Thank god for Jimi Hendrix... I can explain...
We are living in strange times, yes? Anybody over the age of, say 35, should be capable of demonstrating experiential, anecdotal synopses of living in both the 'Before' age and the 'Now.'
We are living in strange times, yes? Anybody over the age of, say 35, should be capable of demonstrating experiential, anecdotal synopses of living in both the 'Before' age and the 'Now.'
By 'Before' age, I simply mean a time prior to computers and machines and gadgets playing such a dominant role in our daily lives. An age when we actually memorized dozens of phone numbers or wrote them down on our palms and in those little address books, because we had no alternative -- remember? It wasn't so long ago, but it seems prehistoric. Of course we hadn't yet been exposed to the digital 'contact list' of the 'Now' which requires us to remember nothing other than mostly first names and face pics.
It seems like just yesterday I'd see guys carrying gigantic 'jamboxes' around on their shoulders as a form of portable music, before Sony introduced the revolutionary 'Walkman.' The first Walkman was big and bulky and heavy.....nothing like our Ipod Nanos and other brilliant portable music devices. I have the newest version of the Sony Walkman - it kicks Apple's ass when it comes to audio quality - no comparison. But I've already been through the Ipods and I loved all of it. Then I woke up and remembered that it was Sony, not Apple, who innovated the portable music machine, and that experience shows itself today in the new Sony Walkman's killer sound. Anyway, I digress...
We're the lucky ones -- those of us who remember the Before and live in the Now. If some Dr. Evil decided to pull the plug on our collective digital power supply, we would at least still be capable of surviving (for a little while). Meanwhile, right now we're raising an entire generation of kids who would be completely in the dark (both literally and figuratively) without the smartphones, tablets, screens and pods and earbuds they rely on to simply make it through the day. I picture a scenario like 'World War Z,' except Brad Pitt is replaced by a forty-something-year old silicon valley veteran, and instead of zombies there would be hackers and coders, white hats and black hats, crackers and anarchists in the great blue nowhere trying to prevent a potential apocalypse by racing to find a cure for some sort of trojan horse malware virus that's threatening to destroy Mother Earth's hard drive....
What really blows my mind is how services like Twitter and other microbloggers have totally altered the way much of the planet collects and dispenses 'news.' I'm guilty of it too - I follow about 200 different news sources and journalists on Twitter. Sometimes I feel like I'm finding things out before the 'thing' has actually occurred! It's all so fucking fast. Too fast.
So what is one to think? To do with all this information? So much information coming at us in hyper-realtime, at the scene of the 'event', as it happens, from the actual participants in the 'event.' The 'event' can be anything from a sporting competition to a terrorist attack at a shopping mall to a war to a fashion show. Tons of information pushed into our collective cerebral cortex. Our brains have been rewired to become massive data processors. If you follow any business tech news, it's all about data, data, data these days. How to track it, store it, analyze it and monetize it.
The novelty of all of this bullshit has started to turn me off. Lately, I find myself reading more actual print newspapers and magazines that I like, and less mindnumbing staring at my twitter feed. I get more info that way -- the whole picture as oppossed to micro-blurbs and bytes and headlines, and I get a tangible experience. I feel more like a human being when I do that and less like a shell of a person who devotes significant components of a life to a virtual world of data and algorithms and routers and providers of bullshit.
Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but I think the 'information' and 'news' businesses should stop trying to be so fucking creative just to keep up with their younger, hipper, wired-in competition. It's getting irritating. But, then again, I have to remind myself that all of these companies in the business of dispensing information to the public are interested in one thing and one thing only.....hmmmmm wonder what that might be.......aaahh yes, it's MONEY of course. Once again proving that money ultimately fucks everything up.
My solution to being oversaturated with hyperfast information delivery systems is quite simple: I put everything aside and listen to Jimi Hendrix's album 'Blues.' It cures most of my ailments. I highly recommend it.
-peace/warm regards:
jeremy
