So honestly, what the hell is the point of it all? To be clear, this isn’t a nihilistic diatribe about the hopelessness of existence but in actually it is exactly the opposite. At this exact moment, I have so many directions that I could take my free time that I’m more than a bit at a loss as to which to choose. Seriously! Look… right now I could be….
* …downloading, for free, the greatest literature in the history of mankind. Now more than ever the wisdom of the ages is banging on our doors waiting for us to consume it. Best of all, it doesn’t cost us a blasted thing. In years past you would have at least had to go to the bookstore but now the whole of history is here for you. Covet the Library of Alexandria all you want, you still had to unroll the scrolls.
* … listening to the most soul-searing music ever made that speaks to us at a visceral level unthinkable fifty years ago. As with the literature, I can do most of this for free if I choose wisely.
* … making contact with complex and amazing human minds that have a lifetime of experience to add to my own. More than ever, humans are just completely and utterly interesting. Because the world has opened to us, we all have a little something to add. We’re not digging in the dirt any longer, trying to scrape out a simple living. We’re all a part of the larger world and we all have a unique perspective that isn’t rooted in the hedgerows and byways of the countryside.
* … creating and sharing something new (and hopefully interesting) with the rest of humanity. It is boggling to think that 100 years ago it would have been nearly impossible to reach the same audience that is accessible to us today by a simple web page. Every day someone from some far-flung clime reads the random burbling on my blog. That would have been unthinkable a century ago. My tiny voice would have gone only as far as my ability to print and hand out fliers.
All this brings me around to a simple question, however. What exactly IS the point of any of it? We have so much available to us. We can go so far and see so much yet what is really the right thing to do? Should I pursue a simple lifestyle based in making myself as happy as possible or is it really necessary to create something new, to contribute to the total body of work of humanity to have any sort of meaningful existence? Is it enough to toil on mindlessly and promote the position of one’s progeny (by earning enough money to send them to Harvard?) or must one do more in order to be truly meaningful? Why live? What to do while we’re here? Such heady questions with such diverse and fluffy answers.
Showing posts with label mankind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mankind. Show all posts
Monday, August 01, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Antisocial Society
One of the benefits of carrying the equivalent of a computer with me all the time in the form of an iPhone (any modern cell phone or even a scrap of paper would do here) is that I keep a long list of future blog post topics in a small document handy at all times. Any moment that the mood strikes me I write down a short and effective blurb about whatever struck a nerve with me just awaiting future attention in a posting. In this case, the only words that needed to be recorded were somewhat contradictory “Antisocial Society” and these words from a solid two weeks ago were sufficient to call forth the following random banter…
I recall with some distinctness, in a time not so long ago but much more clement than today, sitting on a bench in a public park next to some playground equipment. Amanda and Izzy were doing the usual playground thing, sitting (somewhat conspiratorially) in a secluded nook of the playground with a mysterious third party. A small girl had joined them and they seemed to be bantering playfully end joyfully enough. Personally I was glad that they found a friend or at least someone who is as close to being a friend as you can be given they’ll never see each other again. All was well until a woman with a hawkish proboscis and a severe hairstyle swooped in, said something to the girl and took her away to another part of the playground.
To be honest, I was a bit mystified. Neither of my children has any outwardly obvious signs of plague. There was no conflict between the three. They seemed to be getting along swimmingly yet for some reason beyond my ability to conceive, it seemed appropriate to the woman I shall refer to simply as ‘Hawknose’ to break up the trio. After Hawknose’s intervention, the little girl played briefly in another part of the park and then slowly gravitated back to my girls who had since moved on to some other activity. Apparently there was a brief emergency at The Hall of Justice or something for a bit because Hawknose was not to be seen in the area to break them up again until considerably later when it was time for her and her child to go elsewhere. Whatever it was that caused her to intervene before was apparently only temporary.
I couldn’t help but view this whole episode as a bit on the antisocial side but then I took a look around at the parents of these children. The children, as a group, were doing their best to mingle a bit but the parents stood around as if on their own separate islands. No two islands touching for more than an instant, a glance, a passing word. For a social animal that is supposed to thrive on interaction, we certainly seem to do a great job of isolating ourselves. It’s a pity too because most of the islands looked pretty damn bored staring at their kids and hoping that they don’t slip and break their necks on a banana peel or some bit of random trash on the ground.
I recall with some distinctness, in a time not so long ago but much more clement than today, sitting on a bench in a public park next to some playground equipment. Amanda and Izzy were doing the usual playground thing, sitting (somewhat conspiratorially) in a secluded nook of the playground with a mysterious third party. A small girl had joined them and they seemed to be bantering playfully end joyfully enough. Personally I was glad that they found a friend or at least someone who is as close to being a friend as you can be given they’ll never see each other again. All was well until a woman with a hawkish proboscis and a severe hairstyle swooped in, said something to the girl and took her away to another part of the playground.
To be honest, I was a bit mystified. Neither of my children has any outwardly obvious signs of plague. There was no conflict between the three. They seemed to be getting along swimmingly yet for some reason beyond my ability to conceive, it seemed appropriate to the woman I shall refer to simply as ‘Hawknose’ to break up the trio. After Hawknose’s intervention, the little girl played briefly in another part of the park and then slowly gravitated back to my girls who had since moved on to some other activity. Apparently there was a brief emergency at The Hall of Justice or something for a bit because Hawknose was not to be seen in the area to break them up again until considerably later when it was time for her and her child to go elsewhere. Whatever it was that caused her to intervene before was apparently only temporary.
I couldn’t help but view this whole episode as a bit on the antisocial side but then I took a look around at the parents of these children. The children, as a group, were doing their best to mingle a bit but the parents stood around as if on their own separate islands. No two islands touching for more than an instant, a glance, a passing word. For a social animal that is supposed to thrive on interaction, we certainly seem to do a great job of isolating ourselves. It’s a pity too because most of the islands looked pretty damn bored staring at their kids and hoping that they don’t slip and break their necks on a banana peel or some bit of random trash on the ground.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Never Too Young
As a general rule I’m intensely well-insulated against popular culture. Fads and trends come and go and I don’t bat an eye because I’m listening to music made before I was born and I couldn’t tell Lady GaGa from Carrie Underwood if you put them both in front of me. So the majority of stupid things that society does pass by without my commentary. However, the other day I was listening to LBC while they were doing an ever-popular phone-in opinion show. Apparently there was a bit of an uproar going on at the moment because of something called “Junior Jazzles.” After listening to this, I’m disappointed in society.
