Today, I had a mango. It was delicious. Today, I made curry it was also delicious. I cut wood today, as well. I plan on building a planter with it. I also have plans to make an awning, and to can the rest of the mangoes in the coming days.
It is important to recognize that all of those things are directly human and tangible. None of them simulated, or derivative of someone else's efforts. Except those others who were involved directly in the doing of those things. Rachel's mom helped peel the mangoes. The first one I attempted to prepare ended up in four or nine parts with more pulp and juice on the counter than in me. Rachel helped assemble the curry. It was an exceptional curry, using whole cumin seeds, dried coriander root (grown organically by me!), and a red Thai chili. We also steamed the rice with whole cardamom, cinnamon, and anise. Fucking delicious.
But what consequences do the mundane trivialities of quite normal have to those reading (or not)? Well, honestly I can't personal implicate any to you directly, but I can infer that, if the reader is one of a representative populace in the US, that quite a bit of what you did today may have been without consequence.
There are 500 million users on Facebook, according to them. It seems to me that Facebook has become a sort of conversation proxy. This is not to say that people talk directly, face-to-face, to other people any less because of it, but that a lot more conversation is happening via it's interface, instead of your face to another's. This is also happening in more or less real-time. (I hate that word) This is interesting to me mostly because I am told that face-to-face interaction is a 'building block' of society. What does this increase in non-face-to-face interaction say about the importance of real people talking to other real people? Do we see our friends' Facebooks and the posts therein not as a representative or proxy of a particular person, but as an equally direct representation of they themselves?
I don't know.
Another thing many people do is watch television. The fact that I don't watch television, or movies, or any sort of visual, aural, and thereby, emotional (mis)representation of human interaction on a regular basis, makes me view them in an (obviously) different light than most. In fact the reason why I hate most modern fiction and fantasy is because none of the characters seem rational by any length of word to me. Take Harry Potter for instance. There are really only three interesting characters in the whole story. (One that I didn't even finish. I only read 1-4 and 6) They are, in order of most to least interesting, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, and Alastor Moody. This is because the have a rational understanding of events that happen, and respond to them in accordance to that. They are well rounded characters. Even if confusing at times. Everyone else is a whiny, self-righteous, glory-seeking snob. Which, I guess is a set response to events. But, no one really bitches about everything, everyday, like Harry... Right?
The entire story seems to center around everyone else's expectations of some hero or another, and them falling short of those expectations just long enough to create some sort of doubt in their moral character. Then MIRACULOUSLY they are Sir Lancelot, naked and up a tree, getting his horse stolen. Lancelot then proceeds to cut the Horse Thief's head off and apologize for having to do it. 'The fuck?
So, what we have in television, movies, the news, and commercials is a sea of ideals that are neither real nor ideal. This is not a new idea. Why are we still swimming in a world of food made all of corn, and the horrifically disfigured body-ideal of a barbie doll?
Now, since we have digested a bit of what is all around us more completely, let us think of it in terms of it's actual passivity. If you sat for a few hours on Facebook, chatting, or sat and watched whatever show on tv that you are emotionally hopped up, on and about, or a movie, or clacked away Call of Duty 4: RAPE AND PILLAGE FOREIGNERS EDITION, or Halo (Do people still play that?), you have done NOTHING. You have learned (next to) NOTHING. (Except, maybe that there is some shit you never had (nor needed) but now you must have!) You probably ate a bunch of Doritos while you were at it.
Dig in the dirt, and plant something.
Shake hands, and smile at your cashier. They are not a machine. Whether you think they are or not.
