The future has already been

After a weekly shopping trip.

The human species have reversed quietly to hunters - gatherers. It had been one of the great social achievements when we clever monkeys became farmers and breeders. Stable food supply helped to develop agricultural communities that over millenias grew and spread and eventually lead to our human infested world. But looking at today, how many people you know, who actually produce? Not only food, it's quite obvious that as soon as slavery has been discovered whoever managed to avoid backbreaking jobs by getting someone else to farm for him would rest and let his mind occupy itself otherwise. Hence cultural development, although how anyone would come up with some of the ideas humans are so proud of is beyond even my cynical mind. So what happened to the clever farmer monkey? Gone are the times when boredom lead to creativity. It more often then not leads to the sofa in front of tv these days and to the supermarket to hunt for bargains and gather edibles.

Another striking similarity- our pray prowling ancestors had to travel vast distances in search of anything to hunt and so often spent their entire lives on the move. XXth and XXIst centuries have seen some unprecendented immigration rates as more and more people leave their family soil, which they don't farm anyway, and set off towards the setting sun in search of something vaguely defined as 'a better life', just like our still hairy ancestors on the humanless plains of future Europe, hunting for their plce in the world, gathering whatever they believe they need to survive.

History is not a cyclical circle, it is linear. How could we miss bouncing off some strange opportunity leading to another stage of species development and going all the way back in the wrong direction...?

Be yourself. And yourself. And your other self.

After spending a happy hour writing on my foras.

We are all schizophrenic. How? Well, be honest, how many logins are people usually using for all their foras, emails, myspaces and such? If it's always the same - cool, they only have one cyberspace personality on top of their real life one. If it's two or more and they have different avatars as well and maybe slightly different styles of writing - cool, they're like me and thousands other web users.

Here's a music forum where you will spend hours going into detailed discussion about your favourite song, here's a general discussion one where you admit, that sometimes you don't listen to any music for like days, here's an email from your science fiction obsessed pal with whom you blather for pages and pages about possible futures and there's your myspace profile in which you admit you don't really think much about what future holds for you. Here you are perceived as a geek, there as a party addict, somewhere else as a family guy.

Meh, of course you can say it's all the many sides of the same personality, but come on, let's go the whole way and call it what it is - we are all clinically insane. Thank gods for internet where we can safely indulge our need to be ourselves. And it is not only normal it's part of the net culture. So hows you today? And you? And you?

We all wear masks

After reading 'The Prestige' - a story of a rivalry between two magicians living and performing in England at the end of XIXth century - the question appeared in my head. How certain can you be about anything if you're surrounded by illusion? Every day, everywhere we go, we put on one of our masks - a fair employer, an enthusiastic employee, an interested listener, a competent storyteller, a good parent, a better partner, the best friend. It is not done for any immediate or obvious profit, it's just the human nature. There's secrets to keep, feelings to hide, roles to play. Reality is shifty like a smoke in the mirror.

So we act the best we can cause there's no other way to hide our own confusion. Oh yes, there's young kids who didn't master the art of illusion yet and there's these poor fools who try to always be 'themselves' whatever it means. But for the most of your life you are on the stage performing one of your selves to the uninterested audience of same home made performers. Life is but smoke and mirrors.

So when you look in your small bathroom mirror after another tiring day, who do you see?

Can u c me?

After watching some American chat show on my break at work and reading Clive Barker's novel about Hollywood -

We all crave recognition in one way or the other but up till recently people were working hard to get it, developing their natural talents, learning new skills, trying to achieve something that would impress other people in a positive way. Today all you need is enough cheek to make a mobile phone clip of yourself beating up a defenceless drunk on a bus stop and putting it on youtube, being insensitive enough to destroy your relationship in front of laughing crowds by claiming you don't know how to use condoms, manipulative enough to use people who wish you well as ladder steps to being someone everyone made you believe you want to be. Not only people performing these acts get what they want, however fleeting such fame is, but also there are hundreds of people whose acceptance of such performances encourages other to try the same way. Is this the sign of the world going wrongly mad or just cruel human nature surfacing in the times when many people have too much time on their hands and so they become attention seekers/passive admirers of the dark side of the soul?

Celebrities and talk shows make me laugh a twisted little laughter of superiority. Then I go back to my blathering blog. No escape from human nature after all...

 

They can't take away our freedom!

After watching 'The Other Boleyne Girl'. What a drab life they had back then. Parents in control, choosing your husband or wife when you're still a kid, based on social and economic profits for the family. Most people born, living and dying in their respective social classes with no chance to get out of them. Women expected to marry and have as many kids as they can, as fast as they can. King above them all, ordering people around on a whim. Not like now when you choose your own path, anything's possible if you really want it, no mad tyrant will kill you because you were too ambitious... freedom! Right. So you can go and choose wrong having no experience of the world, end up being with somebody random you met through your parents friends cause you're too scared to be alone any longer, get stuck in a job you don't want where a boss orders you around on a whim, in a life you never wanted to live. Hows this better? It's not even much different.

I'm not saying I'd like to live in yonder times in a dirty cottage or playing deadly pretending game at king's court, happy in a way people who have no choice and know that may be. I'd rather struggle and fail and get all confused and sometimes get my small success. My point is, freedom keeps some people alive. But its lack of structure means so many people get lost in their lives these days, or give it up without even realising, it's kind of sad.

So, you are free. What are you gonna do with your life...?

We all live in Stepford

I've just put down 'Stepford Wives' book and feeling too lazy to get up from the couch (long weekend yey!) leafed through 'Tesco magazine'. How to create a perfect bedroom. Hmm, isn't bedroom just a room with a bed where you crash after staying up net-surfing/partying for too long? Four easy steps to astonishingly clean house. Thanks, as long as mine is not astonishingly dirty I have better things to do on my days off than vacuuming curtains and polishing stainless steel with baby oil. Thirty-odd pages of easy cooking recipes... Whoa. Leafing back. Not a word about the importance of social life, no '20 tips how to combine full time job and full time studying', as to books - go for 'quick reads' what are these like, edited versions...? After a quick research on a magazine shelf the day after the conclusion is sad - women are still supposed to polish the house, take care of the kids, cook and smile and the less they think the better. Housework is hardly thought inspiring after all. Maybe a simple crossword puzzle at the end of the day or a quick read book. And hey, I realise that a real world is a bit more complicated than the picture combined from headlines on 'Good Housekeeping' cover, but the magazines are aimed at someone and someones must buy them and read them and want more of this perfect housewife stuff. Is it just the effect of the book I read or is it real and slightly worrying that we all live in Stepford...?