Until I did a bit of digging on the topic, I wasn’t really sure of the origins here. It seems there’s a product for women called ‘Vajazzles’ that can be used to decorate certain bits of their anatomy. This in itself is distasteful enough and I’m not sure why a woman would wish to put tiny plastic speedbumps onto an already sensitive area of her anatomy but if she wishes to do so I suppose that’s her business. The “Junior Jazzles” product is, it seems, an equivalent product for the younger set. As repulsed as I feel at the adult version of this product the child’s version is an outright travesty. Sadder still is that a company produced and marketed this product in the belief that society would accept it. If you look at some of the things that society does accept as reasonable for small children, it’s not entirely surprising they would come to this conclusion because in most cases Americans are perfectly fine with sexualizing and assigning gender roles to even the smallest of children.
For small boys this gender role assignation doesn’t tend towards the sexual but is clearly intended to put boys in their proper place early in life. They’re given trucks and tools and other various toys to play with that illustrate very clearly their future place in society. Men are meant to do, to work, to make the world better in an outwardly grandiose fashion. They’re to be valued for what they can do with their hands and their minds and except for the occasional dress-up for Easter pictures, outward appearance isn’t so important. Boys are taught at a very young age that when they get older they’re going to get out into the world and make a difference in the world whether it’s building a bridge or driving a truck.
While the boys are playing with trucks, girls get dolls and kitchenware and fancy dress-up clothes to play with because their role will be one of having children and cooking and dressing up, apparently. The contribution of women, based on these gender roles assigned so early in life, seems obnoxiously male-centered. The woman will bear and raise the man’s children and cook the man’s meals and make sure she always looks good for the man. That way the man can do his job of going out into the world and doing the real work. This seems a sadly empty existence for the woman and I’m glad that for the most part it’s evaporating as a lifestyle as time goes on. We still give our girls dolls and kitchenware to play with but increasingly as they grow into women, they ignore these early attempts at enslavement. So I would happily report that at least some small progress has been made since the 50s.
The part of this in which we seem to have slipped backwards horrifyingly in the last several decades is that society still seems to believe that a woman’s role is to be attractive to the man. Women today seem to spend more time than ever trying to dress themselves up to meet some arbitrary and hopeless standard of attractiveness that is assigned to them by men. They primp, powder, push and prod every single part of themselves in an attempt to be sexy and the saddest part of all is that this starts practically the day they’re born.
There are a lot of practices in this society that I find absolutely revolting. You can buy high heels for children. The intent of a high-heeled shoe, as least as I understand it from my outside male perspective, is to increase the apparent length of the leg-line and make the leg more sexually attractive. Why does a small child’s leg need to be made to look more sexually attractive? What kind of perversion is that? Children in dance and gymnastics classes are typically dressed in outfits that leave very little to the imagination. What need is there such tiny outfits? Most horrifying of all, I often see children wearing make-up. I wonder what the parent’s reaction would be if they realized that the origin of female make-up is to simulate the flushed appearance of the woman during sexual arousal. Why do you need your small child to look like she’s sexually aroused?
In most cases I think that as a society we’re just ignorant of the impacts we have on our children when we assign them such stereotypical roles so early in life. When we dress them up, or worse yet, put them in a pageant, we teach them that their appearance is the most important thing about them. Wouldn’t it be better to teach our girls that they too can go out into the world and do something great rather than sit passively and simply be eye-candy or a maid for some man?
Until I did a bit of digging on the topic, I wasn’t really sure of the origins here. It seems there’s a product for women called ‘Vajazzles’ that can be used to decorate certain bits of their anatomy. This in itself is distasteful enough and I’m not sure why a woman would wish to put tiny plastic speedbumps onto an already sensitive area of her anatomy but if she wishes to do so I suppose that’s her business. The “Junior Jazzles” product is, it seems, an equivalent product for the younger set. As repulsed as I feel at the adult version of this product the child’s version is an outright travesty. Sadder still is that a company produced and marketed this product in the belief that society would accept it. If you look at some of the things that society does accept as reasonable for small children, it’s not entirely surprising they would come to this conclusion because in most cases Americans are perfectly fine with sexualizing and assigning gender roles to even the smallest of children.
For small boys this gender role assignation doesn’t tend towards the sexual but is clearly intended to put boys in their proper place early in life. They’re given trucks and tools and other various toys to play with that illustrate very clearly their future place in society. Men are meant to do, to work, to make the world better in an outwardly grandiose fashion. They’re to be valued for what they can do with their hands and their minds and except for the occasional dress-up for Easter pictures, outward appearance isn’t so important. Boys are taught at a very young age that when they get older they’re going to get out into the world and make a difference in the world whether it’s building a bridge or driving a truck.
While the boys are playing with trucks, girls get dolls and kitchenware and fancy dress-up clothes to play with because their role will be one of having children and cooking and dressing up, apparently. The contribution of women, based on these gender roles assigned so early in life, seems obnoxiously male-centered. The woman will bear and raise the man’s children and cook the man’s meals and make sure she always looks good for the man. That way the man can do his job of going out into the world and doing the real work. This seems a sadly empty existence for the woman and I’m glad that for the most part it’s evaporating as a lifestyle as time goes on. We still give our girls dolls and kitchenware to play with but increasingly as they grow into women, they ignore these early attempts at enslavement. So I would happily report that at least some small progress has been made since the 50s.
The part of this in which we seem to have slipped backwards horrifyingly in the last several decades is that society still seems to believe that a woman’s role is to be attractive to the man. Women today seem to spend more time than ever trying to dress themselves up to meet some arbitrary and hopeless standard of attractiveness that is assigned to them by men. They primp, powder, push and prod every single part of themselves in an attempt to be sexy and the saddest part of all is that this starts practically the day they’re born.
There are a lot of practices in this society that I find absolutely revolting. You can buy high heels for children. The intent of a high-heeled shoe, as least as I understand it from my outside male perspective, is to increase the apparent length of the leg-line and make the leg more sexually attractive. Why does a small child’s leg need to be made to look more sexually attractive? What kind of perversion is that? Children in dance and gymnastics classes are typically dressed in outfits that leave very little to the imagination. What need is there such tiny outfits? Most horrifying of all, I often see children wearing make-up. I wonder what the parent’s reaction would be if they realized that the origin of female make-up is to simulate the flushed appearance of the woman during sexual arousal. Why do you need your small child to look like she’s sexually aroused?
