Every winter I become antisocial. I lay around in my room. I refuse to get on any instant messaging service. I turn off my phone. I lock my door. If people really want to get a hold of me, they can, but there rarely are any emergencies that require my attention.
It happens every year. There is something about snow that prevents me from interacting with the rest of the world. Maybe I pretend that I’m in a 10 feet wide snow globe. Maybe I feel like I’m meant to hibernate. Maybe it’s just really too cold to move around. Whatever it is, I prefer my own company to the company of others. And by my own company, I really mean whatever I pick out on Netflix.
Like this last weekend. I was invited out. I had people who claimed they wanted to hang out with me. I had plans to party and revel in the weekend. But as soon as I woke up, I put my phone on silent and I got occupied with the people of Netflix.
I don’t feel like getting involved in real people’s lives. I don’t want to play a role in anyone else’s storyline. I don’t want to be a supporting character. I don’t want to influence anyone else. I just kind of want to exist. I don’t want others to distract me with their problems.
But when I watch hours and hours of seasons worth of shows, I can get involved in fictional lives without the power of any influence. I can be entertained by the lives of strangers without having to deal with their tangible drama.
I don’t have to go to bars and incessantly comfort these people for accidentally murdering their probation officer. I don’t have to hold their hands through their suicidal breakups. I don’t have to bail them out of jail when they make some stupid mistake. I don’t have to do anything. I can just watch it happen from the comfort of my bed. I love getting completely wrapped up in these silly stories.
I can really get to know these characters. I can fall in love with them. I can be their episode long friend. I know all of their secrets and desires anyways. I can understand them more intimately than their wives and husbands. I know the things they can’t tell anyone else. I understand why they hide things and why the lie about things and why they say about things. Having that kind of knowledge about someone is exciting.
I love imaging that I’m getting drinks with Don Draper and, dancing with Liz Lemon and, tossing a football with Six and, going hiking with Leslie Knope. I get twisted up in their fantasies and carried away by their ridiculous plots. They distract me, entertain me and keep me company. But most of all, I’m glad I’m not they are completely imaginary and that I don’t have to be their actual real-life friend. Honestly, I don’t think I have the energy to have a relationship that requires me to be away from my bed.
ENDNOTES: Rae Warren is a student studying English and Psychology at a university in Iowa. You can follow her at http://sweatersandsass.tumblr.com/
I can relate.
02/01/12 ←
I read a book once. In it I learned something I sometimes have to keep reminding myself: the world is what you make it out to be. With just the power of thought we can create an idea and from that idea we can bring it forth to life.
I also learned something else about the power of the mind; how every single person being can be viewed as a walking, human antenna sending thousands of thoughts all around. I believe in the special power of the mind and the things we can accomplish. One thought produced and transmitted over the air may have the power to reach someone else who will then think and transmit it in an endless chain till that thought becomes physical, real.
It’s easy to think and wish for things to come, but it is apparent our body-antennas aren’t the strongest even with all our might put into it. We do, after all, control very little portions of our brain willingly, the rest is automatic. How can we expect to work at full capacity?
But, what if we could pool our thoughts all at once, though? Imagine it: millions of people thinking one single thought in a very Doctor Who-eske level that could create something never before seen? What can’t we do if every single mind works together in a single processed thought? But, the bigger question is, how can we organize such a massive stage especially with 7 billion people all around our enormous world minding their own lives? Sure, we have technology and can great tools of communication but can someone honestly expect to communicate with every single person on Earth and for one full day think only one thought?
The thing is, what if that day comes? What if the day is now? It might sound preposterous to believe that a day now known as Nerd New Years celebrated on November 11th, 2011 (11/11/11) can have any certain power to actually grant someone a wish, but what if it could? A day where people willingly let their wishes flow and have their thoughts transmitted all around, creating 7 billion walking, human antennas thinking one single thought.
What would you wish for? I think I would wish for one thing only: for everyone to understand each other—their problems, emotions, mistakes, beliefs, and goals. To live good, happy and full of joy for how many days left to come because, in honesty, we could be here now creating the biggest wishing machine with just a thought today but tomorrow we could be gone due to some horrendous natural disaster. It’s the truth.
