Showing posts with label the best is yet to come. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the best is yet to come. Show all posts

The Fragile Eggs of Companionship





I've had the sinking feeling, at times, that I've put too many precious eggs in too few welcoming baskets. And at times I’ve been afraid that some of them, some of the most carefully and deeply invested eggs, have been casually dismissed…neglected…tossed around…even stomped on, crushed and obliterated, whether intentionally or not. And when this happens, what else is there to do but pick up the pieces, these shattered remnants of what had been a blossoming interpersonal relationship, and try another approach? I’m not one to just turn my back and walk away, because there must have been a good reason why I had been compelled to invest so deeply. Some combination of factors had made it worth it, had made it seem reciprocated in kind, and I want to put all effort into at the very least reevaluating and redistributing these factors so that something, if not all of it, can still remain between us. Sometimes this was just a casual friendship, sometimes a much more enduring one, once it was even an intimate one. As it turns out, obviously enough, the magnitude of the resulting damage is in this same order.

Interestingly, it's not those who blatantly stomp on the eggs who inflict the most pain. In this way it's quick and made very clear, at least, despite the violence, despite the pain. No, rather, it's the more casual, slow-going dismissals that are particularly difficult to make sense of and deal with—when you don't realize the damage that has been accumulating, that mess slowly growing in the bottom of that particular basket, oozing and spreading over any other still-healthy eggs. It slowly infects the entire scope of the relationship, so gradually that it goes almost entirely unnoticed until one day you open your eyes and all of the damage, all of the shattered broken mess, is laid bare.

My first instinct upon realization is to gather them up, all of these eggs I've distributed, all of the ones still healthy and functioning at least and, after cleaning up the messes of those that didn’t endure, encase them in something hopefully impenetrable like diamond, or adamantium. Protect them, these fragile investments of mine, so as not to let any possibility remain of such abuse and hardship. Then, once properly armored, maybe give a few of them back (just a few!) to each connection of mine, enough to at least enjoy a nice friendship, and keep the rest of them locked safely away inside an unbreakable vault to deny any access.

But what good would that do? Sure they'd be safe inside the confines of their hardened shells, but life would then be almost unbearably dull and lonely. Because what at first seems better and more comforting, to carefully reinvest the new batch and take in the comfort of knowing they will be safe in their armored shells, is actually its own separate kind of trap; the comfort would be short-lived. The relationships they symbolize would now be unchanging by definition, perhaps even more destined to fade because of this. Because again, a gradually fading, casually dismissed investment is much more damaging in the end, being unchanging in this decline, than one that can be addressed and modified accordingly.

The deeply-rooted trouble here is that addressing the complications of any relationship requires the willful cooperation of all parties involved. So your friend, or your partner, must also desire to make amends together with you. I believe this is the supreme difficulty we all face in our relations, why it sometimes seems so difficult to connect with those we hold so dear. They must also realize that there is something which needs addressing, that there is perhaps not enough cushioning for those ever-fragile eggs you are incubating together. This is the case with even the most casual of friendships, and I assert that this is the primary cause of most, if not all, damaged relations of all kinds.

I think, then, of all the potential, all the as yet unrealized beauty that these priceless, fragile little eggs can bring me and others, the fullness that will otherwise be hopelessly lacking among all relations. Whether this is a “standard” friendship, even if maybe one of those incredibly fun ones that are destined to dwindle somewhat in time (but on good terms), maybe even one of those exceptionally real, dependable, everlasting ones that you can rely on until the bitter end of time, or maybe, just maybe, a romance, the truest most beautiful fairy tale come to reality, it doesn’t alter this fundamental idea of cooperation and mutual effort and consideration.

And sometimes a little nudge is all another person needs to realize a shortcoming on their part; for this reason it is always important to keep up your own efforts. I’ve noticed a lot of people tend to sit themselves on the sidelines and insist that the other person is the one who needs to come out and say or do something, but the danger here is that if everyone involved is under the same impression, nothing is going to happen. Somebody has to begin the effort! But I, or anyone, cannot bring out this potential alone. It is, as uncomfortable as the realization makes me, entirely dependent on others. This has to be done carefully; it can't be forced, or pressured, or otherwise coerced without jeopardizing the very thing being attempted to develop.

No, the eggs need to be able to grow, to hatch and blossom, on their own time. If we want any chance of a meaningful relationship (any kind, friendly or romantic), the eggs need to exist in all their full fragile glory. For when you are entrusted with these eggs you are their incubator, their basket. You need to understand the responsibilities you have been trusted with. Understand that they need love, patience, and understanding—all that you can muster, to the absolute best of your ability. They will thrive and reward you beyond the wildest dreams imaginable. Nothing else in the world can provide this like a truly understanding, mutual relation can.

