Photomemorphosis

Kodak moment? But what if it is not what it seems to be? Photography? No, I mean, well, yes, photography. Photographs. The idea behind it, the science. What are you saying? I'm saying, what if photography isn't what our memory is. What if, in the act of trying to record something forever, that phenomenon is actually what causes everything as we know it, to actually change? What the goddamn hell are you saying? No, listen. What if, as soon as we take that photograph, the image that we thought we were preserving actually changes so that what comes out, the virtual image, is an altered reality and our memory, too, is altered, and we don't even know that anything even changed? That's freaking scary. What if the people we were—Stop, you're freaking me out—before that photo was taken are left behind in a different world and the people we are after the click have been changed? Whoa, why are you aiming that at me, is the camera on, hey sto--

Selfie Improvements

Lately we've become all the more preoccupied by the superficial. So much that we've sort of lost touch with who we really are. Sure, there are all the more articles, slideshows, and hey, blogs, devoted toward the proliferating topic of self-improvements,  but this too has only been a contributing factor to our loss of identity.

We are surfing upon the surface of survival - and one tactic of this is to avoid delving too deep lest we are not able to resurface. Our musculature has atrophied in the process, not exercised in the processes of the act. Similarly our synapses, our neurons has not been taxed with the red-zone activity of 'over-thinking'.

The process of self-development is sadly undermined now by the advancement of our identity as demanded by society and culture, furthermore infiltrated into our very subconscious by technology.

We devote more time to creating the 'perfect' selfie - and not for individual purposes: the whole point of taking selfies is to publish on various social media instrumental in putting forward ourselves as a subject for interpretation by society. And it is on this very basis that we recalibrate our very image of ourselves in our eyes.

Is it any wonder that we're now a collection of instability? Teetering on the edge of tools which could take us forward if used correctly, these same tools are those which will make or break us. But we're more likely to break; and are in the process of breaking. There are cracks around the mirrors that we try to cover up with snapshots of better created artifices, or smooth over with anti-wrinkling ointments (or better yet, photoshop). But at the same time, we have this internal struggle to reconcile the person we might actually be inside to the person we try to be as demanded by external expectations.  We assimilate these expectations so much into our very psyche that they have superimposed upon our original ideas of identity.

Our self-esteem is tenuous. Even those of us who aver we don't give a rat's tail about what society thinks of us are not immune. The toughest facade really has grown so due to necessity. The way a person blinks at us, or smiles at us, or walks past us without another glance makes something underneath, even insubstantial or subconsciously, quiver. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we see what needs improvement or what is to be admired after improvements and through other people's eyes. Underneath this skin, we don't really know who we are.

Vemödalen

Why spend money on botox and also spend money on eradicating household pests - just get yourself bitten by a spider on your goddamn lips already.

Why feast like a glutton on junk food and more calories than is needed per meal and also spend on gym membership?

Why poison yourself with tonnes of chemicals - pesticides, preservatives  - only to have to spend just as much, and more, on more chemicals - prescriptions, pharmaceuticals - to counteract the effects.

I find myself perplexed by the ignominious state we have deluded ourselves into as a species. We waste so much. We buy into this whole practice of what makes us this modernized society and yet, we have in the very same process sold ourselves short. 

Once it was money that really demarcated the disparity in class heirarchy. Either you had way too much or you had none, and if you were in between - which most of us were - you still compared your dollar to your neighbour and resented or gloated. To truly and honestly not care about the weight of a dollar you had to either have too much or none. 

Now, it's technology that  becomes a telling identifier. It has, by the same means of furthering our society as a whole in the name of progress, simultaneously dumbified its individuals.

We don't think anymore. Like really think. Now computers think for us. We just take what we are given and recycle-reuse-reduce it even further. We repackage what has trickled down to us through osmosis, and wait for our recognition and praise for doing so.

Maybe technology only heightens this; maybe we've always done this, and are no more than glorified hairless monkeys that only do as we see. Maybe imitation is all we are capable of, and to rise above is an escape from a cycle of the mundane to a state of intellectual nirvana. We've invented this thing, and patted our own backs, but at the same time we collude at the other corner of the room to send us right back to where we began. 

We've become so less efficient and so bloody lazy.  We've become hostages to our own lack of will-power. Slaves to those seven masters - wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony - who we thought that by just identifying and recognizing them as enemies on the radar we preempted their subcutaneous encroachment into our psyches - and fail to in spades by the consequential lax state of awareness without the diligent vigilance warranted. The smallest dose has already made us too lazy and too unconcerned to make the effort to repair ourselves.