In most cases I think that as a society we’re just ignorant of the impacts we have on our children when we assign them such stereotypical roles so early in life. When we dress them up, or worse yet, put them in a pageant, we teach them that their appearance is the most important thing about them. Wouldn’t it be better to teach our girls that they too can go out into the world and do something great rather than sit passively and simply be eye-candy or a maid for some man?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Schrödinger's Other Blog
Very nearly six years ago I wrote an entry about how the mere act of observing someone’s blog creates the potential for that blog and its contents to change (link). I had no end of fun comparing the world of online authorship to that of Quantum Mechanics. Now, half a decade later, one of my readers has indicated that it’s just possible that I’m white-washing my past and, in fact, my own persona, for the purposes of making a good impression on my readers. The sad fact is though, that like every writer who expects his work to be read by others, I am.
Some things have to be revised because it’s just not proper to be absolutely candid when other people are involved. There are certain people in my life that I don’t write about and that I will never write about because their stories are not mine to write. It’s all well and good for me to reveal myself as the opinionated and mildly assholish person that I am, but it’s entirely another for me to tell the world anything about the few people who currently or at one time found themselves in my innermost circle. So in that respect, yes, vast tracts of my history are missing from the chronicles of my life that this blog and my autobiography (link) represent. While some might see that as revisionist I see that as simple common courtesy. If you find yourself saddened by your absence from these pages or upset by your reduction to a single pronoun within them, then I apologize. It is not because your presence was not appreciated in my life but because I simply wish to respect your privacy and let the story of your life be written by the one who was closest to it. It is to the detriment of this blog and to the detriment of my story that you are (all) omitted, but it seems only right that it be so. If you wish to be heard, read one of the 27 entries I’ve written on the topic of “why you, yes you, should write” and write your own story.
Vast asides spoken in poorly enunciated stage whispers behind us, the other half of the comment was that I’m white-washing my own personality, preferences and desires as I portray them here. I would posit that any writing of a personal nature portrays who we want to be and how we want others to see us. Nothing I write here is untrue. I aspire to be all that I describe here. The things I write constitute my own moral compass, my standard for behavior, my sense of right and wrong. However, that is a much different thing than saying that I can adhere to my own image of absolute moral rectitude with 100% regularity. The very definition of humanity is at least in part one of admitting that we are all flawed and I am no less so than anyone else despite the somewhat egotistical bent to some of my posts. Further, since I don’t subscribe to religion of any sort, I must sieve out right and wrong in my own way and my vehicle for doing that is what you see before you. I claim no divinity or perfection even in a religion crafted carefully around my own deeply-held beliefs.
To summarize, yes, I agree that sometimes my writings do fall away from strict and absolute truth, but I think the reasons for this are both clear and necessary. On both accounts I wish it were not so. I wish that society was open and honest enough with itself that we could all share our stories openly and honestly and without reservations. That we could all sit down and read every side of every story. I wish too that I was perfect in the execution of my own belief systems, cobbled together so haphazardly from my own experiences. The former I have no remedy for. The latter I can simply say that I will persist in my attempts to do better. I value those who have the courage to come forward and tell me if I deviate from the truth in any item no matter how seemingly minor. I will take your observations to heart and do my utmost to stay on the narrow but meandering path that I have chosen for myself in life.
Some things have to be revised because it’s just not proper to be absolutely candid when other people are involved. There are certain people in my life that I don’t write about and that I will never write about because their stories are not mine to write. It’s all well and good for me to reveal myself as the opinionated and mildly assholish person that I am, but it’s entirely another for me to tell the world anything about the few people who currently or at one time found themselves in my innermost circle. So in that respect, yes, vast tracts of my history are missing from the chronicles of my life that this blog and my autobiography (link) represent. While some might see that as revisionist I see that as simple common courtesy. If you find yourself saddened by your absence from these pages or upset by your reduction to a single pronoun within them, then I apologize. It is not because your presence was not appreciated in my life but because I simply wish to respect your privacy and let the story of your life be written by the one who was closest to it. It is to the detriment of this blog and to the detriment of my story that you are (all) omitted, but it seems only right that it be so. If you wish to be heard, read one of the 27 entries I’ve written on the topic of “why you, yes you, should write” and write your own story.
Vast asides spoken in poorly enunciated stage whispers behind us, the other half of the comment was that I’m white-washing my own personality, preferences and desires as I portray them here. I would posit that any writing of a personal nature portrays who we want to be and how we want others to see us. Nothing I write here is untrue. I aspire to be all that I describe here. The things I write constitute my own moral compass, my standard for behavior, my sense of right and wrong. However, that is a much different thing than saying that I can adhere to my own image of absolute moral rectitude with 100% regularity. The very definition of humanity is at least in part one of admitting that we are all flawed and I am no less so than anyone else despite the somewhat egotistical bent to some of my posts. Further, since I don’t subscribe to religion of any sort, I must sieve out right and wrong in my own way and my vehicle for doing that is what you see before you. I claim no divinity or perfection even in a religion crafted carefully around my own deeply-held beliefs.
To summarize, yes, I agree that sometimes my writings do fall away from strict and absolute truth, but I think the reasons for this are both clear and necessary. On both accounts I wish it were not so. I wish that society was open and honest enough with itself that we could all share our stories openly and honestly and without reservations. That we could all sit down and read every side of every story. I wish too that I was perfect in the execution of my own belief systems, cobbled together so haphazardly from my own experiences. The former I have no remedy for. The latter I can simply say that I will persist in my attempts to do better. I value those who have the courage to come forward and tell me if I deviate from the truth in any item no matter how seemingly minor. I will take your observations to heart and do my utmost to stay on the narrow but meandering path that I have chosen for myself in life.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
On Man's Desire to Destroy Himself
When I was a wee lad I spent many sleepless nights with the letters ICBM running through my head. I don't remember how old I was when I learned that the human race could utterly obliterate itself with the press of a few buttons but it seemed likely to my young mind that if such a button existed there'd be some kook who would be happy to press it. One could only hope that the kook and the button were kept at a safe distance from each other.
After a few months of worrying needlessly about thermonuclear destruction, I finally decided that it just wasn't worth spending energy on. If someone really wanted to destroy the planet there wasn't a damn thing I personally could do about it so the issue wasn't worth my attention. Plus, I naively reasoned, who could possibly want to immolate the planet given that they'd also end up as a Hiroshmia-style shadow on a sidewalk somewhere in the process? Or, at best, alone in a bomb shelter for the rest of their natural lives?