I can't help but wonder what things would be like if people, with all their feelings and emotions, could be reliably fit somehow into a calculation. A set of calculations can triangulate the position of a tiny rock, or spacecraft, hurtling through space to incredible accuracy. This can be very, very useful, for obvious reasons. That the factors involved are even able to be recognized and predicted make all the difference. The same goes for many, many things in our lives. But such a strategy is all but useless with a person's feelings. Sure, there must be people who have developed an uncanny skill in reading people, and maybe can make startlingly accurate predictions about others and how to go about building whatever depth of relation is most achievable between them. But I don't think there is the slightest chance of such a practice being even remotely reliable on a large meaningful scale, or across a meaningful timeline, by most people. The depth of each person's mind is an unimaginably complex place, and I find it somewhat… frightening, to be honest, but ruthlessly fascinating. Maybe it's a wonder anyone gets along at all, let alone bond like so many lifelong friendships have or especially truly fall in love. These precious eggs we are always entrusting into each other represent so much of what is so advantageous to us as human beings, able to form these sorts of bonds among each other and face the wild complexities of the world together.

And so absolutely any connection is meaningful and important beyond any combinations of words, and is worthy of every bit of care and consideration possible. It's just not worth missing out on because of what may very well be petty differences exaggerated by stubbornness from one or both sides. That person you met one time, who said something weird and you never talked to them again, could have been the most beloved friend or companion you could possibly have hoped to have. That person who you used to be good friends with, and who never seems to call or want to hang out anymore and you don't feel like you should have to "put all the effort in," could also be the most beloved friend or companion you could possibly have. One extra little egg entrusted to them could have made all the difference. You don’t know unless you’ve put forth all of your effort deemed worthy for their cause, and carefully but graciously invested upon them a portion of your own collection of priceless eggs for incubation.

Whatever the case, the nourishment of these eggs needs cooperation and uncompromising honesty. For the love of all things, please let’s communicate with each other. Effectively! It's stunning how often this gets in the way, this simple lack of communication, needlessly complicating things or destroying them altogether. When there are differences between two people, embrace them! Differences can help us learn together, see things from entirely separate vantage points, like nothing else can. And when there are similarities between people, embrace them as well! Similarities can help us reinforce our own drives and interests because we find comfort when other people have developed them similarly yet independently.

If you feel even the slightest shred of feeling for a person, even the tiniest bit of compassion for another, don't completely give up on them when things might have grown awkward or distant. And if someone, no matter how dear to you they are, wishes for you to lose touch with others (or if you realize that this is happening of its own accord), please consider this long and hard. There is probably more at stake than you realize. I submit that it is absolutely not worth it in the end if a newly found loved one imposes upon you to spend less time, or no time at all, with your previously held group of friends. I do not believe that one single romantic relationship can outshine a handful of long-held friendly ones… yet I see this time and time again and is, ultimately, one of the primary driving factors built into this writing.

Because it hurts, because there is no reason why a person can’t retain all prior friendships, even if somewhat less devotedly, after entering into a romantic one. That romance should be built into the already existing web of connections without drastically altering its structure. Otherwise one is going to come across as if those friendships were only mere placeholders for the one actual relation that was being sought after all along. And I don’t believe that anyone actually goes about their lives that way, but many seem to tend to react in such a way as if this is somehow what is “meant” to happen. I worry sometimes that societal factors have built into many peoples’ minds that that one true love romance-turned-marriage is the prime objective and all else is secondary if not spread out to the sidelines altogether. But no, with every bit of stress that I can place on a single sentence, this is not how our ongoing relationships need to play out. All of these precious eggs that have been devoted in such an interweaving mesh of interconnections have had so much care, consideration, and time built into their foundations that unimaginable havoc is bound to be wreaked upon them under such circumstances, havoc probably not even realized inside the blissful mind of the romanced party.

This isn’t always the case, of course, and I applaud all of those who manage to maintain the best combinations of relations possible. In my own experience, however, this is not often the case, and it troubles me more deeply than most things witnessed so far in my time. And I always try to tell myself that it’s merely a phase, an understandable phase where hormones and emotions run rampant, but in truth this doesn’t comfort me much because I know that by the time those emotions have settled, and someone begins to desire those friendly relations once again, they may be long gone after having moved on themselves, having exhausted their own efforts to keep that basket warm and nourishing.

