A Year Of Growth

Alas I am still with out my laptop, and by extention, without the internet. This of course has left me a lot of time to just think and ponder. This can lead a person to some scary places, such as wondering if people would pay to watch Oprah fight a couple of badgers.

I’d put my money of the badgers, behind those soft, cute faces lies the heart of a sociopath. Seriously, they will mess your shit up.

Anyways, away from the badgers and back to I had a lot of down time this last week and a bit and i filled it with, mostly pointless, thought. One of the things that kept popping into my head was the question of whether we (by which I mean peopl under 25) are bored or apathetic. It was the movie “The Trotsky” that made me think of this. Oh and by the way freaking good movie, go watch it if you haven’t. You know you want to, and I mean come on we all know that every university student is a dirty Commie at heart.

In the movie Jay Baruchel’s Character Leon attempt to start a revolution in his school in the form of a walk out. Needless to say all of the students walk out of school, but they don’t share a solid front and just goof off. The argument is made that young people are apathetic.

So after watching it again on t.v. the other day I wondered, boredom or apathy? Is it just that we don’t care or that there is nothing to care about. I’m starting to think that we just don’t care.

Look at this way, in the Meliorist (U of Lethbridge’s school paper) people are still going on about the goddamn penis art in the school, and lets face it, rigth now that is the biggest point of opinion rallying in our school. What about the fact that in Egypt right now journalists are being targeted, or whats happening in Egypt as a whole? Or what about the decline of the international opinion of Canada? It is happening, we are not viewed as we were say five or ten years ago. Just look at the loss of the Security Council seat, or how in Wikileaks when Canada came up there was usually an air of pity towards us.

Unfortunately instead of getting together as a nation, standing up and saying “Hey, we are Canada, we go where others can’t, we fight when others won’t and we are still the best goddamn hockey players alive, so go and politely screw yourselves.” we fight and squabble to pin blame for our nations screw ups, and after that do nothing about it. We need to become more engaged, more vocal, show the world that we aren’t apathetic, that we as young Canadians can take action and accually do something.

I know that I’m just as guilty as everyone else. It’s easy to switch from BBC News to Big Bang Theory and forget about the world. Soon though we may have a chance to act, we all know that there will be an election soon, I mean the Tories are already running their traditional smear campeign and the Liberal can’t be that far behind. When we do go to vote, accually vote, and don’t vote Liberal because you are a student, or Conservative because you are an Albertan, take the time to listen to party platform, critically think of them, and think of what their impact will be. Follow the example that Nenshi in Calgary, use the internet, ask questions, and most of all communicate with the politicians.

Let’s face it, right now Canada is sitting pretty good, the recession hasn’t hit us like other parts of the world, we don’t have rampant crime, we are educated, we have some of the worlds most livable cities, and we have a heaping shit ton of resourses. Lets step up, show the world that we were only bored, and get some shit done. Lets make Canada something more than good, lets make it great.

My laptop decided that it didn’t like me anymore and revolted by corrupting itself. Yay hardware failure. So I have been without instant access to the internet for a couple of days now. It was weird, not going to lie to you. I actually missed going on Stumble and looking at 30 billion god damn picture of cats and other cute animals. What hit the hardest though was the fact that it is throwing my life slightly off balance. To tie it in with the reading I had to do this week, it was a means of staying in tune with my reality, and a way to access my networks and monitor and contribute to the exchange of information. My laptop was the interface through which I monitored everything. I couldn’t open email, check bank accounts, go on Facebook, or sign on to Twitter, which I need to for this class, I was in the dark. Normally I would just use my iPod as a backup, but it somewhat failed me as well. It is not an iPhone, just an iPod with no 3G, so I was limited to where I could use it. On top of that I had it set up so that when I did get Wi-Fi my iPod would instantly update with any info that had been received and processed by laptop. With the one interface down the other remained static, with no new information coming in other than what I manually sought.

Relying on a piece of technology is pretty common, even more so when you believe that you have a solid failsafe and many interfaces. I let my set up network of info run my life for me, and I stumbled (no not Stumbled) when it glitched. I think this to caused me to hold Actor Network Theory in higher regard because without my laptop, and all it is used for, I wasn’t experiencing my life wholly, like someone made me blind, mute and deaf.

#bp

I said every day, and I’m not really meeting that am I. But hey I said that the whole point of this was to see how I grow as a person, and well developing habits is one way one seeing growth. I’ll get there.

Anyways onwards to my main point for the day, awkward social situations. Last night I was at the Duke with a couple of friends, hanging out having a pretty good time all around. Then a guy we lived with in res come up to our table and says hi. Don’t want to be rude so we begrudgingly say hello and try to give him the impression that he should leave with out directly saying “Oy mate, feck off”. The hints don’t sink in and he decides to join us. Silence descends on the table, conversation when it begins again is strained and light. It was just weird, none of us ever really hang out with him and he was an acquittance at best. When ever he did try to join in on any conversation it just died, and not the gentle slow petering out from familiarity, but a horrible and gruesome death that dragged on. Think deer on high way hit by semi truck. It felt like I was a deer that had been hit by a semi truck. Technology though raised it’s head and showed one of it’s many benefits, texting. It makes it so much easier to coordinate an up and leave when you can communicate the plan in front of the person you are ditching. And yes we did ditch. Do I feel bad about it? I suppose I should, but honestly I was so uncomfortable that no, I really don’t. Heh, perhaps in a year I’ll look back on this and say to myself, “God, I was a prick.”

