I seem to be coming full circle

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I don’t know if anyone could identify with me, but I seem to be coming full circle on the technology issue. We are living in this ultra-modern digital age, with the world of information at our fingertips, but for some reason I find myself harboring a deep . . . almost hatred of digital devices. My tablet feels useless, my smartphone like an unjustified extravagance. Email access anywhere? Who am I, Warren Buffett? Of course, there is something to be said for being able to Wiki something, define something, IMDB someone when the situation calls for it; when you’re watching a movie and someone goes, “oh, where have I seen her before?” you have the ability to snap off a little bit of information to release that mental tension. On the other hand, you could just let it go and not break up the temporal flow of your cinematic experience. . . I could go either way, but I’m tending toward silence now, because you start going down the list of everything this actor is doing and the next thing you know you’re looking at the cast of Cabaret and trying to figure out how the devil you got there. It’s like having a conversation with IMDB for Pete’s sake.

But hey, there’s an issue. Is our technology taking the place of our memories? In Proust and the Squid: the Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf wrote about how (Plato, I think it was) had a problem with reading when it was starting to come around because according to him, having the information at your fingertips meant that you had no reason to memorize it – and indeed, back then it seems as though your average Greek could tell a hundred different tales verbatim, if Wolf is to be believed. But the point is clear, and I have experienced that myself with my technology. I grew up with an analog phone system, and when I was twelve I could rattle off thirty or so telephone numbers, while now I know just three telephone numbers by heart – four, if you count Jenny (867-5309.)

Now I find that I miss those things that the digital technology has replaced. Those things, they don’t just rustle with the dry sound of leaves. They’re the things that move, the things that ding, and the things that crackle. Do you remember typewriters? Record players? CRT televisions?

Okay, I’m actually never going back to CRTs. That was just ridiculous. But how about UHF and VHF broadcasts? All arguments about quality aside, don’t you remember when you could twist that dial and tune in the station, and actually watch some TV? Now we have a local weather channel that I can’t seem to tune in even though it’s broadcasting within walking distance. That’s alright; if we have a tornado, I’ll just go outside and stare at the sky, I guess.

When I was younger, I was in danger of having to move in fairly quick order. It made sense to be able to concentrate more of my belongings in a smaller bit of space. But how is it that even though I’m now stable, I still feel obliged to do it all with a single artifact? Now I just want to carry a book, a real book, and I do. I actually, literally, smell the book from time to time, and it actually, literally, makes me feel better when I feel stranded in the world. Isn’t it a shame that we’re trying to leave all of our best innovations in the past, while entrusting our future to the cloud?

Two recent revelations

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1. It’s often faster to go slower unimpeded than to go quickly between frequent stops when traveling toward a destination. This is why some people prefer back roads to main thoroughfares, and why simple jobs are the quickest ones to complete with a high degree of quality.

2. Everyone who is a part of my life, despite the nature of his or her disposition and contribution to my own welfare, is deserving of both respect and love for the part that they have played in making me the person that I am today. From the long-deceased patriarch who probably didn’t think very highly of me to that one member of the family who only ever sought to cause trouble amongst the rest when things didn’t go her way, the high school bullies, the ones who called me fat, geek, nerd, twerp, dork, fag, loser, etc., the ones who inflated their tiny little egos at the expense of my own and then hit me up on Facebook later in life saying, “remember what fun we had together as kids?” Not to mention the so-called friend who abandoned me and acted like I didn’t exist when he drove past me one day when I was walking down the road carrying a vacuum cleaner; I guess he was always too cool for me, but it’s hard to hold a grudge in light of the idea that I owe my sheer awesomeness not only to those who celebrated it at one time or another, but those who stepped on me, who used me, abused me, and otherwise wronged me in life. Furthermore, with this realization I have unlocked the bonus realization that in the long run, they failed to damage me, whether that was their intent or not; they didn’t wrong me – they actually righted me! Bonus realization number two: not having this knowledge, I never realized before that everything bad that ever happened to me was my fault by faulty perception, and if a “bad thing” served the purpose of making me awesome, then was it ever bad at all? If I can keep calm and carry on with aplomb, then is everything truly good? I think that is so.

Why I love American history class

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Let’s make it short and sweet: I love American history classes because the choices our leaders have made enable me to write stuff like this:

Short Essay: The Battle of the Alamo has reached mythic proportions in popular American History. How did the defenders of the Alamo ultimately open the west for American Expansion in their 13 day battle in February and March of 1836?

“Famous last words” is how we like to describe something that seems like the opening salvo of a losing battle.

It’s ironic, then, that “remember the Alamo!!” is an epithet that might cause us to say that – “famous last words”. That’s probably because the average person doesn’t realize that the Alamo was a battle that we lost; likewise, the average person might not realize that the people who held down the fort in that battle were not at all ready for a fight. One day, they were cleaning their guns like good Texans do, every day (note: a Texan cleans his gun like a person brushes their teeth). Then, someone looks over their wall and says “we’ve got company, guys.”

Unfortunately, “company” had the fort surrounded. Whilst nobody was looking, Spanish troops had marched on the Alamo to prevent Mexicans from being independent. However, it’s obvious that nobody informed Jennifer Lopez de Santa Anna that you don’t mess with Texas. Although he ended up taking the Alamo, which makes perfect sense in light of the fact that it was held by like twenty people, he actually ended up losing the fort to people who couldn’t believe that such a douchebag would drive his own men on a death march across hundreds of miles of desert to attack a fort manned by the cast of Sesame Street. In less than half an hour, Sam Houston’s Texian army took back what was lost, and with Mexican Independence came this rush to organize, which opened the way for American expansion that can only happen when people are so confused about who owns what that they’re willing to drop the issue if you just leave them something. And so it went with Texas, and that’s why you don’t mess with them – like a sleeping bear, you may well be able to sneak past, but just by going near them, you risk getting mauled.

Don’t be that guy.

Some person tries to leave rude comments on my blog

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Someone tried to leave a bunch of comments on some of my blog posts. It is just too bad for that person, though, that I set my blogs to require my approval before comments will post. So really all this coward is doing is sending me anonymous messages that don’t make any sense; the only thing I can tell is that (a) this person has terrible manners, (b) this person has terrible spelling, (c) this person uses Midcontinent Communications for their Internet service.

Their IP address is 96.3.160.148.

They’re somewhere nearby.