I, for one, am going to always focus on distributing my own eggs as far and wide as I can manage, carefully considering those seeming to be most worthy and considerate of them, in order to enjoy as much shared fulfillment in life as I can possibly maintain. And I hope that others will do the same in return, not only for me in particular, but for everyone else striving so earnestly to connect with so many other people inhabiting this wildly complicated planet together. Each of us are all we all have to truly connect and relate with, and this should never be cast to the sidelines. Don't reinforce the eggs. They need room to grow. Reinforce the baskets, and reinforce your individual efforts to form, retain, and nurture these connections. The time we all have here together needs to be cherished with every fiber of every person's being. Every little tick of the clock occurs and is gone forever. I don't like to think of time as the means by which wounds are healed, but as the means by which they are learned to be dealt with and learned from, and maybe even simply forgotten if such is the case. Perhaps this is what some call "healing”. As long as we try hard enough, the best is yet to come.

Posted by Unknown | at 11:07 PM | 0 comments

Engineering Nostalgia



Have you ever noticed that a certain song, or a certain smell, or a certain taste invariably brings back vivid memories of a certain period of time from your past? I’ve been aware of this sensation for a long time now, as long as I can even remember. There are still songs and smells and tastes that momentarily invoke such intense memories of childhood or, most profoundly of all, my years spent in the height of my junior high school years where I was most happy with a specific group of friends and adventures. I cherish these tenuous ties with the past, and I’ve come to realize, sadly, that they will only fade with time. My hope is that the most meaningful among them will always persist. Perhaps the most deeply engraved of them will always provide this nostalgic effect, however brief it may be each time, because they’ve managed to dig themselves a burrow some level below the threshold of passing memories. I am convinced that those sensory ties which somehow become attached to individual memories are one of the most powerful links to be utilized in making sure that the most cherished memories of all can be held onto, can be nestled into rightful burrows of their own so as not to ever be lost altogether.

I think one of the problems is that the memories themselves will continue to age as one grows older, persistently crowded out by newer, fresher memories in each moment, and the relevance that the sense which is tied to them has will continue to be spread over more and more more-current experiences. Realizing this, I’ve made efforts to isolate those particular senses which I’ve recognized are linked in this way. A particular Glade air freshener (Hawaiian Breeze, I believe) still never fails to bring me back into my dear friend Dave’s old room in Cheyenne and so I will never  use it myself. I’m afraid that the aroma will begin to attach itself to the present day, and gradually remove itself from those precious memories. But picking it up off the shelf and inhaling its sweet fragrance will always put me back into those cherished times, into that beloved room and into those dear memories and into the fun-filled company of a friend so favored. Left to such few and far between indulgences, the link should remain strong, and I can always rely on it to transport me at my whim.

Another powerful example is any of many songs that I used to listen to consistently for a certain period. But every time I listen to one of these songs now, its relevance shifts at least very slightly into this moment, becoming bit by bit more attached to a more current time frame. Even so, many songs still provide this most enjoyable sensation, even as I continue to enjoy them. Some songs I’ve already realized have lost most of their relevance into the past, yet even so every now and then one of these songs still manages to transport me so vividly into a memory. There must be some subtle factors which continue to play a role, perhaps a certain emotional state or an extra sense such as smell, which still even today invoke the nostalgia at its deepest. And some songs, the ones at the very height of this power, have hardly even faded at all even though I still put them on all the time. They’ve managed to stand the test of time even still, even when I’ve enjoyed them countless times throughout the years, even though I’ve experienced so many new memories in their presence. They still take me back, still hold that original link. I am so grateful for this. These examples are definitely the most deeply held, the ones persistently refusing to be outdone in the present.

Taste is a tougher case; I think this might be (for me, at least) because there are not very many examples of unique-enough tastes that are specific to a narrow time period. There are a few, though. The first that comes to mind is a certain flavor of Doritos (at the time it was a “mystery” flavor, I think it ended up being cheeseburger or something similar) which when I have happened to find them again strikingly reminds me of a certain time period several few years back when I was playing a new game and eating lots of them. Another example is candy corn, which never fails to put me back into the mind of myself as a child enjoying the treasures of a long Halloween trek.

I wonder often whether some of these particularly powerful nostalgic links will continue to persist even as I join the ranks of the elderly. So far some of them seem so much more deeply ingrained into my mind, and I sincerely hope that I can hold on to these fantastically enjoyable experiences. I’ve thought long and hard about where this phenomenon originates, how it’s formed and how it can be retained as best as possible, and I think I’ve gotten a pretty good idea about how to keep them close, and even help to create new ones, most efficiently.

