaxy far, far away and see if the good guys and overcome impossible odds to save the day. Maybe with the perspective of time, we'll all look back at 2016 as just another strange year in a long weird journey. I'm excited to see what happens in 2017.
We may as well talk about the election. I've kept my opinion offline because honestly the internet really doesn't need yet another extreme view, which only serves to further divide people. That's the part that makes me sad. I've never been a very political person to start with so maybe I've been blind to this kind of divisiveness in elections and politics in general. Like some kind of idealistic fool, I always thought that the things that divided us were smaller than the things that brought us together. And while I initially wasn't a fan of our current President, I eventually came to the conclusion that he was trying to do good, even if he wasn't always successful. For the most part my life in the last eight years hasn't really changed all that much because of anything he or any other elected official was doing. Apparently that can be seen as being wrapped up in my own little white blanket of privilege. Because even though I've worked hard for what I have, there have always been advantages that I've taken for granted, blissfully unaware of many people out in my country who struggle every day in a system that seems to be actively working against them. A lot of those people see the President as someone who doesn't represent or care about them. And this is one of the many reasons why the election results came as such a shock to someone like me.
I live in a pretty liberal state and a very liberal city. It's the kind of place where people are well off enough that they can be concerned about the name of the cow that supplied the steaks in the artisan butcher shop next to their favorite organic juice bar. People tend to be socially conscious of the world and while I don't know if there is a lot of actual activism, there is at least perceived activism about issues. Granted, like many Americans, we have a very short attention span and move on quickly to the next moral outrage or internet meme that is trending today. So many of us gathered around our cable-free televisions to watch what was going to be an obvious victory for the seemingly obvious choice to run the country. When it became obvious that things were going in a different direction I, like many others, were trying to figure out how it was possible? How could this have blindsided me, when 24 hours before I would have been pretty confident that we'd have our first female President. I hadn't taken into account the sheer amount of hatred for the Democratic candidate. She was a politician and their very nature means they are going to do some shady things, but somehow she had managed to have normal people foaming at the mouth when they would even say her name. There had always been a part of me that wanted to sit down with some of these people and get a real accounting of what it was they disliked about her. By now, the term 'echo chamber' has been tossed around a lot and it makes sense. We tend to surround ourselves with comfortable things and that includes information. If someone or something challenges our ideas or beliefs, it's natural to shy away from that. Toss is some good old fashion misinformation (or propaganda) and you've got millions of people who believe something that isn't always based on fact. Or worse, based on a portion of fact, that has been isolated to prove their point. Somewhere along the way we start to villainize people who disagree with us. Social media was full of people who were saying not only did they disagree with the other side, but the other side was now bordering on evil, stupid, or brainwashed. I found myself even falling into the trap of taking my disagreement on one thing and making it seem as though I was fundamentally opposed to these other people, who may as well been aliens because their beliefs were so different from mine. I'm sure there are some truly awful people out there. People who are excited to see hatred making a comeback. Maybe it stems from fear or jealousy or ignorance. Maybe it's simple greed. I don't know at this point. I would have thought in 2016 that pettiness and racism would be something we talk about as a thing of the past. If not the past, then something that was getting better. If anything, this year has made me wonder is the world really as good as I thought it was. Then again, maybe that's what certain people want. They want you to be afraid. Afraid of the people around you that aren't on your side. If you're not with us, then you're against us? One has to ask, who benefits from us being afraid and hating those who are different from us?
As we close out this year, it feels like the nation is divided more than it's been in recent history. Or maybe it just feels that way because I started paying attention. There is a whole group of people in our country who have felt left behind. I've been very fortunate to not know what that is like. I don't know if those same people felt that the Republican candidate was the best candidate, but it was the one that they got. The alternative being more of a government that wasn't listening to them. In the end there was a massive shift from the status quo, which is how things tend to go after eight years with one party running the show. People were bound to be upset either way, but now it seems to go beyond that where the winning side is taking victory laps and the losing side, still in disbelief, is doing anything it can to halt the inevitable reality that is coming in 2017. It feels like a fight with a loved one. Lots of things were said and done. It seems like everyone now has this emotional bruise that's still tender. I don't know how long it will last with people still holding their animosity towards each other. Maybe like many things for our country, it too will pass. At least right now it seems to be the capstone on a year that felt a bit bleak.
