High Brow Ranting and BBQ Fun

There are 7 odd billion people in this world (Yea, just write off a couple million as odd that seems about right). Each of us (unless you’re scarred in some irreparable way) with a need to seek connection with the people and the environment around us. Untested, unscarred people are pretty easy going; we crave love and connection to the extent that we have no limits to what we will do for things that make us feel secure. Accordingly, it’s hardly rational that there is one person out there waiting around through all the other people who surround him just for you to show up and enlighten his life. Forget about soul mates and high flying romance; I deal in facts – not flights of fancy. And that is why I say with rare conviction that we, without a doubt, need each other. These are some of the realities of being human that no matter what we do, say or pretend, are incontrovertible. They are the original Jeffersonian self-evident truths.

But these days, are they at all evident?

People have obviated in themselves the need for others. The things that make us ‘secure’ take us further and further away from what makes us human. In the past, religion was supposed to have been the opiate of the people. Today, we don’t even seem to need God. It’s all about how far you can go to be ‘independent’ and ‘successful’, how far you can go to build a ‘secure’ life. The Renaissance was a great thing for sure, and I’m all for humanism, but when it puts people in little bubbles with laptops, overdeveloped egos and no ability to look out the window, I start looking at the Puritans and almost thinking that they had the right idea.

Take me for instance; my ability to express myself to the void of cyberspace is so much better than my ability to talk to people I care about, about the things that matter. And in this world where bloggers attain celebrity status – where we write at each other – why should I even bother with something like talking? After all, what place do old fashioned things like that have in this fast-paced, industrialized, ‘globalized’ world. [Yes Thomas Friedman was right in calling the world flat. That’s exactly what it’s become. There are no hills anymore in interacting with people. You can see everything; you’ve got all the information, and they’re there at the press of a button]. My inability, my weakness in standing up for what’s important, is celebrated because now – I can say things with ease and convenience. Desktop publishing has revolutionized the alacrity with which us monkeys through the bullshit around. After all, who wants the drama of a real conversation when you can update the world about how you ran into someone at the corner shop named P. Epsi instead.

Now that I’ve built my credibility by blogging about the bullshit world of the blogosphere, I shall continue.

Furthering the paradigm of me as a modern human being – lets talk about the other things that makes my life complete.

Music. Duh!

But what has it become really? There’s push button publishing, and type a little, technically illegal downloading. Possession baby. I’ve got 30 GB! How many people really remember how to create music? I’m talking the real stuff here – no hip hop, no I’ve-got-a-great-body-and-can-gyrate-like-uninhibited-jello-whats-music-again? teeny boppers. Downloading, as much as I love and worship it as a source for music I would otherwise never hear of, utterly dissociates us from the fact that music is created by people. Everyone knows Limewire wrote and performed Stairway to Heaven. After all, that’s the real majesty of music – the fact that someone, just like you and me, but eminently more talented, created this just by compressing airwaves the right way. WhoosH! After all, don’t audiophiles go after speakers that reproduce original sound as closely as possible? So there is no difference between a live performance and the ‘comfort of your own living room.’ Ah! There’s the rub.

As Mufasa from The Lion King would say, “Remember….”

Don’t worry; I’m not a crusading, fine dust spraying, anti-techie. My own father is the king of techies, working as we speak to create a techie –er world – and I adore him for it. I spent weekends as a small myopic, astigmatic child with a halo of black curls and questions holding the flashlight while he set up various avatars of our music equipment. So you could say it’s in my blood.

What concerns me though, is that despite the fact that technology, humanism and globalization have changed utterly the way we live our lives, so that we are faster, more informed, better educated and definitely infinitely cooler looking when communicating by silently running our fingers over a keyboard then moving the hole in our faces up and down, we always forget truths that are supposed to be self-evident.

We forget that yes, though we need the new Apple product, the promotion at work, the things that make our life interesting and unclichéd, it’s the clichés that actually matter. That stupid Barney song that we all used to sing to mock touchy feely people – I love you/you love me/We’re a big happy family (I may throw up if I continue) – actually is important (who would have thought the purple dinosaur would get the better of us from the grave?). The people around you, your friends, family, if you’re a rising doctor – your patients – they matter, no matter how hard you try and ignore it. Sadly, though people are becoming more and more stupid as we speak – even they matter. For the simple fact, that we are all simply floating around in our bubbles, craving the same thing.

Connection.

All the technology, religion and Star Wars movies in the world cannot change how you feel when a stranger goes out of his way to be nice. Priceless, I believe is the sentiment.

We must beware of the ability of the things that make our life secure to take away from what makes us who we are.

If we’re pro-active about security, why not be pro-active about people?

On that note, excuse me while I go tell my friends I love them, visit my parents, stroll through a forest, go to a live music performance and live like it really matters.

Right.

BBQ Fun