Twenty-five years later, it seems that a lot of the people on the planet want the world to end or are at least waiting eagerly for it. Eighty-Five percent of the people in this country describe themselves as belonging to some religion. In the case of Christians (by far the most populous group), the 'end of days' represents the final judgment of mankind by God and therefore is nothing to be feared. The Christians seem convinced that God will come down and take out the Muslims while the Muslims seem convinced of exactly the opposite. In both cases this is an outcome to be giddily anticipated since both sides believe they are indisputably correct in their thinking. The faithful go to heaven (just like those "In the even of rapture, this car will be unmanned." bumper-stickers that I adore so much) while the non-believers get to remain sitting in the resulting bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Religious texts are pretty clear that the world ends in one big, nasty war and now, for the first time in history, we have the ability to truly take ourselves out and, as these televangelists enjoy saying, "fulfill prophesy" and we're doing our best to make that happen. Israel must exist as a state for the rapture to occur so the American government does anything it can to keep it in place no matter how it may grate on the neighbor's nerves. The Jews have their 'spotless red heifer' so we're that much closer to rebuilding the temple and resuming animal sacrifices. As far as I know, the Muslims still await their Twelfth Imam (Allah be thanked).
On the saner side of things, I realize that the average person (ok, let me back up. I hope like HELL that the average person) isn't REALLY looking forward to the end of the planet. We're all looking for the best possible future for our children and our children's children... right?
That's why we generally don't give a crap about the environment, dump chemicals into our waterways, spew poison into the air, kill all the animals we want for any reason that suits us (the Bible says they're here just for us after all) and cut down all the forests...
Um, and that's why instead of trying to make the world a better place for everyone we spend a trillion dollars on a war that's really just a 'Crusade'. (yeah, remember when this all started and Bush was dumb enough to call the war a Crusade? It's OK though because when the comment was translated into Arabic is came out as "War of the Cross". That's not TOO overtly religious.)
So is man just innately self-destructive? Sure we've had our petty squabbles about women and land and goldmines and butter for time immemorial but does that mean we have to constantly raise the stakes in even the most mundane argument until we reach our eventual annihilation? It seems that religion, the one thing that's supposed to keep us being nice to each other, isn't helping but in fact pushing us in the opposite direction. Why would you avoid an outcome that is actually your ultimate and final reward? The fact that the world hasn't come to an end yet at the hands of the American theocracy makes me seriously question the piety of those in power. What ARE you waiting for?
After a few months of worrying needlessly about thermonuclear destruction, I finally decided that it just wasn't worth spending energy on. If someone really wanted to destroy the planet there wasn't a damn thing I personally could do about it so the issue wasn't worth my attention. Plus, I naively reasoned, who could possibly want to immolate the planet given that they'd also end up as a Hiroshmia-style shadow on a sidewalk somewhere in the process? Or, at best, alone in a bomb shelter for the rest of their natural lives?
Twenty-five years later, it seems that a lot of the people on the planet want the world to end or are at least waiting eagerly for it. Eighty-Five percent of the people in this country describe themselves as belonging to some religion. In the case of Christians (by far the most populous group), the 'end of days' represents the final judgment of mankind by God and therefore is nothing to be feared. The Christians seem convinced that God will come down and take out the Muslims while the Muslims seem convinced of exactly the opposite. In both cases this is an outcome to be giddily anticipated since both sides believe they are indisputably correct in their thinking. The faithful go to heaven (just like those "In the even of rapture, this car will be unmanned." bumper-stickers that I adore so much) while the non-believers get to remain sitting in the resulting bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Religious texts are pretty clear that the world ends in one big, nasty war and now, for the first time in history, we have the ability to truly take ourselves out and, as these televangelists enjoy saying, "fulfill prophesy" and we're doing our best to make that happen. Israel must exist as a state for the rapture to occur so the American government does anything it can to keep it in place no matter how it may grate on the neighbor's nerves. The Jews have their 'spotless red heifer' so we're that much closer to rebuilding the temple and resuming animal sacrifices. As far as I know, the Muslims still await their Twelfth Imam (Allah be thanked).
On the saner side of things, I realize that the average person (ok, let me back up. I hope like HELL that the average person) isn't REALLY looking forward to the end of the planet. We're all looking for the best possible future for our children and our children's children... right?
That's why we generally don't give a crap about the environment, dump chemicals into our waterways, spew poison into the air, kill all the animals we want for any reason that suits us (the Bible says they're here just for us after all) and cut down all the forests...
Um, and that's why instead of trying to make the world a better place for everyone we spend a trillion dollars on a war that's really just a 'Crusade'. (yeah, remember when this all started and Bush was dumb enough to call the war a Crusade? It's OK though because when the comment was translated into Arabic is came out as "War of the Cross". That's not TOO overtly religious.)
So is man just innately self-destructive? Sure we've had our petty squabbles about women and land and goldmines and butter for time immemorial but does that mean we have to constantly raise the stakes in even the most mundane argument until we reach our eventual annihilation? It seems that religion, the one thing that's supposed to keep us being nice to each other, isn't helping but in fact pushing us in the opposite direction. Why would you avoid an outcome that is actually your ultimate and final reward? The fact that the world hasn't come to an end yet at the hands of the American theocracy makes me seriously question the piety of those in power. What ARE you waiting for?
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The Rise and Fall of the Human Empire
There’s a time bomb ticking in our species. With each passing generation, we draw closer and closer to our own demise. Ironically, the same processes that some people like to believe never take place at all are slowly unraveling humanity from the inside out.
Species respond to their environments. If the water supply diminishes gradually over generations, those individuals who for whatever physiological reason need less water will survive and thus give birth to offspring who require less water. Those who require more than the environment can provide will tend to die off. As the environment changes so do the creatures that live in that environment. In addition, the pressure the environment places on populations tends to weed out deviations that diminish rates of survival. If an infant is born with some horrible deformity in the wild, the harsh environment into which it was born takes care of the situation by making sure the deformity will not live to procreate.
But what happens when there IS no selection pressure within a species? What happens when every offspring is allowed to not only live out their lives but also to spawn another generation with the same problems? The answer to this is not yet certain, but it does suggest an interesting thought experiment.
The most obvious route for our experiment is to follow the recent advances in reproductive medicine. Conditions that would have kept our mother’s mothers from being able to conceive at all are now surmountable though medical procedures. Currently the leading cause of infertility in women is polycystic ovary syndrome. Recent research indicates that this disorder has a strong genetic component so what happens if we use medical technology to allow the 10% of women with this problem to pass along their genes to their offspring? With each mother we help conceive, we make the problem worse. Where before we had one person with the defective genes in two generations we have multiplied the issue manifold. After a few hundred years, we are left with a population in which no one can conceive without medical assistance.
The issue is not limited merely to infertility. In a way, each time we save anyone from any disease, we weaken ourselves as a whole. In 1950 the infant mortality rate was 29.2 per 1000 births. In 2003 it was 6.9. Doubtless the average infant is healthier due to improvements in pre-natal nutrition but the fact remains that we save babies who are weaker and in turn more likely to give birth to weaker children themselves and thus more likely to need medical assistance.
