Awesome stuff and a philosophical discourse

[matril]

This is the first of a whole series of parodies of those irritating Mac/PC commericals. Gut-bustingly funny. Then it branches out from parodying into playing around with the premise of comic book characters hanging out together and discussing the successes and failures of their movies. It is hilarious, just the sort of geeky, in-joke sort of stuff that I love. Then, just when I'm crying with laughter, it takes a surprisingly deep and serious turn that is unexpectedly moving. Anything examining the anguish of Superman finding his place among humans is just plain awesome in my book. :D Clearly made by a genuine fan of these characters (who else would have so many action figures on hand? ;)


I'm very glad for technology. I like camping, but I like coming back to civilzation. I'm not going to settle down in a cabin in the woods with no running water or electricity. Having said that, however, I want to reflect on the ways that technology can make us kind of miserable. I've had this on my mind because I've been wasting a whole lot of time on the Internet lately, just out of plain old boredom, searching for something to give me instantaneous entertainment. And I need to step back and get my priorities.

We live in a society of quick fixes. Food, clothing, all other necessities, are available ready-made to purchase at affordable prices. We don't have to sow and tend and harvest our own grain; we don't have to shear sheep, card wool, spin it into thread....you get the idea. And I am deeply grateful for this. However, it has put us in the mindset that we shouldn't have to wait long or work hard for anything. And this is not entirely healthy. To reference my own bad example, since we moved to our new place we no longer have free cable, so if I want to watch TV shows I need to watch them on the Internet, usually the next day if I want to be nice and wait to watch them with my husband. And one day in the midst of grumbling in my head about this I thought "You have got to be kidding me. Am I really complaining about the fact that I have entertainment produced by some stranger sent directly to my home whenever I want it, for a minimum cost?" Seriously. We've come to think we need a constant flow of happiness. No wonder so many people become addicts, seeking that elusive state of unbroken pleasure. They're not going to find it. And they shouldn't expect it.

Phones and e-mail have made communication so much more efficient, and I'd never want to do away with them (though I hate cell phones with an irrational passion). But they've become so efficient that that has become the sole purpose - making quick and easy contact. We play phone tag all day long, but do we really say anything? We forward emails without a second thought, hardly bothering to check if the latest rumor floating around the Internet has any credence. In true substance it amounts to empty air. I like letters. They're slow, yes, and inefficient, and not very practical when you can use email or call someone. I just love getting a physical object, though, knowing that it came from the hands of the person who wrote it, knowing that they took the time to write it out, put it in a envelope and stick a stamp on it. :shrugs: Sentimental, perhaps, but consider this. It's so easy to send an email, or type up a hasty response to something on IM or a message board, that people can put no thought into it at all, and end up offending someone or being misunderstood, and then they get miffed and respond in kind, and flame wars rise up, and everyone's angry for no reason at all. I'm not saying in the halcyon days of letter writing this never happened, but there is something inherently problematic in instantaneous communication, if you're not careful about it. And people are seldom careful.

Human contact is so sanitized on the Internet. This is coming from someone who cringes at human contact, hates small talk, and frequently displays hermit-like tendencies. But even I can see the warning signs. People can present themselves in such idealized or exaggerated ways; they can leave out the less pleasant parts, or they can become complete caricatures of nastiness. Above all, they're not real. Granted, I've had some very nice interactions online, and I try to make myself as genuine as possible, but it's not precisely me. It's Internet me. Ironic that I'm posting all of this on the Internet. It's just some things I've been realizing as I've been trying to cut back my computer time and live a real, genuine life. Don't know how well it's going just yet.

Comments

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

I've got Internet Me, I suppose; I just like to think that she's me with all the day-to-day conversation about grocery shopping or how much I ache left out. I try to be up-front about problems and three-dimensional, though, because otherwise what's the point? I've seen the blogs where women are talking about their wonderful families and wonderful husbands and wonderful lives and it's obviously not *that* squeaky cute, but they're writing themselves into a box because after a while they can't have an honest or even interesting conversation about anything. But it's not exclusive to the Internet, when you think about it - there's This Friend Me, who talks with her friend about light novels and comedies and compares kid-raising stories, and there's That Friend Me, who talks with another friend about ghost stories and the horror genre (which the other friend doesn't find interesting at all). And there's Church Me and, of course, Mom Me. And alas, there's Third Trimester Me, which is dominant at the moment and which acts incredibly nasty towards *everyone*.

I like written letters quite a lot; I didn't get onto the net until I was eighteen and before then did lots and lots of letter-writing; with my godmother, my cousins, all sorts of people - I still have a lot of those letters and they'll be around when email has gone into the void. I write letters to the older generation, mostly enclosed around photos of Daniel, and it's shocking how *difficult* it's gotten to handwrite four or five pages, I'm just so used to typing everything. Humiliating to think that all those enormous Victorian novels were written longhand - I'd be done with if I tried that. (On the other hand, could George Eliot do 90 WPM? I don't think so :)).

[matril.livejournal.com]

That's true; I definitely have lots of Mes (Me's?) in real life as well. I behave differently around my parents versus my friends, and differently still around my children or my husband. But I would hope that they are all, in some form, genuine versions of me.

In high school I used to scrawl down my little novellas in notebooks. One of them was perhaps as long as 200 pages. That was about my limit. When I started in on my 300+ page fantasy novels, I switched to the computer. Also, I was worried that one little fire would send all my hard work up in smoke. Not that a computer file is invulnerable, but at least it can be backed up. ;)

[sreya.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the YouTube link! Those were absolutely hilarious, and yes, it's fun to have the little bit of introspection thrown in. *grin*

I'm just starting to realize how little time I spend online now that I'm working fulltime. True, part of it is that I can't load IM onto my work computer and I'm not comfortable going to LiveJournal and stuff during breaks (government computers = serious tracking), but even when I'm home, I almost never turn on instant messenger anymore, and my blog and boards time is definitely minimal. I thought I'd miss it... but I really don't. I guess part of that may be that I was getting sick of all the election fighting online. But it's still pretty weird. Though probably healthier.

[matril.livejournal.com]

I thought you'd like the YouTube thing. ;)

Ah, not missing the Internet. I'd like to get to that point. Seriously, it's an addiction. :O