I’ve developed a strategy for willfully creating this phenomenon. I call it “engineering nostalgia.” For me this whole concept has been most powerful in relation to a certain clearly-defined and memorable timeframe of the past (not so easy to anticipate at the time) and, more specifically and controllably, in relation to more trivial things like playing a certain video game or listening to a certain album. If the video game or album is new to your experience, it is for good reason much easier to coordinate complementary senses to go along with them. What I’ve learned to do is this: when you begin playing a new game (or reading a new book, or visiting a new place), also buy a new CD (or at least begin playing one that you haven’t listened much of). The closer they coincide as brand-new experiences, the better the effect. If you can get hold of both a new game and a new CD at the same time, and begin experiencing them simultaneously, this is the ideal situation. For extra effect also buy a new air freshener and a new flavor of some snack, such as Doritos, you’ve never had before and combine them all.

So put in the new CD (and the new air freshener, and open up the bag of chips) as you begin playing this new game. Further down the road, even years and years later, any one of your senses, randomly reminded of any one of these sensations, will bring you back to this time period when you were playing this game and listening to this album and breathing in this aroma and tasting this snack and you can bask in the resulting nostalgia. It is a wonderful thing, made even more wonderful when you can willfully induce it.

Of course, playing a new video game is just one example of a time when you can anticipate a nostalgic bond able to be formed. There are many, many others, if you are careful enough to provide for them, such as a vacation to a new place or moving into a new house or buying a new car or beginning a new hobby. The possibilities are practically endless, because it really comes down to anything that’s new enough in our experience to be so impressionable. And the base act doesn’t even need to be new to you, it just seems easier to me. But maybe the secondary influence is what’s new. You might have been going for nightly walks for months already, but if you have a new album in your mp3 player then further down the road of life those songs are very likely going to bring you back to those walks, to the times when you were just getting to know those songs, and you will miss those times. You will long to be on that very same walk again, wishing you could experience it for the first time all over again.

Nostalgia is a funny thing, I’ve come to find. This feeling of such deep familiarity and longing seems to be not necessarily due to the belief that a certain timeframe was so “good,” but simply because it is gone. It is familiar, we know exactly what came of it, whether good or bad, and there is comfort in this. Even the not-so-good memories sometimes invoke this feeling. There are some periods of time that my rational mind would never even consider revisiting because of how rough I know and remember them to have been—but when some sense is spontaneously stimulated in just the right way to invoke the memory, I cannot deny the nostalgia. Part of me longs to be back in this time despite my avoidance, despite the knowledge deep within myself that I did not enjoy it. But it would be comforting even so, I realize, even if only because I know that things turned out alright, I survived to the present with a healthy grasp of new learning experiences, because this particular memory had its particular impact on the present. On the other hand, both the present and future are perpetually shrouded in mystery and we are always anxious for it to some degree, which I think works to reinforce the longing for the past. We don’t have the comfort of knowing how the future turns out like we do with previous events. But there is beauty in this mystery, as well—the future holds immeasurable possibilities that we humans alone have the ability attempt to foresee rationally and, most importantly, to shape so according to our desires.

Time may flow invariably and without the slightest bit of consideration for us measly human beings, but we can and must fill it with as much as each individual among us possibly can, and achieve the grandest impact as is our power to achieve. By whatever means necessary this must be done to truly make our mark. Impacts can come in so many forms, from a simple smile that influenced someone else in some positive way, to a deep conversation with a friend which helps them see something more clearly, to a bestselling book that millions upon millions of people read and are affected by, to an everlasting friendship that works to profoundly shape the futures that two people share together and independently because of the impacts they have on each other, to so many countless other possibilities. It’s impossible to know what random trivial or heartfelt acts might be the positive influence somebody needed at that moment. The beauty that is life is in our power to influence, at least to some degree—and every single last moment is precious beyond the most poetic words anyone could possibly put to them. Any means that you have in your power to engineer the nostalgia which is so powerful in appreciating the life you have lived is incredibly useful, and I believe should be passionately fought for. This may be as simple as putting forth the effort to realize that recent events are special and unique enough to warrant the extra care in uniting them with a carefully considered added element so that you can utilize this connection farther down the road. You can bring the joyful moments of your past back to you so much more readily if you have attached something special to them at the time.

