Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Short week

I'm preparing to depart for Raleigh, so I will have to keep my posting limited to links.

This is an interesting, but depressing article about how our economy depends upon ever-increasing bouts of self-delusion. The good news is that some members of my family may benefit from the next boom. If the article is accurate, I pray they survive the bust.

An article about kids these days and their laptops. I think the author is on to something, especially with the desire to be in multiple places at once. That's what I'm doing right now, of course, by blogging. I don't talk on a cell phone when I ought to be attending people who are actually in the room, so I can pat myself on the back for that. But my multiple virtual locations (even low-tech virtual locations like books) do compete with my attention to people who are actually there, especially to the Person Who Is There. I would suggest that in addition to being an intellectual discipline, it's a spiritual discipline to limit yourself to being in one place. At least give it a shot now and then.

Sorry for the repeated video below. Here's the video tribute to editors I intended to give you:

2 comments:

Pirate Jimmy said...

I started reading the Kids and Their Laptops link you put on this post and was really startint to enjoy it...

But then I got to the anti-consumerism message somehow tied with 9/11 and kids trying to be cool. And I realized, much like kids these days, the article is everywhere... and no where.

And that's when I stopped reading.

I know exactly the yearning of possibilities he speaks of in the beginning. I know exactly of the being everywhere, but no where. But I know nothing of why the fuck he tried to tie that into commercialism. Why the fuck 9/11 or terrorism has anything to do with it. Or why the fuck he didn't just end the article when his thoughts started to flutter away into the wind.

I was enthralled, captivated and intrigued. My interest was piqued. And then it was gone. Is this an example of my lack of commitment to one idea? Just like he was talking about? Or is it just more of the same old lack of substance that drove my generation to seeking endless possibilities in the first place?

Interesting writing. But it lacks substance. Do I want more in less? Am I dissatisfied with how long it would take me to read the entire message, to truly understand his statements, to see the whole? No. I've thought about this already, at great length. I've spent my time on the subject, with greater result.

It's not a yearning for possibilities. It's not a fear of closure. It's a lust for substance. But where does one find substance? How do you know which nook or cranny it's in? Search everywhere. What if you find it? What if you don't like it? Search no where. It's a cheat. It's a hack. It's a way to move without getting anywhere. That's the point, not the problem. The problem is people don't want to find it. The problem is people are afraid of substance. Have a real conversation with a stranger, it will scare them more than pointing a knife in their direction.

Another thing is that there's a flip side to this coin. The yearning to lay in the grass and let the bustling world pass. For some, more enticing an idea than the turbo-charged summer. For some, more dangerous a thought than simultaneity.

Pirate Jimmy said...

Or maybe he just works at a school with a bunch of fucking douchebags.