Steampunk
So you'll have noticed that what was a passive interest in steampunk has become, or at least is becoming, more active. Part of this, of course, is that I've had hundreds of hours to surf the webs lately, and I've found a whole bunch of cool steampunk stuff. In trying to explain steampunk to people, I've found myself kind of fumbling for a concise explanation, and often end up listing examples to make it clear, or to try to. I stumbled upon this article on Weird Tales today, and there's are two pieces in it that really resonate.
He's talking about how sci-fi visions of the future, many of which were envisioning a time that would chronologically now be the present, had us more enlightened, more civilized, more advanced by far than the time of writing. He cites the sleek future of Star Wars as a prime example of what the future is shaping up not to be. Then he said the first resonatory thing:
Steampunk basically lets us go back, at least in our imagination, and try again - lets us tap into that sense of wonder at the unfolding universe that our grandparents might have felt when modern science was just beginning to open up all its incredible new pictures of the world. And you might just call that escapism into nostalgia - but I actually think it’s more than that.
And right after:
[W]hen you have to get your hands or brain dirty puzzling out how stuff works, you can’t be blasé about technological miracles - you’re forced to realize what miracles we’ve actually wrought. And once you’ve got that sense of appreciation, once you’re not taking all our modern-day scientific accomplishments for granted because you finally understand deep down that people had to sweat them out, experiment by experiment - it seems to me you can’t help but approach the world around us, here, today, with fresher eyes and a more adventuresome spirit.
He's talking about how sci-fi visions of the future, many of which were envisioning a time that would chronologically now be the present, had us more enlightened, more civilized, more advanced by far than the time of writing. He cites the sleek future of Star Wars as a prime example of what the future is shaping up not to be. Then he said the first resonatory thing:
Steampunk basically lets us go back, at least in our imagination, and try again - lets us tap into that sense of wonder at the unfolding universe that our grandparents might have felt when modern science was just beginning to open up all its incredible new pictures of the world. And you might just call that escapism into nostalgia - but I actually think it’s more than that.
And right after:
[W]hen you have to get your hands or brain dirty puzzling out how stuff works, you can’t be blasé about technological miracles - you’re forced to realize what miracles we’ve actually wrought. And once you’ve got that sense of appreciation, once you’re not taking all our modern-day scientific accomplishments for granted because you finally understand deep down that people had to sweat them out, experiment by experiment - it seems to me you can’t help but approach the world around us, here, today, with fresher eyes and a more adventuresome spirit.