So many people say that life is short. And I realize that this is generally meant to be inspirational, but how can life be considered short when there is absolutely nothing anyone can experience that is longer and more fundamental? Life encompasses utterly everything that holds physical meaning, everything that means anything! Every thought, every feeling, every joy, every sorrow, every last experience is a product of life in all of its glory in whatever duration each of us happens to “receive.” I feel like this insistence that pursuits should be sought after, and joys should be appreciated, because “life is short” are degrading the truest beauties that could be relished. If life is short then we might be more likely to hastily indulge reckless behavior, or fail to consider the most meaningful pursuits. Life is long. Life is absolutely everything that each of us will experience, and consider, and enjoy, and learn from. Life is absolutely not short.

It could be argued that one life was shorter than another. As a measure of time in its purest form, this is irrefutable. Tragedies happen to the best of us, without warning or meaning. But as a measure of quality, or of impact, it is definitely not so simple. One person’s life at 50 (or at 20) could have twice the lasting memories as another’s at any age, if such a value could somehow be quantified. But it can’t, really. In this sense it’s a matter of content, of perception and of impact. A life lived in fame is obviously favored to appear to have been more impactful, but is there any way to know? I don’t think any span of life will ever seem to be enough, no matter how long it endured, especially if people are compelled to think of it as “short.” This only stresses that the value of a life is not necessarily lessened much by a short timeframe. It is unfortunate, of course, that any life ends any sooner than it might have under ideal circumstances. But it is what it is, and I sincerely hope that the person in each such case had as fulfilling and impactful a life as possible in his/her allotted time. It’s going to seem short no matter what, if you have such an outlook, even for the longest among them.

And yet I can’t argue with the idea that someone who runs around proclaiming that life “is short” and, in turn, motivates themselves (and others) to live it more effectively, is certainly getting something valuable out of it. I just think the same value, and so much more, can be gotten out of life without this nonsense. We don’t need to convince ourselves that our time is “short.” We need to convince ourselves that our time is precious, and long, and we have all this priceless span of life to fill with as much positivity and goodness as we can manage. Do it because it is so long, because there is so much available to fill it with.

I wonder what is even meant by that generic phrase “Life is short?” Broken down to its individual words, the phrase lacks meaning. “Life” is obvious; it is the perception each of us has of our surroundings in the duration that we have them. It is life, it’s self-explanatory. We all know what life is. “Short,” however, is a comparative argument; there is no “short” without acknowledging something that is not. Certainly, in respect to the lifespan of a giant tortoise (reportedly an average of 177 years in captivity), or of a Redwood tree (reportedly 500 to 700 years) or of a star (our own rather “average” star will supposedly have “lived” for 10 billion years by its end), the average human lifespan is but a fraction—a decent fraction of the giant tortoise, but a mere nanosecond of the “cosmic day” compared to the star. But what real relevance does any of this have? We are not giant tortoises and we most certainly are not stars. Their lifetimes apply to them and reflect upon the grand scheme of things from their individual perspectives but need not imply any sort of shortcoming on our part. So what if a giant tortoise lives 177 years? Its life is trivial compared to ours. Nothing against humongous elderly turtles but, come on, their biology is so much simpler and so much more accommodating of their “long” lives. Can a giant tortoise entertain abstract thoughts and shape its environment to its will? Can it even move faster than five miles an hour? Would anyone seriously give up their human inheritance for these extra hundred years? Stars perpetually burn unimaginable amounts of fuel throughout their ridiculously long lifetimes, but they’re not even sentient. They can’t communicate with each other and share in mutual pursuits. They are stars. Any comparison is silly and fruitless. What real meaning does the comparison of years hold in any of these cases, or in any other?

Perhaps this judgment of shortness is being compared not to the lifetime of another thing, but to the lifetime each of us desires to experience. I think most people probably would like to know that they are going to live well beyond any averaged estimate of their society, or even the record breakers. But this shouldn’t make the life we are living, and whatever life is going to be in store for us, any less incredible or meaningful. It shouldn’t make us feel like it is short.

The average human lifespan is reportedly about 63 years (higher, of course, in first-world countries). As recently as 1796 the average lifespan was around 24 years (again, higher for first-world countries). Some are claiming that, as of today, as many as half of the children born will see their hundredth birthday in good health. And the children of these children may be looking at a reasonable likelihood of living to be 120 or 150! This thrills me to no end. I dearly wish that I had been born in this projected generation that is likely to live to be 120 in good health. The point is, we do have influence on the length of our lives. The evidence seems to suggest there is not some upper limit of barely more than 100 years, like some seem to believe. If life expectancy has been climbing, and continues to climb with appreciable progress, who can say it’s going to stop? Of course there are undeniable biological processes at work; bodies degrade and organs cease to function on their own, but clearly there are means to extend this downfall. We have every reason and every chance to put our unique human potential to work and extend this beautiful and mysterious thing that we call life for as long as we possibly can. Without it there is nothing, and I cannot consider that an acceptable alternative. What is nothing in the face of everything? If there are still more possible ways to advance the average lifespans of our kind, healthily and without significant consequence, then I absolutely believe that we should pursue this. I don’t believe there is some boundary inherently imposed on us by some all-encompassing force, over which we have no “right” to achieve. The boundary is ours to determine, ours to influence and improve upon by whatever means we gain understanding of it and competence to do so.

