The discussions we have had in class have really made me see the true nature of Americans. The world is an expendable entertainment venue--nothing more. All thought I have really enjoyed the discussions in class and felt I have learned a lot from them, they have really shown me how much I hold a minority opinion. I am tired of the hum of computers.
The chopped up conversations. I'm tired of being put on hold in real life conversation as someone looks down to answer a text message. We all see it. At times, most of us see how annoying it is, yet we have no desire to change it. I know I do it. I'm still just as bad as what I am complaining about. My only difference, it seems, is that I acknowledge it as a problem. I refuse to embrace this wave of the future. I think it is hollow and cold like the machines that infect us. The days I've been cellphone-less and Internet-less have been the best days of my life. I remember when I first got a cellphone. Every text gave me a little high. A little approval that I was important, a little life meaning. But as the high wore off, the true nature of the devise shown through. Slavery in it's most wide-spread form. Losing my phone meant losing my contact with the world. I lost my life when I lost my phone. That shouldn't happen. Every time I have lost my phone, after the first couple days have been more real than ever. ever conversation is pure and unobstructed. When walking without my phone, I took in the world, unfiltered and undistracted. Pure, like when I was a child. This is why I love camping. Some place further than a park. Somewhere without cellphone towers and with choppy radio reception. I love that camping forces everyone to be entertained by each other, a fire, nature, and some watered down beer. To me, there are no better four inventions to date.
I think this world we live is why I have dreams about Burning man.http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_man I haven't dre
amt about any actual place as much as I have this dusty hell-hole situated in Nowhere, In the middle of, USA. While it does hum with technology 24/7, the difference lies in the personal media devises. You can't take I-pods out there, they would be ruined, and why would you want to drown anything out? It would be like taking opiates in Las Vegas. The big one was cellphones. There's no reception out there. Every conversation is grounded. It wasn't a fragment. It wasn't half timed between a cellphone or other handheld impersonal distraction devise (or HIDD for short). Every year I see a newb walking around with his/her cellphone in the air, searching for meaning. I man to tell them they are hear right now, make the best of what's around you.
Now I was going to tie this into The Matrix. I put the picture in before I started writing and I can't really betray that now. So, I'll segway with a quote that fits what I've been ranting about well,
"The Matrix is a system Neo. That system is out enemy. But when You're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen,
teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand.
Most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so helplessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
People have annoyingly reveled at The Matrix being a metaphor for the bible. That is simple and irrelevant to me. The Matrix is the our world in 1999. it's our world now. We're living a fantasy that most of us are unwilling to give up. It's make-believe. Most of us are like Cypher. Perfectly content with this artificial world we live in. We power the machines and they entertain us. We build them and depend on them, we need them and so far, they need us. At this point, it's a consumption race. Who knows which of us will torch the sky first, it'll probably be half and half. We can't do anything any more without the help of computers, etc. So how is the world any different than the Matrix?
Nature shouldn't be confined to parks. As I mention in my paper, the big problem isn't this shallow fantasy world we live in. I hate it, but if it only destroyed us, big woop. Our problem, sad, but what are you going to do? I'm not going to rail you with hippie propaganda but FUCCCCKKKKK. No one gives a shit. Activism shouldn't be just a hobby for upper class white guilt infested twenty-somethings. We living a four to five planet life style. Are we fucking stupid? I don't need all these things if all they're going to do is help add mass to the garbage continent. i think we all need to spend some time there to see what we've done. than we might see what our life style is really doing to the world. Most of our resources are exported, along with the pollution they cause. Easy to laugh off way over here in the new world. The so far un-fucked world. We only have one planet to destroy and we can't depend on technology to dig us out of this hole. All its done so far is dug us deeper and deeper and unless we have some calamity to wipe out the top consumers, than we can't keep living like we do. We will be the ones to torch the sky. We will be the ones to retreat to the center of the Earth for warmth. I will never trust a machine to keep me alive.
I seem to be the only one that thinks that evolution is going on an unnatural path right now. Just because something can be made that doesn't mean it was supposed to be made.
Maybe The Matrix is a biblical story. In which case all its saying is God is lazy, equivalent to some dictator who inherited a throne by blood. Now too old and off his rocker (but in office until dead) to really get things done any more. As his final act, he introduced the apocalypse in the laziest way possible. He gave Earth man to do the job for him.
I'm going to begin to wrap this blog up now because all its doing is filling me with anger and hatred and I'm trying to be more...what's in called free and peaceful and accepting.
Just because something is made in to science fiction it doesn't mean it doesn't/can't mirror a path we are heading . I think its unfair and impractical when people argue against a perfectly rational argument/rant of mine, because its been fictionalized in a movie. Does a fictional movie made on Hitler's life make him not exist? NO.
I'd like to end with some movie recommendations of films that you should watch and TAKE NOTES on. They range from dead serious, sci-fi, to comedy.
The matrix (just the first one. The trilogies are good examples of what the first one pointed out)
The Jungle Book (The Jason Scott Lee one, the rest are pure entertainment pieces. One of the best summaries of man's view and treatment of nature)
Idiocracy (great comedy and great commentary. You can't watch this and laugh or watch this and cry.)
Up In the Air (just saw it. good movie with good points, outside what I've been talking about but very very related. Good stuff about technology and this new fast world making us detached and...what's the word, COMPLETELY EXPENDABLE)
I <3 id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">Huckabees (nuf' said)
Fern Gully (Utterly brilliant. Disagree and I'm willing to throw down)
Into The Wild (Chris is me if I had grown up in a rich east coast Sub-urb. but I didn't so I differ slightly-Watch this movie)
Avatar (anyone who shrugs this movie off is ignorant or has never been to a non-first world country)