Turkle’s essay (http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/Always-on%20Always-on-you_The%20Tethered%20Self_ST.pdf) really struck me; after I finished it I had one of those “whoa” moments. Isn’t it sad that people will give as strong an emotional response to a screen as a person or even worse, that we sometimes give the screen preference. Don’t get me wrong, I love my technology, but I’m also guilty as everyone else. The other day I forgot my phone at home when I went to class, and when I noticed it caused me confusion. It was like a person I was sitting with just vanished. No one could reach me, and this bothered me not because maybe a family member gets hurt and I won’t know, but because I wasn’t sure how to go through my day. I couldn’t text a friend to see if they wanted to hang out between classes, I couldn’t flip through my schedule to see when I had to work, I couldn’t call my roommate to see if he wanted me to get pizza on the way home. I was at a complete loss, and that day felt like shit, when really it was just a regular day. My phone is always on/always on me, and I bet yours is to. Think of it, when the prof says turn your phone off for class, do you or do you just put it to silent or vibrate. Do you respond to messages in class? I have, and not going to lie, probably will again. Or how about when you sitting with some friends and you get a text, you split your attention, or completely disengage. I saw this constantly by the pool today, people talking and then stopping to answer a text brushing aside any conversation they were having. It’s to the point that the phone in our hand is the most important aspect of our life. Cell phones and the internet are how we live and how we navigate the world around, more so with smart phones. Phones have become what Turkle calls a relation artifact, they are how we reflect our emotions and deal with them. Our phone will always give us the answer we want because they let us always find that answer. We love it for this. We make it special because it can find a way to make us feel special, wanted, understood, or accepted. Sometimes because of this we forget that our phone, computer, or technology doesn’t love us back and never has. All it does is let us know that someone out there is interested in communicating with us, sometimes though we forget that there is someone on the other end of our tether.

#bp

So I’ll admit that yesterday I was pretty annoyed with people, not individuals but as a whole, but that was because I saw the bad. Today started to shape out similarly, with the petition against the art exhibit displaying penises, going into why, historically, people are horrible and what we do to each other, capping with Rez Rats complaining that it’s to cold outside to do anything, so really there is no point in showering. Eww, just eww. So this was going to be another session of “let’s hate on people cause we are all assholes”, but on my way home that changed, due to two small, pretty insignificant acts. They left an impact on me though.

On my way home I had to stop and grab a couple things. Get them and pay with out a hitch, but on my way out the handle on the case of pop I got rips, sending cans skirting in every which way. Small act one: A guy stops and helps my gather the cans up even though he has got a couple bags of his own. Ya we all talk about doing a good deed, or the right thing, but you know what this guy actively inconvenienced himself just to give me a hand. With his help all truant cans are gathered and before I can even say thanks he’s out the door. So to you sir, where ever you may be, thank you, it was a small act of kindness, but it was greatly appreciated. 

Small act two: The cashier that had rung me through asked if I would like to grab a different case, to which I declined as none had burst. Even after this though she insisted that she at least put bagged that burst box for me even though the box was still manageable. Sure people might say that it was customer service, that she was doing her job, but really after I said that everything was ok she didn’t have to help me further. She did anyways. Again only a small act of kindness, but hey maybe it shows that we aren’t as screwed as I thought.

You know, you say you are going to do something daily, and next thing you know you skipped a day or two. Apparently to really set a habit you’ve got to do it daily for two weeks straight.

Anyway, on to the topic of today, who else is kinda losing faith in humanity on a daily basis? During the day I was running around town on errands, and the whole day I just saw people being assholes to each other. I was driving down Magrath and some tool cuts off another car while flipping them off. Come on, not only did you cut some one off, but you have to go and act like it’s their fault. Next I was at Walmart and bumped into an acquaintance.While talking with him an asian girl in the walmart vest walks past. He stops our conversation then to comment on how “to many fucking immigrants are taking our jobs”. I knew this person to be educated, and yet they felt it alright to say this. On my way out Safeway I saw a couple of teens making fun of a bag boy, swinging their arm to the chest and saying thing like “retard” and “downy”. It’s 2011 for Christ’s sake, didn’t everyone think that we would be doing way better than we are, and I don’t mean rocket cars. What I mean is we made such leaps and bounds in the realm of civil rights from the late 50’s, but the same old thoughts that plagued Victorian science of genetic superiority and that “I am the best” are still heavily around. But hey I guess even the Jetsons had intolerance, so maybe we won’t be able to get along till after we get our god damn rocket cars, I mean come on science you promised us that we would have those by know.

P.S. I know I said that i would also track how my hair is growing, buut my camera is dead, but let’s be honest, not much has grown in 4 days. 

So huzzah first post on here, well other than the pictures. Anyways ya, I am now bald, or at most I guess fuzzy. The last time my I had my hair shorn off like this was 6 years ago, and it has not been shorter than ear length for 5 and a half. It feels weird, a lot of weight is gone and my head is almost always a bit cold. Definitely looking forward to this odd little adventure I have set for my self though. Onward and forward to new things I guess. First post out.