As each succeeding generation passes, we slide further and further into dependence on our technology just to survive the world in which we live. At some point, the choice will have to be made and we will slide into Huxley’s “Brave New World.”
Friday, June 16, 2006
The Luddite Speaks
Indeed it has finally happened. Well, actually it happened years ago, but now seemed a good time to complain about it. I’ve officially had it with having access to all human knowledge. Yeah, you heard me. I’m completely sick and tired of the fact that I can hop onto Google right now and in a few keystrokes find the answer to any conceivable question or more likely, three or four answers.
Boy, I remember those halcyon days of pristine uncertainty and ignorance in the 70s and 80s. Sometimes you’d hear a song on the radio and you’d walk around for weeks not knowing who the artist was, just waiting on the off chance that they’d play the song again or you’d run into somebody who knew what record the song was on. But now, the fun of ignorance, the anticipation of resolution, and the jubilance of discovery have all vanished. Any idiot with a computer can tell you the atomic weight of lead or why ‘Pounds’ is abbreviated ‘lbs.’ The value of smart people in this planet has diminished almost to nil. Time was, I got 2 or 3 calls a week from people asking about the solubility of sodium at 45 degrees Celsius or some other obscure bit of forgotten lore but now I’m lucky if anyone calls at all. And when they do they don’t seem to give a damn about anything of real interest. It’s hardly worth the effort to know anything at all. I might as well watch TV.
While we’re on the subject of things I’m sick of, let me tell you what else I could do without. I’ve had enough of ‘Undo.’ It’s about time people in this country started taking responsibility for their mistakes. From now on, when I make a typing mistake I’m going to just cross it out and go on, none of this fancy ‘backspace’ crap. Better yet, I’ll just close the whole document and start over. That’s real moral responsibility. Take a stand, delete the damn thing and start from the beginning. It’s always better the second time anyway.
And what’s happened to entertainment? In my day, you listened to the whole album. None of this ‘download one track and listen to it over and over’ crap. If you wanted to listen to one track on a record you took it out of the sleeve, then took it out of the paper liner, looked on the album cover, counted the little tiny gaps and dropped the needle somewhere near where you thought it should go. Back then, music took effort. You listened to the whole album in the order the artist intended, none of this ‘shuffle’ B.S. Music, as an art form, was perpetuated in its proper context. Song B follows song A, etc. Imagine how different the Beatles Sgt. Pepper would be all shuffled up or just cut apart for the singles. Personally, I can’t listen to ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ without hearing ‘Getting Better’ afterwards. Nowadays when an artist releases an album there are 2-3 tracks of songs people actually want to hear along with 6-7 songs of random filler that nobody EVER listens to. Isn’t that great? Somehow we’ve got more artists, more albums but less actual music that anyone likes. That makes a lot of sense.
Now television… there’s an art form that’s completely run amok. When I was a wee lad we had four stations. If there was a storm in the area we had five. Nowadays there are hundreds. It’s funny, when we only had four stations we did things. Nobody could stand to sit that long and watch those same four stations all day long. We did silly things like go outside and run around, play games, talk to each other, read books, the list was endless. Now though, we’re such an advanced culture that we have no need of such pedestrian activities. If one channel doesn’t suit our needs of the moment then surely there’s another one among the 597 choices that is showing exactly what we want to see. Why bother to interact with one another when we can be staring at a screen! It makes me wistful to think, though, of the cumulative mental and physical energy we would have free if we went back to four inane stations. Why, the roller-rinks would be crawling with happy children! All the drive-in theatres would be back in business! The libraries and bookstores would be swamped with patrons! Children would speak Latin and Greek in the streets as they played kick-the-can and stickball while Mozart concertos blasted from their boom-boxes. It’d be a veritable utopia of enlightenment and delight! Well… maybe not complete utopia, but I’d say it’s worth a shot. Let’s throw away our TVs and see what happens.
As a people, we have the capacity to be great and the capacity to be nothing. The world gives us great technology and sends us the message that if we use it, we’ll be great people. If we watch the new CNN Financial show we’ll make a lot of money on the stock market. “Knowledge is Power!”, they croon. “If we buy the newest, fastest computer we’ll be so much more productive,” they promise. And they’re right. Knowledge is power and productivity is something we all want more of but we must remember that it’s directionless power. That home improvement show may have given you the power to fence in your back yard but until you actuate the power you’ve been given you’ve gained nothing. The productivity of your new computer could be used to balance your checkbook or it could waste four hours of your time surfing the web. Technology gives us the power to drive ourselves further and faster into the direction we want to go but ultimately what direction we choose is still determined by our ability to overcome the most basic human frailties.
Boy, I remember those halcyon days of pristine uncertainty and ignorance in the 70s and 80s. Sometimes you’d hear a song on the radio and you’d walk around for weeks not knowing who the artist was, just waiting on the off chance that they’d play the song again or you’d run into somebody who knew what record the song was on. But now, the fun of ignorance, the anticipation of resolution, and the jubilance of discovery have all vanished. Any idiot with a computer can tell you the atomic weight of lead or why ‘Pounds’ is abbreviated ‘lbs.’ The value of smart people in this planet has diminished almost to nil. Time was, I got 2 or 3 calls a week from people asking about the solubility of sodium at 45 degrees Celsius or some other obscure bit of forgotten lore but now I’m lucky if anyone calls at all. And when they do they don’t seem to give a damn about anything of real interest. It’s hardly worth the effort to know anything at all. I might as well watch TV.
While we’re on the subject of things I’m sick of, let me tell you what else I could do without. I’ve had enough of ‘Undo.’ It’s about time people in this country started taking responsibility for their mistakes. From now on, when I make a typing mistake I’m going to just cross it out and go on, none of this fancy ‘backspace’ crap. Better yet, I’ll just close the whole document and start over. That’s real moral responsibility. Take a stand, delete the damn thing and start from the beginning. It’s always better the second time anyway.
And what’s happened to entertainment? In my day, you listened to the whole album. None of this ‘download one track and listen to it over and over’ crap. If you wanted to listen to one track on a record you took it out of the sleeve, then took it out of the paper liner, looked on the album cover, counted the little tiny gaps and dropped the needle somewhere near where you thought it should go. Back then, music took effort. You listened to the whole album in the order the artist intended, none of this ‘shuffle’ B.S. Music, as an art form, was perpetuated in its proper context. Song B follows song A, etc. Imagine how different the Beatles Sgt. Pepper would be all shuffled up or just cut apart for the singles. Personally, I can’t listen to ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ without hearing ‘Getting Better’ afterwards. Nowadays when an artist releases an album there are 2-3 tracks of songs people actually want to hear along with 6-7 songs of random filler that nobody EVER listens to. Isn’t that great? Somehow we’ve got more artists, more albums but less actual music that anyone likes. That makes a lot of sense.
