THEFUTURE
I often entertain fantasies of returning to the past, time travel, y'know, or returning to my own past, somewhere thirty to fifty years ago. Oh, I'd enjoying wowing the natives with all my future science and foreknowledge and such. It's a fantasy, so there wouldn't be issues of time paradox, or paranoia from those I met, or any of that other messy stuff. I could regress my mind back along my own timeline, and become a child with all the knowledge of what is to come for the next thirty years of my life. I could do the obvious, place gambling bets, be prepared for disasters, say yes to girls I could've gotten with, say no to girls I shouldn't have, all that convenient stuff. I would skip spending all my hard earned cash on video games, useless collecting hobbies, bad movies, expensive trinkets that later ended up in the discount bins. I would make excellent grades in school, now that I'd had one run through all those tough classes that I botched the first time.
I most certainly would've started drinking sooner...
But just now I wondered, why do I want such a fantasy? I know that there are long periods of my life that were quite boring. I know there are events I could not have avoided if I tried, both personal and worldly. It's not so much regrets, either, though I would have been nice to recoup on those and to have had a much better history.
But no, I think it is fear. Fear of the future, of the unknown. The same fear that drives the rigid-minded to lobby against new sciences, to create restrictive laws against things they have never directly experienced for themselves, to hate people they've never talked to, stood with, or tried to understand. Fear of The New. Fear of The Imminent Disaster. Fear of The Personal Loss.
There's been discussion, online, offline, and in the media, about risk-taking. Yeah, yeah, "Deal or No Deal", wtfeva. Isn't it clear how we're distilling our entertainment down to the crucial fear? First it was fictious strife. Soap operas, crime shows, stories of adventure. Someone else took exaggerated risks to win rewards or set wrong things right. Sports falls into the fear category. Do we score, win the tournament, make it to the championships? And lately, reality TV makes it more sensual, that fear of loss. It's not as much made up. For those people on the telly, they really suffer, really work, then many of them lose. The culmination is when that last hardworking, determined soul wins. Gratification, fears alayed. Then Deal or No Deal comes along. Forget the trials, the competitions, the working hard. It's simply down to the risk-taking, straight to the point, do I win or lose? I suppose it won't be long before a show comes on where a contestant walks up to a button, pushes it, and either wins a lot of money or falls into a pit of snakes. Well, maybe not. There's not enough drama in that to impart the feeling of risk-taking on the viewing public. Cuz, you see, it's still not YOU or ME. It's Someone Else doing the risk taking.
Yesterday at work, a DirectTV salesman tried really really hard to sell me satellite tv and internet. He was quite the salesman, pushing hard and never broke his smile even when I told him I don't like TV much and I positively will not touch AOL. But he still couldn't get that I was not addicted to television. I am not thrilled by the placebo risk-thrills of television anymore. I do play video games, which are still placebo, though. I'm not without sin in that regard.
But at the forefront of our fears is fear of the unknown, and ever-present is the future, be it five minutes or five centuries from now. The whole of the world, those in the world who are untroubled enough to lift their heads to thoughts of the future, they have the future to wonder about, and what it might toss in thier laps. A new plague, a hurricane, an economic crash, a coup attempt by a superpower, a conversion or separation of a religious faith. Unpredictable trauma, unknowable pain or pleasure approacheth. And some of us, especially some of those in power, are scrambling, all-consumed by The Terror of The Future, to control that future, to curtail all that may obscure their path or change their posibility of comfort.
The mere presence of something other than what a person knows is frightening, because however benign that other presence may be, there's no way to tell if it may lash out in the next moment and destroy or assimilate some facet of life that was previously known and predictable. The chaos of change. The alteration of safety.
Despite what some may call my "Capricorn Nature", I still advocate change. I take only minor risks right now, but when I get a bit more stability, I will take bigger ones. Nothing good ever comes from sitting on my ass. Right now, I'm on the road to promotion. I am moving to a nicer home. I will get my lisence and probably a car soon. All these things are change. Just the other day, Danielle and I were talking semi-deep about out relationship, and things change just by talking about them. (Don't worry, we're fine, just talking about our fears and such.)