So as I think about this year, I have to remind myself that there has been some pretty great things as well. The Cubs broke a 100+ year streak to finally win the World Series, giving the people of Chicago something to cheer about. Our good friends had adorable babies, that will hopefully become friends with my daughter as they grow to be adorable together. A private company, headed by the closest thing to Tony Stark, has successfully landed a rocket vertically, getting us one step closer to leaving Earth. Doctors and scientists have created cybernetic implants that helped a man move his fingers for the first time. Stem cells have been injected into stroke patients allowing them to walk again. Someone with a lot of time on their hands discovered a new prime number, although I don't know how that helps us, but it's more to prove that we can keep finding new things, even when we think we've seen it all. By the way, they've confirmed (again) that there is a ninth planet in our solar system. I remember growing up with Planet X as a possibility so it's good to know that we've got people staring out into the cosmos and seeing things that have been hiding from us for longer than we know. And finally, we got a new Star Wars movie. Being the same age as Star Wars, I will always be thankful that I get to go back to that galaxy far, far away and see if the good guys and overcome impossible odds to save the day. Maybe with the perspective of time, we'll all look back at 2016 as just another strange year in a long weird journey. I'm excited to see what happens in 2017.
Monday, August 22, 2016
On Fatherhood
As with many things in life, it's hard to know how it's really going to be until you experience it. No matter how much preparation you think you have, when the actual time comes, you are just along for the ride and hope that you don't mess up too bad. People would say how you don't know how you'll be able to love someone as much as you do your children. You think, I've experienced love before, this must just be more of it. It's amazing how much of an understatement that really becomes once you look into the eyes of your child. For a father it's a little different because it takes a few months of looking into their eyes before they start to show signs of recognition and understanding that you as an entity are going to keep showing up. Also after a few months they transform so much and into the start of a person. Plus it doesn't hurt that my daughter thinks I'm the most hilarious shaved ape out there.
The part that they don't really talk to you about is the sheer terror that's constantly in the background. It's a bit like that low level hum you hear when near power lines. Even when things are going well and you've had a good dad moment, I feel it in the back of my mind. If you read the news for even a minute, you get the impression that the survival rate of the average person is pretty bleak. If you are lucky enough to avoid some random tragedy or bout of senseless violence, then there is a whole host of parasites, viruses, and cancers that are willing to eat you from the inside. Then again it seems like the whole point of the news is to keep you paying attention to the news for just a little longer. Is the world really such a terrible place? Is life really that hard? I know that for some people it's harder and shorter than it should be, but we've been blessed with a fairly safe and happy environment. Still, I look at her and don't like thinking about there being a moment when she figures out that the world isn't as magical as I've made it out to be. Sometimes I wish I could just take her out of this reality and off into cartoon land. The logical part of me knows that this isn't fair to her as a person, but I don't know how to handle when they find out that the world as a whole doesn't really care about them in the way that their people care about them as an individual. I wonder about what lies I'll have to tell to keep her safe a little longer.
I've found myself looking at everyone very differently. Seeing my daughter experiencing the world for the first time, I wonder how any person becomes what they are today. Even the asshole who cut me off this morning was once a child. Once, a long time ago, they had a world of potential, where they could dream of doing or being anything. They still may be on that journey, but that route went directly in front of MY journey. Granted it doesn't always change the way I interact with people because I'm still me. There are moments where I can't help but wonder how someone's life brought them from being a wide-eyed child to a cynic. I suppose one could ask the same of me and I had a pretty good childhood. I look differently at various forms of entertainment too. Movies and television where characters are killed or hurt make me wonder what would it be like to be their parents. I still enjoy the things I always have, it's just now there is an added bit of empathy that intrudes in on everything.