Now television… there’s an art form that’s completely run amok. When I was a wee lad we had four stations. If there was a storm in the area we had five. Nowadays there are hundreds. It’s funny, when we only had four stations we did things. Nobody could stand to sit that long and watch those same four stations all day long. We did silly things like go outside and run around, play games, talk to each other, read books, the list was endless. Now though, we’re such an advanced culture that we have no need of such pedestrian activities. If one channel doesn’t suit our needs of the moment then surely there’s another one among the 597 choices that is showing exactly what we want to see. Why bother to interact with one another when we can be staring at a screen! It makes me wistful to think, though, of the cumulative mental and physical energy we would have free if we went back to four inane stations. Why, the roller-rinks would be crawling with happy children! All the drive-in theatres would be back in business! The libraries and bookstores would be swamped with patrons! Children would speak Latin and Greek in the streets as they played kick-the-can and stickball while Mozart concertos blasted from their boom-boxes. It’d be a veritable utopia of enlightenment and delight! Well… maybe not complete utopia, but I’d say it’s worth a shot. Let’s throw away our TVs and see what happens.
As a people, we have the capacity to be great and the capacity to be nothing. The world gives us great technology and sends us the message that if we use it, we’ll be great people. If we watch the new CNN Financial show we’ll make a lot of money on the stock market. “Knowledge is Power!”, they croon. “If we buy the newest, fastest computer we’ll be so much more productive,” they promise. And they’re right. Knowledge is power and productivity is something we all want more of but we must remember that it’s directionless power. That home improvement show may have given you the power to fence in your back yard but until you actuate the power you’ve been given you’ve gained nothing. The productivity of your new computer could be used to balance your checkbook or it could waste four hours of your time surfing the web. Technology gives us the power to drive ourselves further and faster into the direction we want to go but ultimately what direction we choose is still determined by our ability to overcome the most basic human frailties.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
That Demon Drink
There are at least a hundred things that I completely fail to understand about humans and their constant fascination with intoxication has to be in the top five. American society is absolutely enthralled with the concept of kicking back and having a ‘drink’. “It’s Miller Time”, “Tastes Great/Less Filling”, frogs croaking Bud-weis-er, all these images and slogans aren’t just advertising gimmicks, they’ve somehow made it into our everyday culture. People went around for a year saying “Waaaaassssuuuppp!” to each other because they saw it on a beer commercial. There’s even a significant portion of the population that has redefined “fun” to mean “get drunk.” You can’t have “fun” in this country unless you’ve first had something to drink.
As an outside observer who’s never had a drink of alcohol in his life (yes, I’m serious and yes, I’m 33) I’m completely befuddled by the popularity of this activity. From my viewpoint, here’s what boozing it up basically looks like:
• Drinking is REALLY expensive. Not having consumed such drinks I’m not exactly an expert on the costs but everything I’ve ever seen for sale from Pabst Blue Ribbon to … well, whatever’s considered expensive has been pricey. Pricier than soda, water or any other equivalent volume of beverage.
• From what I’ve been told, alcohol tastes like crap. The same people that provided that information also assured me that one acquires a taste for it over time. That too is nonsensical. If it tastes like crap and costs a lot, why would anyone bother drinking enough to become accustomed to it?
• As is often the case with things that taste foul, it also smells bad. You can tell someone’s been drinking from a mile away. In some cases, the smell of it seems to ooze out of every pore in their body.
• It’s poison. There’s a reason alcoholics end up dead, it’s because they drink poison that their livers are dutifully trying to save them from.
• Alcohol makes you stupid. People tend to get into a hell of a lot of trouble over this little leisure activity for exactly this reason; it’s a really good way to earn a trip to jail. I have to say, that never in my life have I thought that my judgment was so sharp and so precise that I needed something to dull it.
So if I came up to you on the street and said, “Hey! Drink this. It tastes horrible, makes your breath smell, will impair your judgment and eventually kill you” would you drink it? Would you PAY me for it?
All that said, people seem to have one hell of a good time with this stuff. I was recently in extremely close quarters (somewhat against my will) with several people who were drinking and they were having a BLAST. On examination, I can’t really see what it was that was so entertaining for them but they were sure tickled by it whatever it was. Despite all the apparent fun around me, I’m still not in the least tempted to drink. It seems evident that the ‘fun’ being had was a sort of fakery. It wasn’t that whatever was going on was fun but that their brains had been tricked into thinking so.
I’ve never seen the sensation of joy or fun as an end to be achieved. People don’t set ‘Be Happy’ as a goal in their life. Happiness is a byproduct of doing something meaningful and exciting. Fun is something that happens because you’re doing something you enjoy. If you just take your happiness out of a jar like you do your mayonnaise, then you’re cheating yourself. You’re missing out on the real experience of actually generating real and meaningful good times for yourself and those around you. If you add enough alcohol to even the most meaningless existence, it will seem like fun. Staring at a broken TV in a roach-infested apartment will seem like a blast if you take enough chemical inducements to puree your mind into a confused slurry of disconnected thoughts.
As an outside observer who’s never had a drink of alcohol in his life (yes, I’m serious and yes, I’m 33) I’m completely befuddled by the popularity of this activity. From my viewpoint, here’s what boozing it up basically looks like:
• Drinking is REALLY expensive. Not having consumed such drinks I’m not exactly an expert on the costs but everything I’ve ever seen for sale from Pabst Blue Ribbon to … well, whatever’s considered expensive has been pricey. Pricier than soda, water or any other equivalent volume of beverage.
• From what I’ve been told, alcohol tastes like crap. The same people that provided that information also assured me that one acquires a taste for it over time. That too is nonsensical. If it tastes like crap and costs a lot, why would anyone bother drinking enough to become accustomed to it?
• As is often the case with things that taste foul, it also smells bad. You can tell someone’s been drinking from a mile away. In some cases, the smell of it seems to ooze out of every pore in their body.
• It’s poison. There’s a reason alcoholics end up dead, it’s because they drink poison that their livers are dutifully trying to save them from.
• Alcohol makes you stupid. People tend to get into a hell of a lot of trouble over this little leisure activity for exactly this reason; it’s a really good way to earn a trip to jail. I have to say, that never in my life have I thought that my judgment was so sharp and so precise that I needed something to dull it.