We have the potentiality to go far but we won't. We won't really make a long-lasting flavour of gum because then our buyers won't buy more. We won't create a  tungsten filament that won't break because then our bulbs won't sell as fast. And it's not just at the top. We won't let ourselves have a dollar more because then we won't get social assistance. We're OK with being down there if we just have to work a little less and get smaller income if it means the taxpayers will provide the rest. And we won't create a cure for cancer because, hey then who will buy our medicines and who will pay us doctors for our services? Let's all remain sick! It's okay! We can buy an iPhone that will tell us how to fix our symptoms.

Offline

For three months - or more accurately, two - I was off the internet, and it was glorious.

By some stroke of luck, all my personal gadgets cumulatively ceased working, and after some perfunctory attempts at repair, I sat back and decided to let it all go. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't difficult.

Despite all our angst about Change - things changing, people changing, people coming, people going, getting older, life changing - we are remarkably so attuned to the process of habituation that we  often lose out on the experience of actualization, the process itself of transformation, of really noticing what we are becoming.

I was reading actual newspapers. Reading actual, physical, books. So used was I to my tablet's e-reader functionalities that severally I found myself pressing my finger to a word on paper waiting for the browser function to materialize.

I was walking around listening to my surroundings. Sitting and hearing the people around me, or just that sound of outsideness that comes with the act of walking down the street. No longer was I selectively excluding the natural soundtrack with a neverending playlist that went on as soon as I stepped out and went off as soon as I stepped in.

No longer were my eyes diverted to a polygon of illuminated text or graphics that had somehow superimposed itself over the actual vast universe. I revelled again in the swaying of trees, in finding five million variations to the blue of the skies, in experiencing the secrets of the wind on my face without distraction. I watched clouds, counted birds in their flocks, watched ants trek the arduous distance of one foot.

Certainly, I had to use the computer at work, which accounted for 8 hours of a day, but suddenly I had overcome the inexplicable trance that infects us all; that strange urgency to have to stay in touch with x number of people contacts. For the period I relinquished technology I almost simultaneously became a hermit. Yet in this regard I was not exactly lonely. Perhaps that's where the urgency arises - we find import in the communication of others: each text message, email, ping is an instance of verification of our own very existence.

Is it troubling that our very being is thus reliant? Or simply inevitable? I couldn't say; only that for a period of time life became a little less superficial and more easygoing. For whatever it was worth, I had let go of something that until then subconsciously I must have given it permission to make me feel as if it was the thing which had a grip on me.

It was only when I stopped struggling with the withdrawal, accepted being offline, and embraced my surroundings and therein myself, that I made the trip to the electronics store, purchased soldering equipment and set to working fixing my gadgets that I am able to say: hello, I'm back.

Ingenuity

Today I read an article with the quote below,  in perfect timing with respect to my previous post:

As Dave Gray, an innovation consultant and author of Gamestorming, says:

“Creativity is driven by constraints. When we have limited resources, creative thinking is enhanced. That's because the fewer resources you have, the more you are forced to rely on your ingenuity.”

(courtesy: Golden Girl Finance)

Metamorphosis of the Butterfly

Somehow, I seem to find connections between almost everything and anything. They just pop up. When I may be thinking some odd thought randomly, then another thought comes around and connects to the previous one, or something happens to make me think, hey, that's just an extension to this thought...or sometimes, someone else comes out expressing their own thoughts and their thought just somehow aligns itself in symphony with all those already going along the motorways of the mind.

Technology

For some time, I have had this ongoing love-hate relationship with technology. No-brainer, right? Because, who doesn't? We've developed a high level of dependency upon technology so that when something actually goes wrong with whatever gadget we are dependent on, it's almost as if the world's ending. Waiting just an extra two seconds more for something to perform or load drives us insane. If the microwave doesn't work, 'oh my God, how do we eat?'.  We lose a phone, our life has become traumatizing. If, God forbid, the power goes out, well, gee, we may as well die. 

Microwave example aside, I'm going to pick on those devices which entail furthering communication. It boggles my mind, observing how dependent people have become on their devices; getting on a bus and just observing people, dozens, hundreds, all just focused on this tiny rectangle. That's become their world. If something happens to their phone - they lose it or it just doesn't work - it suddenly catapults the person into a whole new sphere, almost like rendering them on a deserted island, in total blackout, radio silence, traumatic isolation.

I can say this with my idealistic scorn of course, because I have absolutely no dependency on cell phones. Or, to be more honest, on my own possession of one. In full disclosure of asserting this, I have to admit that I do depend on others' having cell phones to fully optimize our communication. But other than that, my sole technological dependency is via the computer system. My laptop. 

