One Thing at a Time, Never Enough

I've been perennially late to the party when it comes to tech. Mostly out of financial woe, but sometimes because the newest, cleanest thing didn't serve my ragtag needs. I held cassettes dear way past their expiration date, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to take my music with me and the walkman ruled the day (until the batteries started draining, but that's showbiz). Most important thing about cassettes: I could make my own. People soon will hardly remember cd's, or that computers even had cd burners. (I even had a disastrous playtime with mini disc that I can't talk about anymore). I suppose I could gift someone with a playlist on a usb drive, but, who even has a usb port anymore? My personalization angst has a body count.

I recently read through the results of a survey Google ran discussing folks' digital device habits. Apparently, the word of the day is: multitask. Our digital world: where only one thing is not enough. As someone who actually tries to concentrate on one thing at a time, I have difficulty  envisioning folks jumping from phone to tablet all while watching TV and possible driving or baking bread at the same time. 

There were many scenarios assumed by this survey, mostly grouped by: phone+TV, tablet+TV, PC+TV  which just shows how dull TV is that no one wants to pay attention to it anymore. Not as surprising, but more entertaining, was one respondent using the term "life time management" to express how he can be online while actually waiting in line. Sure, I suffered a long, slow line recently, but everyone was orderly, quiet and calm because they were all staring at their mobiles. You say "life time management", I say "crowd control". Are we all now happy to be waiting for our chai lattes, appointed court times and dentist visits as long as we can continuously suck at the 4G teat? 

Don't label me a luddite just because I am wielding tech from 2009. But if I won the lottery and could construct the ultimate tricked out digital den, would I have iPads built into the toilet paper holder and google glass in the defogged bathroom mirror? I enjoy getting answers to my questions anywhere wifi flies free, but I cant imagine needing to rearrange my Netflix queue while walking from my house to my car. (Not yet, you say, but just wait. People used to have to drop a bucket into a hole in the ground to get their water once upon a time.)

I've fetished old tech into art, just like everybody else: floppy discs, flash bulbs, 8mm film lacquered into sculpture, vinyl 45's melted into herb planters. And this year, apparently, I have fetished new tech into a blog of sorts. I started my online diatribes a year ago promising equal-opportunity derision, but the conversation somehow kept pointing to my skewed digital life (I maintain 3 iPods with different playlists, but won't join Facebook). I'm all for the organic and holistic in art and life: go where the vitriol takes you, keep an ear to the ground for the most enlightening discourse and try not to tell too many jokes that show your age (in my day, a selfie meant something else entirely…)

It's the end of 2013 and I still don't live in a minimalist white room with a single small device that holds all my music, books, movies, memories, hopes and dreams. Maybe next year it'll pop up on my amazon wishlist.

Realism, post-produced

"Everywhere tiny hands of terrorists Begin the beguine. In the year 2013 it has been estimated that world population will be doubled. And then? We do not wish to destroy. We are powerless to prevent."

-Tennessee Williams, 1978

Artists, certainly more sensitive, perhaps more perceptive, have often been the canaries in the coalmine for the human condition. They are compelled to re-enforce their perceptions of the wrongs of their civilization. It needn't be a radical surreal vista like Dali's, or a film of dire warning a la Kubrick, or any dystopian sci fi purged from the minds of Gibson or P.K. Dick. What the artistic soul sees, the rest of world can either ignore or let gradually seep into their consciousness. 

I know the planet is filling up, resources are dwindling; that there are barely enough jobs for everyone, enough food and water. In my mind the chances of the earth self-course correcting (thank you, Lost, for lodging that term in my head) with a more harsh environment, or a corporation-controlled government unleashing a plague that only the 1% has the antidote for (but who will be around to do their dry cleaning?) - they are both equally plausible.

In my own tiny corner of the globe, I toil in a basically unsustainable, vehicle-hungry suburb, where most businesses still can't wrap their heads around allowing their employees to work at home. Sure, everyone brandishes colorful, branded, reusable shopping bags, but the mall parking lots are full - so, that famous recession seems not to have made much visible impact.

I vacillate between relocating to a big city in order to live small and vehicle free, or move to a smalltown to do the same. Each comes with its own price; but, with a broadband connection, I'm good with either. My parents' generation moved into "gated" communities in droves, to stave off the crime and the poor, to recreate their bucolic post-war paradises (although my folks grew up in East Harlem, so I have no clue what the hell they think they're recreating). I get it; I sometimes dream about some sort of clean, safe Disney World-meets-Amsterdam scenario. I grew up watching Fantasy Island - I know these places can be made-to-order.

"This is not escapism; it is super realism, so gritty and detailed and authentic and goddam convincing that…I found my normal present-day 'reality' pallid by comparison."

Philip K. Dick on the impact of Blade Runner, 1981

  

Paradox, maddening

More than maddening - it's a pain in the ass, really. Logically, the best way to focus on getting one's own story together is to focus small and not be distracted by Bigger Things. Taoism has always told me that one of the joys of enlightenment is knowing what is and what is not in our control. Or as my friend Tomasz always used to tell me: "the universe takes care of itself". (and I think the universe is doing a pretty crap job right now and needs to go sit in a corner, but that's me.)

I spend time, for instance, amazed by the stars - keeping up on news from space.com, from the Cassini mission and any up-to-date documentary I can find. Not only are the fx amazing, but it's one of the reasons I am a sci fi fan in general and a Star Trek fan in particular - sometimes things and events bigger than human existence should not be ignored.

But does space, beyond the annual will-the-meteor-hit-us-this-time, really matter in my life? Is it worth focusing on when there's so much more closer to home? The same question goes for world politics vs. local politics: the world is, for the most part, a heinous, out-of-control place. Western civilization seems to be an experiment gone bad quickly. If a meteor did finally succeed in wiping out most of the world, I am convinced any remaining humans would make pretty much the same decisions.

Again, should I focus on these matters? Should I keep a wary eye on all the signs and portents that appear to convince me in what direction my country is heading? Or should I be more regional: a staunch Southerner with all the folderol that contains, or a Floridian? (my ecologic and sustainable life certainly has concerns here) Maybe I should concentrate on being a citizen of Tampa Bay buried in its struggles from a lack of urban planning? Shall I just focus on the suburban streets that surround me or the neighbors I do not know?

Again, it's maddening. And how does any of this outside focus leave me time to deal with a myriad of dancing, whirling personal issues? Naval-gazing has always, to me, seemed the very limit of hubris. There's too much to do, too many ways to be of use. Besides, I have money to make, music to download, books to read, film to watch, dogs to feed, old parents to check up on, friends to have coffee or bourbon with, and the small matter of maintaining some manner of human touch.

Everything from John Irving novels to Mad Men's Don Draper has taught me to keep moving forward. As soon as you stop to analyze the wreckage of today, you'll be cheated out of tomorrow. The storyboard of my life needs to flow like a river: not too fast so that I can barely do more than wave at the folks standing on the shore watching; not too slow as to keep catches glimpses of my own reflection in the water.