We tend to live our lives in defiance of the impending doom which is sure to eventually come. We indulge in material things, and in (sometimes foolish) “fun” pursuits, and we shrug off the idea that it’s all temporary. The people who act most recklessly (within reason) seem to be the most highly regarded by others. I mean, I’m all for having a good time, and making the most of my “prime” years, but I also feel like more meaningful pursuits are more advantageous at any age. This trait should not be shunned, but admired and strived for. The generic advice of the elderly is generic for a reason. We’re bound to realize this eventually, so why not as early as possible? We can still be somewhat reckless and have a good time while being considerate of whatever future we are imagining at each moment and efficiently factoring this.

This is all, of course, without consideration of a spiritual afterlife. I need to make that clear. Such a thing is just wildly difficult to mix into an argument (not to mention the number of people who will simply dismiss it). In fact, I respect this viewpoint, the idea of a spiritual eternity, most of all. But even so, even in the face of the promise of the most wonderful, glorious, eternal afterlife, if you believe in this, the physical, worldly life loses none of its significance. My argument does not change at all. Because an eternity of blissful spiritual afterlife is, by definition, going to be fulfilled regardless of the length of the timeframe spent roaming the Earth. What’s another ten, or fifty, or even a couple hundred years in the face of eternity? As a matter of worldly years, it doesn’t matter when you reach this eternity. You won’t even notice. But it makes all the difference here in the physical existence. You will have experiences, and you will impact others, and you will leave some sort of legacy. Another 50 years, if it were ours to be had, holds all the relevance in the world. You’ll never even know, once it’s said and done and you’ve achieved your spiritual afterlife, how long it took, how long you might have had to “suffer” (I disagree) through the physical realm. Any number of years is of no consequence in this regard, but any single year holds unimaginable promise here where the laws of physics bind us and our fellow humans need our help and our communication and companionship.

So give these things while you can. Indulge your passions. Make it count. Life is certainly not short, but it is all we have and the moments will flow by like a raging river if we aren’t careful to always make the best that our individual potential can make, and stay focused. Stay intrigued. Stay curious. And for the love of all that is good and just, be friendly and reasonable and share all that you can share with your fellow humans. What else can we do in this time that we have? Petty disagreements and judgments and ill-feelings in general are just silly. You should be ecstatic with joy any time your eyes fall upon those of another human, any fellow human being, especially when you know them personally and have any sort of memories and experiences together. To paraphrase the great Carl Sagan, you could travel a thousand light-years and never meet another. We should all be the best of friends, every last one of us. We should all be experiencing the joys and fascinations of life, and even the sorrows and pains, with one another. We should all be doing what we can to make sure the memories we have made, and perpetually continue to make, are as impactful and long-lasting as possible. We all have ultimate power over all of these things, including also our hopes and anticipations of the future. The best is yet to come.


Posted by Unknown | at 12:56 AM | 2 comments

Defining Our Past And Shaping Our Future



 




The world seems to be advancing technologically so rapidly that even some of the devices which were at the pinnacle of consumer luxury a couple decades ago are now some of the most rudimentary and perhaps sometimes not even recognizable by the younger generations. I myself am relatively young at 24, and yet I've had the opportunity to witness the incredible advancements of quite a few branches of technology in my time so far. There must have been a time when record players, to give a simple example, were such amazing devices, and then cassette players became so much smaller and portable, and then CDs offered so much more space and quality, and then the digital era offered even better quality and eliminated the frustrations of skips and scratches and misplacing and limited storage. I remember listening to cassette tapes as a kid, and buying my very first CDs as a young teenager, and then buying my very first mp3 player a few years later, and being so utterly fascinated at every step along the way.

The first mp3 player I ever bought, sometime around 2004, seemed so wildly incredible at the time. For the hefty price of $70 or so I could fit 40-some songs on a 128 megabyte device, which was more than twice what I had grown so accustomed to fitting on a mix CD. And on top of that there was no concern over tracks skipping on a jog, or ever having to buy new blank CDs when I wanted to make a new mix. This was the most profound appreciation of mine at the time; I didn't need piles of mix CDs anymore. I didn't need to toss a disc every time I wanted even one single new song to be included on the current mix. The digital contents could simply be updated. And now, for the same price or less, you can easily get 8 gigabytes of space or more and the capacity for thousands upon thousands of songs and any combination of separate playlists. The sum of the contents of dozens and dozens of mix CDs can be enjoyed by a few touches on a handheld digital media player with sufficient size.