While I spend a good amount of time at a computer - all day at work, and often hours at home also - I do enjoy the time away from being 'on line'. I enjoy being unfettered while outside, and not being one of those phone-absorbed people. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but having phones when outside were once just things to be used in case of an emergency. Now they have meshed so tightly with our everyday lives that they have superseded all other activities.

My 'beef' is with how less we are using our minds with the progress of technology. I harbour this deeply embedded sensation of us as civilization creeping up this graphical curve, slow at first with our lack of technology, then zooming ahead faster and faster at full speed as we develop technology that allows us to perform the most basic actions with greater facility and efficiency, but then we suddenly start slowing down, because with so many machines doing the work for us, suddenly our dependency has become our handicap, and we have forgotten how to actually think.

Imagination

Kids these days have so many options with which to engage their time. Computer games, video games, television, talking books, ...iPads for their own personal use to do all of that. They're born into this new technology-drenched era, so much that to think of any other possibility does not even occur to their mind. It's become taken for granted now that they are entitled. 

But, while it's normal for kids to be able to get a handle on utilizing the most advanced technology and programs, being able to text and type without even trying - things which make the older generations gawk, somehow in the broadening of their accessibility to the world in general, they (we) have in fact put a border on how our minds can grow. 

Imagination, for example, seems to have become one of the foremost casualties in this burgeoning world of technology. You hardly find children today being able to 'make-believe': giving them a bunch of lifeless and unconnected items and they will lose any interest in them almost immediately. Gone is the potential of using our own minds to infuse creativity and life into otherwise lifeless objects and circumstances. I spent my entire childhood creating stories, games, entire story-worlds; hand-me-down toys from other well-off children came alive with their own personalities and entire background stories. Pocahontas became Quasimoto's sister-in-law, John Smith became an Amitabh-Bachchan-song dancer in the Smith Brother's Pub & Grill. Kitty, the Simba-replicated stuffed animal with absolutely no batteries became the official family pet and went everywhere we travelled. Our tiny square of backyard became a huge world wherein our tiny toys had their own farmland, kingdoms, and camping grounds. 

Now, the idea of 'make-believe' almost doesn't exist for children. It has evolved with the last generations to remember what it was, and has almost taken more carnal and definitely adult meanings: "role-play". Once upon a time, role-play was what kindergarten kids did with the random props and dress-up box. Now, I don't even have to explain what has become of the word, because so ubiquitous this evolution, it becomes unnecessary. 

Oh, I know I sound like an aged old woman, and while I am the kiddiest girl around for my age, I also know that while I am a kid at heart, I have an ancient soul. I grieve for the coming generations. Rather than their brains developing new and exciting neuro-pathways creating vast portals of discovery and intellect, the networks that are actually lighting up are those of machines. 

Interaction

The loss of performing what may be perceived as useless activities, such as fooling around with inanimate objects or running around on the streets, comes with the gain of greater interpersonal interaction. Connections are available at the press of a button, communication is accessible round the clock. We've spanned the world hundreds of times, and when once you could be anywhere just by imagining it in your mind, now it's feasible: through technology you are actually capable of connecting to that same place, actually speaking with someone 928502394823 miles away and not just in your imagination.

In elementary school, I was one of just 3 people who put up their hands when our geography teacher asked us who had a computer at home. Then that total number of people went down to two when he then asked who had Internet, my hand still up in the air. I had very little idea of how profound that word, Internet, would actually become, despite being one of the special ones in possession of this Holy Grail.

Perhaps that is what demarcates the concept in my mind so emphatically. I have been on both sides of that line; witness to and part of a generation undergoing profound revolution, consequently I am less susceptible to that sense of entitlement.

But then again, I grew into that generation at a younger age, and taking that in consideration, I can then also understand how parents of our generation would have been even more suspicious of connecting with others through electronic devices. Once upon a time, suspicion of anyone absolutely unknown in person was already in place, now where you cannot even see who it is that you are communicating with - not even a voice, as even with the telephone - imagine the horror.

Years after that moment in my geography class - my short-lived temporary glamour dissipating with the concept becoming so much more mainstream - in high-school, one of my best friends one day told me about this guy she met on the internet, and how they were...well, involved. At that time, I couldn't fathom it. I was already enduring the teenager-fixation of high-school crushology at that time (and boy, was I swimming in that!) that to even comprehend this strange idea of my best friend talking to this random guy on the internet, then somehow falling in love, was totally mind-boggling. Of course, being an open-minded carefree soul, I just accepted it (or maybe I was too entrenched in the drama of my own 239842039840923 crushes at that time) and figured as most crushes at that time and age, it would also be a short-lived thing.