I worry about what she's going to be like when she's old enough to realize I'm not the funniest person on the planet. There will come a time when she doesn't want to hang out with me, which only makes me want to spend that much more time with her now. I want her to be smart and clever and funny and able to exist in the world without me because if everything goes according to plan that's how it's going to be. I worry about being around for as much of her life as possible. I worry that all those stupid cheeseburgers have quietly stolen years from me. I worry that one day I'll be driving and look right when I should have looked left and have my story with her end. I worry about her life and all the things that could happen and won't even say them here, in some superstitious belief that I don't want to give them power, in the event that there is some malevolent entity controlling our reality that would find humor in taking my daughter from me. I worry about how she's going to handle love. I wonder if she'll find a partner in life like I did. I hope it doesn't take her as long to get there as it did me, even if it was worth the wait. I worry that I may never get to see her own children, if she decides to have them. Basically I worry about everything.
Even with all that being said, I've been rewarded with this tiny happy, crazy, curious person in progress that looks to me like I'm the expert on life. It would be silly to say I hope I don't screw up because it seems impossible to not make mistakes along the way. I just hope that she's able to forgive me for not having all the answers.
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
On Building Tomorrow
Are we the sum of our past? Is it possible that our personality is just a collection of events that have slowly shaped us into the person we are right now? Like water tumbling over rocks, it slowly changes the shape of things. What happens though if you can't remember the things that built you into you? If I can't remember all the little things that turned me into the person I am now, do I really know who I am? Maybe the things I do or think are more influenced by the unremembered past than my current perception of the world around me.
I suppose one could argue that aren't defined by our past, but rather by our actions. That's all well and good, except that we hold to the past for so many things. Your ability to purchase things is dictated by your credit history. The jobs you're able to qualify for are determined by the jobs you've already done. Or at least claimed to have done on your resume. Criminals are branded by the crimes of their past, even if they will never do anything like that again. We are haunted by our past. Even if you can't or won't remember the past, it's likely that someone will remember it for you. Now with more and more of our private lives living on the internet, it's likely that our pasts will outlive us. Facebook potentially has the ability to track an entire lifetime. Granted they are doing it to make sure they know exactly how to market to you, but it's possible that one day someone will go back and study a Facebook-like timeline to try and better understand the life and times of someone who has yet to be famous.
There is a part of me that wishes I had the ability to travel back into my own memories. What would I see if I could go back to my grandmother's farm in Wisconsin circa 1985? How did that last conversation with a childhood friend really go before they left your life forever? I'm not looking to change things. What's done is done. Still it would be interesting to be able to revisit the moments in your past that your memory can't quite grasp onto. What did my grandfather's voice really sound like? What did the living room look like for my baby brother's first Christmas? Would seeing and hearing these memories change who I am now? Would they simply reinforce the beliefs I already hold onto?
We all carry around little time preservers in our pockets. They capture where we were, what we were doing, who we were with, what we ate (and how great it looked), and creates a sense of holding onto that moment in time. I don't know about you, but it's gotten to the point now where you don't take just one picture. You snap a dozen shots to find that one good one. That's the one that makes it. That's the one you share and the one you'll ultimately look back on and use as your memory anchor. My daughter doesn't know how to sit still, so for every picture I show to the world, there are many that are thrown aside and lost forever. Most of those pictures are of a blurry little baby with her eyes half closed, but still they are part of the moment I'm trying to save. Never mind the fact that the times I have pictures of something are when I had the foresight to pull out my phone to take a picture. There are times when I just want to experience the moment without trying to save it. In the moment I appreciate it more by just living rather than recording. It doesn't take long after though that I wonder if I'll remember it later. Is it just another moment that will fade into the background?
Maybe the past is just a sort of guide to our future. It helped us get here and generally points us in a direction. All of our history only serves to take us to the next place. It does make me wonder though how today will influence tomorrow.