So if I came up to you on the street and said, “Hey! Drink this. It tastes horrible, makes your breath smell, will impair your judgment and eventually kill you” would you drink it? Would you PAY me for it?
All that said, people seem to have one hell of a good time with this stuff. I was recently in extremely close quarters (somewhat against my will) with several people who were drinking and they were having a BLAST. On examination, I can’t really see what it was that was so entertaining for them but they were sure tickled by it whatever it was. Despite all the apparent fun around me, I’m still not in the least tempted to drink. It seems evident that the ‘fun’ being had was a sort of fakery. It wasn’t that whatever was going on was fun but that their brains had been tricked into thinking so.
I’ve never seen the sensation of joy or fun as an end to be achieved. People don’t set ‘Be Happy’ as a goal in their life. Happiness is a byproduct of doing something meaningful and exciting. Fun is something that happens because you’re doing something you enjoy. If you just take your happiness out of a jar like you do your mayonnaise, then you’re cheating yourself. You’re missing out on the real experience of actually generating real and meaningful good times for yourself and those around you. If you add enough alcohol to even the most meaningless existence, it will seem like fun. Staring at a broken TV in a roach-infested apartment will seem like a blast if you take enough chemical inducements to puree your mind into a confused slurry of disconnected thoughts.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
The Real Problem with America
You know the real problem with this country? Oh! You do?! Do Tell!
Too many stupid Republicans getting us involved in wars that are none of our business, you say? No, not really. Leaders have been getting us involved in wars for as long as their have been leaders. War is a natural process in our species and if we can’t find someone to fight somewhere else then we’ll just end up fighting ourselves. Even if you think the current War in Iraq is a sham, you must admit that nobody reading this really KNOWS enough about the situation to say for sure that the war is a sham or not. We haven’t seen the real intelligence; god only knows what’s really going on or what the Bush administration is basing this whole war on. Republicans are definitely NOT the real problem.
Too many stupid Democrats going around hugging trees, causing problems for Republicans, sympathizing with terrorists and trying to erode national security in the name of civil liberties, you say? No, sorry, wrong again. The Democrats are an important part of the political ecosystem; the Republicans tend to try to govern from the top down. They tend to take care of the top of the societal food chain, the rich, corporations, etc, while democrats tend to try to govern from the bottom up by taking care of the little guy by supporting unions, minorities and the least represented of all, the environment. No matter how much we may enjoy pointing fingers at each other, an honest person must admit to themselves that we need both. The truly right way is somewhere in the middle. We need people to support corporations because they employ people and we need to make sure workers and the environment don’t get abused. The Democrats and the Republicans fill these roles nicely and balance each other out over time as the grand pendulum of democracy shifts power back and forth between the two parties. Democrats are definitely NOT the real problem.
The moral fabric of the country is being eroded, you say, by a vast conspiracy of godless deviants? No, I’m afraid you’re wrong on that count too. This is, in fact, all a trick. There were just as many deviants back in whatever golden bygone area you want to look at but today more than ever our media tells us about every single one of them in excruciating detail. We hear SO much about these people that we start to think that everyone’s this way and that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Clearly though, this is just not the case. If anything, people are actually more benevolent than ever because as a society we HAVE more than ever. There is so much material wealth in this country that sometimes we have to load it in bags and take it to Goodwill because we just don’t have anywhere else to put it all. So no, this is definitely not the problem because it’s just not true. If anything, this country is more homogeneous than ever. We just hear a lot more about the oddballs because that’s what sells newspapers and gets people to watch the news.
Religious fanatics are trying to run our lives, steal our country and take away our liberties, you bemoan? No, that’s not it either because that’s an inherent contradiction. Those people who try to run your private life with a Bible in one hand and a cross in the other are not really religious. They do what they do in the name of religion but in reality they’re doing it for their own selfish ends. Their motivations actually have nothing to do with religion except that they try to use it as a crowbar to get what they want by threatening you with eternal suffering of one sort or another. These people are the modern equivalent of snake-oil salesman trying to sell an idea and in exchange get 10% of your income (gross, not net) each week. Truly religious people you typically don’t even know about. They don’t try to sell you anything or hit the pavement trying to earn their Heavenly Rewards merit badge for converting people. A truly religious person won’t actually try to convince you of anything in an active manner. You may find a Bible on your desk at work but the person giving it won’t make themselves known or take credit for it. So no, the religious people of the world aren’t the problem, they’re quietly going about their business in the best way they know how and you probably couldn’t point them out in a crowd if you tried.
You’re apparently not going to guess so I’ll tell you. The problem, my good readers, is us, every single one of us. It’s not the politicians, it’s not rich people, it’s not welfare moms, it’s not religious fanatics and it’s not even Satan worshipers. The problem is every single one of us and the society we’ve made for ourselves. As a society, our energies are so incredibly misdirected that people from a hundred years ago would just shake their heads. We have more free time, more material wealth, longer lives and better general health and security than any group of humans ever to gather on this planet. We have got it really good. We should be the most incredibly enlightened, intelligent, cooperative and technologically advanced nation ever by a factor of ten at least, but we’re not.
The reason is, frankly, a very simple one. As a nation, we’re lazy, and when we’re not working at the jobs we hate, our top priorities are partying, having fun or just wasting away the hours until it’s time to go back to work. We eat fast food because we’re too lazy to cook. We’d hate to take time to cook because that might cut into CSI. We’re too lazy to read a book or do something productive so we sit and watch television and encourage our children to do the same because we’re too lazy to raise them properly too.
Our society produces an infinite variety of video games, sports entertainment, TV shows and movies (primarily ones with violent themes), junk literature and pornography to fill our free time almost to the exclusion of all else. Sadly, these things are out there in such abundance because it’s what people care about. Don’t believe me? Go to work and eavesdrop on a few conversations. I think you’ll find that if people aren’t talking about their jobs, they’re talking about one of the five things above. American’s seem to love to exist in a zombified state, a constant hypnagogic trance induced by mindless images on a television screen. When we aren’t watching TV or playing some abhorrently violent video game, we’re blathering endlessly on the phone with our equally zombified friends about them.
Some of you may well say, “So what? So what if I watch TV? What does that hurt?” The answer is that it may not be hurting anything. If, in fact, all you were capable of ever doing was watching television then you’ve lost nothing. If, on the other hand, you were capable of something else, something more meaningful than merely occupying space for 60 minutes, then you’ve lost everything. Every hour you spend doing some mindless activity is an hour you failed to achieve something.