Boy was I wrong. Years (and years) later, she is now engaged to him. And this is amazing taking into consideration 1. the number of years that has actually passed since they first met and 2. they still live where they lived when they met. Her in Toronto, he in California. Of course, there've been numerous visits. But yes, they made it!

But that doesn't even come to me as a shock. Not now. Somewhere down the line, I somehow aligned my appreciation for the internet with my innate belief in love being possible in any form. After high-school, I still wasn't in the fold yet. I went through another year of university before the total unrestricted access to computers and internet finally seeped into my bones and took root.

First came writing. Writing, as I have discussed before, was my companion. When disaster struck and I found myself totally surrounded by a tormenting bubble of loneliness, it was writing that became my balm.
But, even before I really needed it for this reason, I had stumbled upon a blogging site when stalking my new uni best friend's crush for her. (Yes! After all this lengthy and somewhat dry discussion, you finally get some juicy gossip.)

So, this is how it went down. Calculus tutorial. I met her, she met me. We became friends. Became best friends. She confessed a crush on dude. I tormented her by teasing her in millions of ways, i.e. going to talk to him, dancing behind his back for her to notice him, well---let me stop the list before you really think I am crazy. If I haven't really told the story before, I shall save it for another post. In summary, we were in the library one day (well we were usually there, duh) and he happened to be using one of those computers you stand at to do a quick check for whatever, and while she did her usual freeze-wideneyes-hyperventilate routine, I managed to sneak up behind him, but him being 6 feet tall I couldn't see much,  then he just picked up his bag in his usual fastidious and oblivious manner and left, and that's when I noticed he'd left his page open. And it was his blog.

There you have it folks. The key to this portal.


Granted, his blog was on a totally different server, and it took a lot of random stalking his url and dropping random comments under weird aliases (like ApplePie Is Yummy) just to make her have panic attacks (for whatever reason she worried (more like freaked out) that he would know these weird comments ("Hey Grandpa, green apples.") were connected to her. Like really.

But that's how the flicker of a butterfly's wing can create a tsunami across the world.


Connecting

The evolution is predictable. From dropping anonymous comments, to becoming a registered member, to having my own blog, to recording preposterously insane moments with my university friends, to one day having a traumatic experience then suddenly really, actually NEEDING to write for my own solace. Then being on the internet, it only was natural that I encountered people I never met.

I've always been pretty cautious with regards to actually getting close to anyone. Not just strangers on the internet. Friendly, sure, I can do friendly, and everyone who meets me usually gets that impression - unless I want you not to because I do not like you. I have said this before, and I say so again, I have always preferred just having a very select few of very quality friends over a large group of acquaintances. Experience is talking here - the sort which makes a person need writing for solace in the first place.

Then I landed in a place where I was suddenly as anonymous as I chose to be. Then I realized, this is a two-way street. We've been looking at the fact that in the anonymity of the internet therein existed the threat, when on the other side of the coin, there was immeasurable safety and freedom in being anyone - or better yet, no one at all. Then I became liked, and being liked, I became a friend. I became a sister, a confidante, a role model and a best friend. With people who were strangers over the internet.

10 years later. I'm here. I've lived a whole lifetime with those people who became my family. When we have more or less gone our own ways, reminiscing makes me feel as if I am recollecting a previous life. And the sensation is another confusing experience. It once again propagated me into a phase wherein loneliness was my companion, and somehow, I've become even more discriminating about who I let get close to me, and at what distance and for how long.



 Kindred Spirits

When I consider the ease with which children - or rather not only children but those younger than myself seem to be much more vulnerable, no? - are sharing their personal information, sending across pictures, voice chatting, facetiming, whatsapping, with strangers, I cannot help but feel uneasy. I've encountered my own fair share of really really strange individuals on the internet for whom exploiting such information, making threats etc. is apparently what entertains them.

I'm not usually quick to trust just anyone, and this should obviously be how we all are. I have this...thing...with regards to being able to 'feel' a person's personality. Again, this is something I just can't explain. It's what allows me to understand and empathize with a person. It's what makes my literary caricatures of those individuals I put into stories seem so aptly like them.

But those special few. I don't know. There is something even more ineffable about the circumstances of how they happen. We could consider the myriad 'what ifs' that could have taken us on very different paths, but for some reason I really feel that no matter what other hand of cards we'd been dealt and however else we chose to play them, somehow we'd have still inevitably met. Like the dove coming home to its roost every night, somehow perhaps that is how the soul works.

We have connections with everything and everyone simply by our very existence within this huge ecosystem. But sometimes, special connections just pop up. Cherish them.