I suppose one could argue that aren't defined by our past, but rather by our actions. That's all well and good, except that we hold to the past for so many things. Your ability to purchase things is dictated by your credit history. The jobs you're able to qualify for are determined by the jobs you've already done. Or at least claimed to have done on your resume. Criminals are branded by the crimes of their past, even if they will never do anything like that again. We are haunted by our past. Even if you can't or won't remember the past, it's likely that someone will remember it for you. Now with more and more of our private lives living on the internet, it's likely that our pasts will outlive us. Facebook potentially has the ability to track an entire lifetime. Granted they are doing it to make sure they know exactly how to market to you, but it's possible that one day someone will go back and study a Facebook-like timeline to try and better understand the life and times of someone who has yet to be famous.
There is a part of me that wishes I had the ability to travel back into my own memories. What would I see if I could go back to my grandmother's farm in Wisconsin circa 1985? How did that last conversation with a childhood friend really go before they left your life forever? I'm not looking to change things. What's done is done. Still it would be interesting to be able to revisit the moments in your past that your memory can't quite grasp onto. What did my grandfather's voice really sound like? What did the living room look like for my baby brother's first Christmas? Would seeing and hearing these memories change who I am now? Would they simply reinforce the beliefs I already hold onto?
We all carry around little time preservers in our pockets. They capture where we were, what we were doing, who we were with, what we ate (and how great it looked), and creates a sense of holding onto that moment in time. I don't know about you, but it's gotten to the point now where you don't take just one picture. You snap a dozen shots to find that one good one. That's the one that makes it. That's the one you share and the one you'll ultimately look back on and use as your memory anchor. My daughter doesn't know how to sit still, so for every picture I show to the world, there are many that are thrown aside and lost forever. Most of those pictures are of a blurry little baby with her eyes half closed, but still they are part of the moment I'm trying to save. Never mind the fact that the times I have pictures of something are when I had the foresight to pull out my phone to take a picture. There are times when I just want to experience the moment without trying to save it. In the moment I appreciate it more by just living rather than recording. It doesn't take long after though that I wonder if I'll remember it later. Is it just another moment that will fade into the background?
Maybe the past is just a sort of guide to our future. It helped us get here and generally points us in a direction. All of our history only serves to take us to the next place. It does make me wonder though how today will influence tomorrow.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
On the Island
The world is full of great things. Full of terrible things. Mostly it seems to be full of things I know nothing about. I like a lot of different things: movies, television, comics, art, books, trees, toys, video games, the outside in general, travel, music, good beer, somewhat good beer, and of course delicious food. It would seem like I'm fairly diverse in the things I like, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that for every interest I have there are glaring blind spots. Someone will tell me about a television show or album that they enjoy and I wonder how is it that something like that has escaped me? Maybe it's become easier and easier in today's world to customize our lives to the things we like. You go to a webpage and tell it your interests and it will start building you a feed of information. The better ones will help you discover new things, but most of them really just let you reinforce the wall of our own tastes.
I'm not saying it's bad to like what you like. It's more that it feels a bit overwhelming when there is so much content out there. How is one expected to keep up? Maybe we're not supposed to. Maybe it's alright to miss out on that one thing that you'd probably love, but just don't have space for in your life. How do you know when that's OK though? How do you know if you're spending too much of your time on the old standby when there are so many other options out there?
Like music? You could listen to new music every day for a year and not hear the same song repeated, if you didn't feel that compulsion to re-listen to old favorites. Hey I like Zeppelin as much as the next person, but seriously it's been forty year. Maybe it's OK to see how music has grown and changed since then. You never know, you may find something you like that was made after 1973. It's got me wondering how it happens. At one point the world was full of new and wonderful things. Everything felt fresh and exciting. Then we find something we like and say to ourselves "This is it. My search is over." This also leads to that feeling that certain things are now sacred and anyone or anything that attempts to build upon that is seen as an affront to the original. The problem with this is that most of the world is a remix. Everything is an iteration and for the generation that creates it, it feels like the source. My daughter is going to grow up in a world where Ninja Turtles and Transformers are these loud, garish, obnoxious movies of explosions and silliness, whereas I grew up with them being something completely different, while still being fairly annoying to my parents. It took me awhile, but I've gotten to a point where it's OK for the next generation to have their versions of stuff. It doesn't take away from my version. The remakes are made for me. They don't care about me or my old ass opinion, even though the property was originated when I was their target audience.
