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I hate to tell you, but as a culture, we are doomed, guys.
Yeah. In your 50's you are barely holding on; In your 40s, you are getting into it; In your 30s, you're steeped in it. It's part of your everyday life; in your 20s...it OWNS you. What am I talking about now? The fact that technology is taking over the world that we live in. What do I mean about that?
In my 20s I was there at the Internet's infancy. It was a screaming little baby, and cell phones, well they were still pretty large and all they did was dial numbers. We read about the raygun technology of the future and we all wished to be a part of it. When I was working in the tech sector, I was part of it. But now, now, I'm not a part of anything. I am simply disconnected from the very expensive tech market and I'm bumming over it.
I mean, I'm not isolated from technology, thanks for my knocked around and beaten pretty bad baby (laptop), but I am out of the loop. I didn't know just how far though until I was asked to hang out with friends this weekend. On Friday night myself, and three friends went out to a pool hall. I know, I know, you say, it's crowded with people, how did you deal with it. Well, first I deal with it by winding up like a fucking clock, and just before I think I'm going to snap from the kinetic force of the cranking, I have a drink. This slides me back a few steps, and then another if it's not enough to loosen up.
But there's a limit to that too, so you can bet fiercely that I will cut your night short with my people problem. But this isn't a discussion about my exposure therapy. This is a discussion on what was going on around me while I was trying to play pool, which because of the people around me constantly moving, I suck at.
Well, I stop, because I don't sink my ball, so my turn is over and looking up, I spy that my three com- panions are standing around the table, not watching me shoot, but instead reading emails on their phones. Now this makes me ponder. We are here playing pool, and your opponent's shots are supposed to be scrutinized, but instead, communication between yourself and others is what's got your attention?
However, I can't blame my friends, because looking around me, the only thing I see is a sea of faces, illuminated by the soft glow of these Ipods, Ipads, tablet PCs, and cell phones. The entire pool hall is stuffed with half naked honeys. However no one at all was interested in the hot ass prancing around, and the hot ass was not interested in the hot guys. They all were staring into the great eye, hypnotized by the technology.
Okay, maybe it's only here in the pool hall that people, shit everyone, was scrambling their brains with the technology. I mean, this pool hall was indeed high tech itself, with a dance floor, several bars, banging music, lounge area, ping ball and foos-ball tables inside. It was an amazing place, but mostly people were into their Iphones. So, one of my friends asked me if I would like to head over to a bar for a final drink of the night. Sure. We go and have a boilermaker and talk.
Here too, in this bar, it is jammed packed with women and men firing off photos of each other and attaching them to the phone numbers on their high tech black books. It was so bad that as we were talking to each other, some woman interrupted us, handed us her Iphone, and begged that we shoot a picture of herself and her friends. What kind of shit was this? The technology was inescapable. Then on Saturday another friend invited me out to brunch at a Mexican restaurant.
He's in the late 30s and he is kicking up steam with his hardware. Ripping at two Iphones as we are eating. Every once in awhile he'll stop to show me a photograph on the phone, an email, or text message. From lunch, we went to a Best Buy where he loaded up on more tech (I love to call it MECCHA from my favorite cartoon show BATTLETECH). See it like this. He leaves Best Buy with an arm load of MECCHA, excited like a child in a candy store. I personally can't wait to go home.
This is just the fifth generation after the Internet, and the technology is separating us from our humanity. We are being torn asunder until the point where components of this Meccha will be inserted into our bodies. I mean, what will be the frontier for our children, and our children's children if we are like this today?
One never knows do one?
Hobobob
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