We were given today (by the Universe, God, Jehova, aliens, whatever your believe in) and today we have to make the most out of it. So, why don’t we?
11/11/11 ←
08/14/11 ←
(Source: conflictingheart)
04/20/11 ←
December 21, 2011
Take your mind and send it into your future. Wonder around and settle yourself and imagine how everything looks. Wrinkles, bone-aches and blurry vision; all natural approaching features of your future image. But there’s more.
Imagine your offspring, now grown, with their techno-suits and digital briefcases heading to their FlyPad automobile so they can make their way towards their, hopefully, luxurious job. Picture their odd clothing and come back for a second and see what you used to wear at their age. What a change!
Now look farther ahead. Slip into your most imaginative of consciousness and completely envision your grandchildren. Their hoover boards laid standing on the side of the room, and their otherworldly, mechanical pets stand next to them as they look towards their bedroom wall just springing to life like a monitor. They just got home and asked you, the person behind the glasses that is filled with all the memories of a time that is no longer, how you were when you were young. Automatically, the most powerful and still so mysterious invention of the human race—the brain—activates and, as quick as lightning, thousands of thoughts flood in one by one. But there is no need to recall, no need to tire yourself with memories that may be but forgotten dreams, for the future eases the process.
You tell them slowly and calmly to turn on and access the once most popular means of communication in your time: the Internet. Many servers and websites from time’s past, once they were no longer essential, have been collected in a digital museum with yottabytes of information.
You chuckle at the ease of access that this generation now has towards one’s own past. You remember how difficult it was to know how one’s parents were even if they had things like polaroids and kodaks in their time. Photos proved to be one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century but they still will never compete with what our generation had, the powerful, massively interconnecting Internet.
You recall our ancestors would write on rock walls and draw on the floors. Very little details ever survived long enough for their off-springs to know too much about the great ancient ones of their history. Your grandchildren are lucky, though. With the wave of a hand and through their voices they slowly found all the websites and profiles from your youth, all stored neatly organized in a huge databank that the government had decided to build many years ago to store our history. How magical and trivial it all seems at present.
In that day and age, in a future not too far, it was the easiest thing to know who your parents truly were and what adventures they must have had. Thousands of verbal stories would never suffice the impact that sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr had helped us managed. Digitally we had encrypted, openly, our whole lives for the world to see. Photos and tweets, videos and updates, shared and reblogged across the decades; it was all there readily available to anyone who wanted to know. And now you are you again.
Crazy, isn’t it? You are now back from your dream-like state while reading this and hadn’t even imagined how much of an impact you are making for your future kids and grandkids, have you? The simple thought that our whole lives will be on replay for the rest of time affects you a bit, doesn’t it? It should. Want it or not, you are making an image of yourself that will depict and illustrate your life to come. The old-age question remains, how do you want to be remembered? How do you want your children and grandchildren to see you as?
Forget about the silly “you only live once” phrases and start to think who you are now and how you want to be seen as. We are in a unique situation where our generation will forever be recorded, not in rock walls but Facebook walls; not in old, tattered letters but in forums and blog posts. Have you been the person you want to be remembered as? Have you, honestly, been the best you can be and will grin your semi-toothless jaw as your children gather around you and say “Floovers, gramps, you were such an awesome person when you were young!”
Well?
12/21/11 ←
I’ve been watching this show on Netflix recently. It’s called “Switched At Birth.” ABC Family seems to have some good TV shows lately and I didn’t have anything else to watch given that two of my Summer shows just hit their season end and I won’t be seeing them for another 8 months or so.
Anyways, the show is peculiar. It centers on two girls that were switched at birth (hence the title) and how they find themselves sharing a family now. One of the girls is deaf but can speak. She can read lips and reply back. The other is just a bratty, rich girl with a deep personality towards art and music.
Daphne, the deaf girl, spends half of the show performing sign language, along with her mother, best friend and best friend’s mother. The more I watched the more I remember one time meeting a deaf-mute person at the bus stop one day.
09/13/11 ←
08/10/11 ←