The whole thing has me wondering about the things I like. Do I like them because they are still interesting to me? Or do I like them because for as long as I can remember I have liked them? It's OK to ask yourself why you're interesting in something. It could be the previous version of yourself found it compelling, but the current version of you doesn't get the same thrill as you used to. For me it's caused me to reconsider how I spend my time because it's becoming increasingly valuable to me. Sometimes that means picking up something I put down years ago and seeing it with different eyes. Sometimes that means putting something on a shelf because it doesn't provide the same value it had in the past. Maybe by doing that I'll be able to open myself up to being able to see the new things out there that could blow my mind and make me ask myself how I've lived this long without knowing about them.
I'm not saying it's bad to like what you like. It's more that it feels a bit overwhelming when there is so much content out there. How is one expected to keep up? Maybe we're not supposed to. Maybe it's alright to miss out on that one thing that you'd probably love, but just don't have space for in your life. How do you know when that's OK though? How do you know if you're spending too much of your time on the old standby when there are so many other options out there?
Like music? You could listen to new music every day for a year and not hear the same song repeated, if you didn't feel that compulsion to re-listen to old favorites. Hey I like Zeppelin as much as the next person, but seriously it's been forty year. Maybe it's OK to see how music has grown and changed since then. You never know, you may find something you like that was made after 1973. It's got me wondering how it happens. At one point the world was full of new and wonderful things. Everything felt fresh and exciting. Then we find something we like and say to ourselves "This is it. My search is over." This also leads to that feeling that certain things are now sacred and anyone or anything that attempts to build upon that is seen as an affront to the original. The problem with this is that most of the world is a remix. Everything is an iteration and for the generation that creates it, it feels like the source. My daughter is going to grow up in a world where Ninja Turtles and Transformers are these loud, garish, obnoxious movies of explosions and silliness, whereas I grew up with them being something completely different, while still being fairly annoying to my parents. It took me awhile, but I've gotten to a point where it's OK for the next generation to have their versions of stuff. It doesn't take away from my version. The remakes are made for me. They don't care about me or my old ass opinion, even though the property was originated when I was their target audience.
The whole thing has me wondering about the things I like. Do I like them because they are still interesting to me? Or do I like them because for as long as I can remember I have liked them? It's OK to ask yourself why you're interesting in something. It could be the previous version of yourself found it compelling, but the current version of you doesn't get the same thrill as you used to. For me it's caused me to reconsider how I spend my time because it's becoming increasingly valuable to me. Sometimes that means picking up something I put down years ago and seeing it with different eyes. Sometimes that means putting something on a shelf because it doesn't provide the same value it had in the past. Maybe by doing that I'll be able to open myself up to being able to see the new things out there that could blow my mind and make me ask myself how I've lived this long without knowing about them.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
On Lost & Not Found
I remember when I was very little, a friend had given me a Snake-Eyes GI Joe figure. He was my favorite character and I was very excited to have one of my own. That night I was taking a bath and playing with my new guy when my mom came in and said that another friend of mine, we'll call him "Tom", was outside and wanted to know if he could borrow a toy to play with. I wasn't super close with Tom and he tended to move a lot so it was hard to say when I'd see him again. So I decided to let him borrow one of my other figures. A few minutes later my mom came back and said that Tom had asked specifically for Snake-Eyes. To this day I wish I could go back and tell the younger version of me that he shouldn't loan out his favorite toy, but that's not how it works. So being a young idiot, I gave my favorite toy to my mom to give to Tom to borrow. That was the last time I ever saw that toy. The next time I saw Tom I asked where my Snake-Eyes was and he said he lost it, which I knew was a lie, but I didn't really have a whole lot of power to do anything about it. It's been thirty years and it still haunts me a little bit (obviously). Now I know that in the grand scheme of my life that little action figure wasn't a big deal. To my childhood self though it was a hard lesson in trust and loss of that trust. It changed the way I looked at Tom too because now I realized that he wouldn't hesitate to take away something valuable to me.