I've decided that I won't fantasize about the past anymore. It's fun, it's pretty, but it nets me nothing. Time travel can't even work by it's very nature.* I will face the future and smile, because it's the only ride I'm getting, so I might as well enjoy it.
I love you all. Fear anything you want to, I say to you, but fear it face-on, ready for it. That is bravery. And that is the true thrill.
I most certainly would've started drinking sooner...
But just now I wondered, why do I want such a fantasy? I know that there are long periods of my life that were quite boring. I know there are events I could not have avoided if I tried, both personal and worldly. It's not so much regrets, either, though I would have been nice to recoup on those and to have had a much better history.
But no, I think it is fear. Fear of the future, of the unknown. The same fear that drives the rigid-minded to lobby against new sciences, to create restrictive laws against things they have never directly experienced for themselves, to hate people they've never talked to, stood with, or tried to understand. Fear of The New. Fear of The Imminent Disaster. Fear of The Personal Loss.
There's been discussion, online, offline, and in the media, about risk-taking. Yeah, yeah, "Deal or No Deal", wtfeva. Isn't it clear how we're distilling our entertainment down to the crucial fear? First it was fictious strife. Soap operas, crime shows, stories of adventure. Someone else took exaggerated risks to win rewards or set wrong things right. Sports falls into the fear category. Do we score, win the tournament, make it to the championships? And lately, reality TV makes it more sensual, that fear of loss. It's not as much made up. For those people on the telly, they really suffer, really work, then many of them lose. The culmination is when that last hardworking, determined soul wins. Gratification, fears alayed. Then Deal or No Deal comes along. Forget the trials, the competitions, the working hard. It's simply down to the risk-taking, straight to the point, do I win or lose? I suppose it won't be long before a show comes on where a contestant walks up to a button, pushes it, and either wins a lot of money or falls into a pit of snakes. Well, maybe not. There's not enough drama in that to impart the feeling of risk-taking on the viewing public. Cuz, you see, it's still not YOU or ME. It's Someone Else doing the risk taking.
Yesterday at work, a DirectTV salesman tried really really hard to sell me satellite tv and internet. He was quite the salesman, pushing hard and never broke his smile even when I told him I don't like TV much and I positively will not touch AOL. But he still couldn't get that I was not addicted to television. I am not thrilled by the placebo risk-thrills of television anymore. I do play video games, which are still placebo, though. I'm not without sin in that regard.
But at the forefront of our fears is fear of the unknown, and ever-present is the future, be it five minutes or five centuries from now. The whole of the world, those in the world who are untroubled enough to lift their heads to thoughts of the future, they have the future to wonder about, and what it might toss in thier laps. A new plague, a hurricane, an economic crash, a coup attempt by a superpower, a conversion or separation of a religious faith. Unpredictable trauma, unknowable pain or pleasure approacheth. And some of us, especially some of those in power, are scrambling, all-consumed by The Terror of The Future, to control that future, to curtail all that may obscure their path or change their posibility of comfort.
The mere presence of something other than what a person knows is frightening, because however benign that other presence may be, there's no way to tell if it may lash out in the next moment and destroy or assimilate some facet of life that was previously known and predictable. The chaos of change. The alteration of safety.
Despite what some may call my "Capricorn Nature", I still advocate change. I take only minor risks right now, but when I get a bit more stability, I will take bigger ones. Nothing good ever comes from sitting on my ass. Right now, I'm on the road to promotion. I am moving to a nicer home. I will get my lisence and probably a car soon. All these things are change. Just the other day, Danielle and I were talking semi-deep about out relationship, and things change just by talking about them. (Don't worry, we're fine, just talking about our fears and such.)
I've decided that I won't fantasize about the past anymore. It's fun, it's pretty, but it nets me nothing. Time travel can't even work by it's very nature.* I will face the future and smile, because it's the only ride I'm getting, so I might as well enjoy it.
I love you all. Fear anything you want to, I say to you, but fear it face-on, ready for it. That is bravery. And that is the true thrill.