Similarly, video media has gone from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray (not even considering all of the varieties of digital file types able to be shared online) with the quality and cost improving all along the way. Of course, when a new format and new devices to play them with are developed, across all medias, the prices start higher, but they quickly decline and before long a device vastly more powerful than the one you purchased several years before is even cheaper. Today I could buy an mp3 player with 16 times the storage capacity than that first one I ever purchased for a mere ten dollars. And you would probably face difficulty in even finding a place that will take your old VHS tapes or even DVDs from you for a fraction of what you paid for them back in the day. Their demand has almost entirely vanished, for good reason, in the wake of so much vast improvement.

This digital age has certainly disrupted things, and not only in the music and video industries. The high technologies of even a few decades ago not only lose their popular use and their monetary value, but you can hardly even give them away sometimes. They just become so utterly outdated by the perpetual advancement of newer devices and ideas, and eventually only the vintage or nostalgia-seeking collectors see any use whatsoever in their ownership. But they will always serve as healthy reminders of how far we've come, and tantalizing hints at where we're still going.

Not too long ago I bought a shiny new printer. And the other day I needed to scan a document so that I could attach it to an email. And so I did; I put the paper on the tray, pressed the scan button, and selected its destination. And it struck me right then, considering for the first time this option that was now available to me to send it directly into a folder on my PC, how absolutely incredible technology is. This was all done wirelessly--the printer has no tangible link with my computer. And yet, when I place a piece of paper onto its tray and command it to scan it for me, suddenly an exact digitized replica of it exists as parts of the 1s and 0s navigable within the depths of my computer. And I can send this data to anyone else on the planet if I wanted to, and they could have it, see it, even print it out for themselves, and no physical link was ever made between us. It's like exactly how magic would be if magic were a real thing, but this is real and we can understand it and we can manipulate it to our will.

Arthur C. Clarke said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I think this holds some deep insights, considering so much of what we have at our disposal in today's world that would probably send a person from a thousand years ago screaming away in terror and condemning us as demons. Who could have thought, at the time, that we'd be able to almost effortlessly communicate with people anywhere else on the planet without even any physical link? Or even see them on video monitors? Or fly across the oceans? Or film movies? Or cover so much of the planet with artificial light? Or find the answers to so many questions with just a few keystrokes into an online search engine? Sometimes I wonder if the entire concept of magic has really been all along just the inexorable progression of our thoughts and understandings of the world transformed into the fanciful dreams of what we wish we had the power to do.

And then the day comes when we do have that power. Have you noticed how so many things are becoming more and more automated and touch-free?  Oftentimes doors will open for you as you approach, lights will turn themselves on as you enter a room, toilets will flush for you as you leave, faucets and soap dispensers and hand dryers will dispense for you as you place your hands under them, and devices will even operate by spoken command and turn themselves off after an idle period. Increasingly often you don’t even have to touch a doorknob, or a light switch, or a toilet or faucet handle, or a paper towel dispenser (or even a paper towel). You can walk into a bathroom, use the facilities (well, a guy, at least), wash and dry your hands, and leave, all without ever touching anything.

You don't even have to touch your hard-earned cash anymore. I handle cash less and less often even as I continue to make more money and purchase more things. I rarely have more than twenty dollars in hard cash in my wallet; more often than not I have none at all. It strikes me sometimes that this is a really incredible thing, this ability to accumulate and spend money without ever actually touching the tangible pieces of paper and cotton and linen we’re so used to thinking of it as.

Like most, I imagine, I work a job and have funds automatically deposited to a bank account with every paycheck. I never actually see it. I don’t bring a check to a bank, and my wallet doesn’t grow fat with bills. The money just shows up as if a fundamental part of my being. So long as I utilize only that amount of money, debit purchases are like the simple returns on that labor, to be acquired at will. Each time it deposits it’s like I just became worth that many more dollars, and it’s almost as if I can just walk into places and visit websites and help myself to my desires, as if my presence holds an intrinsic worth only requiring verification by a small piece of plastic and a few numbers. With the simple swipe of a card I can walk out with a cart full of food, or appliances, or video games, or any combination of things I wish to own, or even have them delivered to me. And that little piece of plastic, that card which represents my monetary worth, doesn’t change. It remains safely in my wallet and yet represents so much of what is laid before me to enjoy. I only have to go out and acquire it. Sometimes it feels like I’m not actually purchasing something, I’m just going and grabbing a thing that I want and it’s now mine and later I go and perform some tasks that I enjoy doing and the cycle repeats and the world is just mine to appreciate as I please.