Being a little kid you lose things all the time. Most of the time it was my own fault for putting something down and forgetting where it was. Sometimes I imagine all the toys and knickknacks that must be scattered around my dad's property. Of course there is the possibility that they've simply blinked out of existence or have been consumed by the world somehow. Maybe in a thousand years someone will dig up all those lost things and start to piece together a story about my life based on the things I had when I was young.
We all lose things. If you think about it, most people have probably lost more things than they currently have. It's a strange thing though to have something simply vanish from your world without a trace. I've joked before that I wish I could have Google Life. I could call out and say "Google where is that necklace we've been looking for?" and Google would respond with "It's behind the refrigerator. It has been there for 2.3 weeks". It seems like there should only be a finite number of places something should logically be, but as we all know when we do manage to recover lost things, that they tend to be in what seems like random locations. Finding the television remote in the pantry with the plates. That black shirt you like in a completely different closet. A pair of glasses in the trunk of your car. It makes one wonder what was going on at the precise moment when an object became lost to us.
Strangely enough though I find myself being a fairly good finder of things. This is especially true around the house when asked if we have something, usually a tool of some kind, and my weird little mind suddenly recalls the possibility of a square bit for a drill sitting on a shelf in the shed. Sure enough it's there. The how and why my brain can sporadically remember the location of random items has never been quite clear. It's almost as though some part of my mind saw the item and thought that it was important enough to note for later. Meanwhile the thing I know we have, but isn't in the location where it should be, draws a complete blank. That's kind of the blessing and curse of living with someone though. You have a second person that may be able to find something you've misplaced. On the flip side though you can never be sure if that other person isn't the cause of something going missing in the first place. There is always that shadow of doubt. Did you really lose your favorite t-shirt or was lost on purpose when you weren't looking?
Being a little kid you lose things all the time. Most of the time it was my own fault for putting something down and forgetting where it was. Sometimes I imagine all the toys and knickknacks that must be scattered around my dad's property. Of course there is the possibility that they've simply blinked out of existence or have been consumed by the world somehow. Maybe in a thousand years someone will dig up all those lost things and start to piece together a story about my life based on the things I had when I was young.
We all lose things. If you think about it, most people have probably lost more things than they currently have. It's a strange thing though to have something simply vanish from your world without a trace. I've joked before that I wish I could have Google Life. I could call out and say "Google where is that necklace we've been looking for?" and Google would respond with "It's behind the refrigerator. It has been there for 2.3 weeks". It seems like there should only be a finite number of places something should logically be, but as we all know when we do manage to recover lost things, that they tend to be in what seems like random locations. Finding the television remote in the pantry with the plates. That black shirt you like in a completely different closet. A pair of glasses in the trunk of your car. It makes one wonder what was going on at the precise moment when an object became lost to us.
Strangely enough though I find myself being a fairly good finder of things. This is especially true around the house when asked if we have something, usually a tool of some kind, and my weird little mind suddenly recalls the possibility of a square bit for a drill sitting on a shelf in the shed. Sure enough it's there. The how and why my brain can sporadically remember the location of random items has never been quite clear. It's almost as though some part of my mind saw the item and thought that it was important enough to note for later. Meanwhile the thing I know we have, but isn't in the location where it should be, draws a complete blank. That's kind of the blessing and curse of living with someone though. You have a second person that may be able to find something you've misplaced. On the flip side though you can never be sure if that other person isn't the cause of something going missing in the first place. There is always that shadow of doubt. Did you really lose your favorite t-shirt or was lost on purpose when you weren't looking?
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