Rather than sleeping away an hour in front of the tube, you could have read a book that inspired you and changed you forever. Perhaps that hour would have been spent talking to an elderly neighbor that really needed someone to talk to or perhaps you talked with your child and discovered a really wonderful human being there that you never knew before because you never bothered to listen. Maybe you volunteered at the homeless shelter and met your future wife. Maybe you went for a walk every day and added 20 years to your life. The point is, that television, video games, getting sloppy drunk and other mindless entertainment is a big fat 0 in the grand scheme of things. No matter what you do, as long as it’s not wasting your time with passive and meaningless activities it’s better than watching Gilligan’s Island reruns and the world will be a little better place for your efforts. Einstein did not take a break from Relativity to watch Survivor. Don’t let your own magnum opus go down the drain because some voice in a box told you, “Don’t miss a second of next week’s exciting episode!”
Too many stupid Republicans getting us involved in wars that are none of our business, you say? No, not really. Leaders have been getting us involved in wars for as long as their have been leaders. War is a natural process in our species and if we can’t find someone to fight somewhere else then we’ll just end up fighting ourselves. Even if you think the current War in Iraq is a sham, you must admit that nobody reading this really KNOWS enough about the situation to say for sure that the war is a sham or not. We haven’t seen the real intelligence; god only knows what’s really going on or what the Bush administration is basing this whole war on. Republicans are definitely NOT the real problem.
Too many stupid Democrats going around hugging trees, causing problems for Republicans, sympathizing with terrorists and trying to erode national security in the name of civil liberties, you say? No, sorry, wrong again. The Democrats are an important part of the political ecosystem; the Republicans tend to try to govern from the top down. They tend to take care of the top of the societal food chain, the rich, corporations, etc, while democrats tend to try to govern from the bottom up by taking care of the little guy by supporting unions, minorities and the least represented of all, the environment. No matter how much we may enjoy pointing fingers at each other, an honest person must admit to themselves that we need both. The truly right way is somewhere in the middle. We need people to support corporations because they employ people and we need to make sure workers and the environment don’t get abused. The Democrats and the Republicans fill these roles nicely and balance each other out over time as the grand pendulum of democracy shifts power back and forth between the two parties. Democrats are definitely NOT the real problem.
The moral fabric of the country is being eroded, you say, by a vast conspiracy of godless deviants? No, I’m afraid you’re wrong on that count too. This is, in fact, all a trick. There were just as many deviants back in whatever golden bygone area you want to look at but today more than ever our media tells us about every single one of them in excruciating detail. We hear SO much about these people that we start to think that everyone’s this way and that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Clearly though, this is just not the case. If anything, people are actually more benevolent than ever because as a society we HAVE more than ever. There is so much material wealth in this country that sometimes we have to load it in bags and take it to Goodwill because we just don’t have anywhere else to put it all. So no, this is definitely not the problem because it’s just not true. If anything, this country is more homogeneous than ever. We just hear a lot more about the oddballs because that’s what sells newspapers and gets people to watch the news.
Religious fanatics are trying to run our lives, steal our country and take away our liberties, you bemoan? No, that’s not it either because that’s an inherent contradiction. Those people who try to run your private life with a Bible in one hand and a cross in the other are not really religious. They do what they do in the name of religion but in reality they’re doing it for their own selfish ends. Their motivations actually have nothing to do with religion except that they try to use it as a crowbar to get what they want by threatening you with eternal suffering of one sort or another. These people are the modern equivalent of snake-oil salesman trying to sell an idea and in exchange get 10% of your income (gross, not net) each week. Truly religious people you typically don’t even know about. They don’t try to sell you anything or hit the pavement trying to earn their Heavenly Rewards merit badge for converting people. A truly religious person won’t actually try to convince you of anything in an active manner. You may find a Bible on your desk at work but the person giving it won’t make themselves known or take credit for it. So no, the religious people of the world aren’t the problem, they’re quietly going about their business in the best way they know how and you probably couldn’t point them out in a crowd if you tried.
You’re apparently not going to guess so I’ll tell you. The problem, my good readers, is us, every single one of us. It’s not the politicians, it’s not rich people, it’s not welfare moms, it’s not religious fanatics and it’s not even Satan worshipers. The problem is every single one of us and the society we’ve made for ourselves. As a society, our energies are so incredibly misdirected that people from a hundred years ago would just shake their heads. We have more free time, more material wealth, longer lives and better general health and security than any group of humans ever to gather on this planet. We have got it really good. We should be the most incredibly enlightened, intelligent, cooperative and technologically advanced nation ever by a factor of ten at least, but we’re not.
The reason is, frankly, a very simple one. As a nation, we’re lazy, and when we’re not working at the jobs we hate, our top priorities are partying, having fun or just wasting away the hours until it’s time to go back to work. We eat fast food because we’re too lazy to cook. We’d hate to take time to cook because that might cut into CSI. We’re too lazy to read a book or do something productive so we sit and watch television and encourage our children to do the same because we’re too lazy to raise them properly too.
Our society produces an infinite variety of video games, sports entertainment, TV shows and movies (primarily ones with violent themes), junk literature and pornography to fill our free time almost to the exclusion of all else. Sadly, these things are out there in such abundance because it’s what people care about. Don’t believe me? Go to work and eavesdrop on a few conversations. I think you’ll find that if people aren’t talking about their jobs, they’re talking about one of the five things above. American’s seem to love to exist in a zombified state, a constant hypnagogic trance induced by mindless images on a television screen. When we aren’t watching TV or playing some abhorrently violent video game, we’re blathering endlessly on the phone with our equally zombified friends about them.
Some of you may well say, “So what? So what if I watch TV? What does that hurt?” The answer is that it may not be hurting anything. If, in fact, all you were capable of ever doing was watching television then you’ve lost nothing. If, on the other hand, you were capable of something else, something more meaningful than merely occupying space for 60 minutes, then you’ve lost everything. Every hour you spend doing some mindless activity is an hour you failed to achieve something.
Rather than sleeping away an hour in front of the tube, you could have read a book that inspired you and changed you forever. Perhaps that hour would have been spent talking to an elderly neighbor that really needed someone to talk to or perhaps you talked with your child and discovered a really wonderful human being there that you never knew before because you never bothered to listen. Maybe you volunteered at the homeless shelter and met your future wife. Maybe you went for a walk every day and added 20 years to your life. The point is, that television, video games, getting sloppy drunk and other mindless entertainment is a big fat 0 in the grand scheme of things. No matter what you do, as long as it’s not wasting your time with passive and meaningless activities it’s better than watching Gilligan’s Island reruns and the world will be a little better place for your efforts. Einstein did not take a break from Relativity to watch Survivor. Don’t let your own magnum opus go down the drain because some voice in a box told you, “Don’t miss a second of next week’s exciting episode!”
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