Social media has become a truly massive force in the world. In a few seconds you can create a profile on any of several major websites, add some  pictures and some interests and some history, and continuously present yourself to the world through public postings. Some reports say that as much as 25% of all Internet page views are on social media sites alone. You've probably heard some of the generic complaints such as "people used to actually know their neighbors" and yet today's society has been shaped so that you can know any number of people all over the world. Of course there is some concern over still maintaining actual physical relationships with people, but sometimes it seems as if the simple new wave of potential is making it seem like so much of the physical is gone. Such a phenomenon has never been known before, so it's no surprise that the controversies abound. I don't believe this is the case; I still see people hanging out outside with each other all the time. I still spend as much time as I can get with my dear friends around town. I still cherish face-to-face communication more than any other, and I can only assume that this is generally the case universally. It's just that we have so many more opportunities now. If not for social media I would have lost the majority of the connections I've been able to maintain despite the major moves I, and others, have made. Never before has a person from, say, the U.S. been able to randomly become acquainted with a person from, say, Australia, and share thoughts and feelings with each other without ever having actually been closer to each other than a few thousand miles. A healthy mix of digital and physical communication is arguably more valuable than any other combination has ever been. You can even share your physical relationships with your digital ones, and vice versa. You can connect with more people around the planet than you can likely even comprehend. Thus cultural hurdles are so much more easily avoided. The world seems like a much more fitting, opportunistic, shared place when people have social access to others around the globe. I don't see how that's a bad thing if you look past the minor issues.

If you're curious about something, you can find almost anything to your heart's desire with a brief Google search. The amount of information available to us just sort of "floating" around on the internet (also in textbooks and the like) is truly staggering. A person can get at least a basic understanding of such topics that took the prodigious minds of Newton, Darwin, Bohr, Einstein, and the like an entire lifetime to puzzle out…using nothing but a keyboard and a few keystrokes, and/or some page turning, and some reading. As a certain telescope manufacturer, Meade, proclaims on their website, with even a cheap telescope and the knowledge of how to find certain celestial objects one "will see more objects in one night than Galileo saw in a lifetime."

For so much of history a person's skill set has been almost exclusively utilized for monetary gain. That was how you made your living. But today, with this tremendous advent of social connectivity through the internet most of all, people are willing to share their expertise on a subject, with their own precious time and resources, for no other gain than the near-selfless enjoyment of doing just that. Of course, some gain fame and fortunes still, but so many remain virtually anonymous despite their thorough investigations into insightful questions or the development of popular apps or wiki articles or software or independent music or film or artwork or writing or general advice or practically anything one could desire to seek out. There seems to be a profound movement in the use of spare time and skills for the betterment of the general public even if this means that the contributor does not receive specific recognition. Perhaps such people just simply treasure the enjoyment of doing something worthwhile even if it's not relevant to their personal career. I find this incredibly beautiful.

And there are always still people out there making discoveries, even at this very moment, and our descendents will, in turn, be able to seek out and understand their contributions in the same way (probably even more efficiently) that we are entitled today. You don't have to be an employed astrophysicist, or personally know  someone who is, to share in the current times of such a field. Each generation has the advantage over the previous of having access to the accumulation of all of recorded history in their grasp, and today more than ever (and tomorrow even more so) this unimaginably deep well of knowledge, this collection of our incessant desire to understand the deepest workings of the world around us, can only continue to provide us with more understanding, which in turn leads to more probing questions, which in turn leads to more insightful answers, which in turn leads to more understanding, which in turn leads to more probing questions…

The world is certainly changing, shaping, progressing ever-onward. We have at our disposal things that were probably never even dreamed about in the wildest fantasies of our distant ancestors… feats that they may have never even imagined the grandest wizard could perform. The boundaries of our knowledge are, at every new moment, always pushing the frontiers of our thoughts in new directions. The most fantastic, magical ideas in the minds of those living today could very well be the simple play-things of the children of a few generations to come. This all just makes me so prideful to be here—part of humanity. I look forward to every other new advancement, every improvement on our quality of life, for as long as I can enjoy them. The best is yet to come. It's going to be so fascinating.


Posted by Unknown | at 12:28 AM | 13 comments

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