post apocalyptic wasteland or post-postmodern paradise

2374, the year human history begins to wean itself from the digital dark ages, or not. throughout most of human history, when we come to periods of great technological (including industrial) advancement we tend to race forward as if we're driving a car by only staring at the speedometer and the fuel gage.

there's more to it to that.

there's more to technology than "faster," "better," and "easier."

what do you do when that technology fails?

what do you do when the lights go out?

what do you do when you see yourself standing there, looking at an empty abandoned grocery store, trying to figure out how to feed your family?

we often spend so much time and so much our lives buried in the business of the next that we fail to notice where the road is going ahead and what we've left behind.

i'm not a luddite. i write software, i use the internet, i blog, i read the paper on a kindle, but i also have a love of the analog world around us. my office fits in my backpack and i travel the city (mostly a coffee house near my house) as a vagabond worker. getting things done while the rest of the world moves around me, indifferent to the world beyond the tips of their fingers, or their digital pocket masters (DPMs or "smart" phones, if you like). but i already miss books. i hate that trees need to be pulped to create them, as i would miss trees more if my world was filled with books and no forests. i love the mechanical masterpiece of a quality analog watch.

balance. i suppose i desire balance and sustainability.

without taking time to acknowledge how dependent you are on a system, and think about how you could live without it, you make yourself a slave to that system. that's great as long as that system continues, and continues to take care of you, or allows you to take care of yourself.

look at the global financial issues of the late twenty-aughts that continue to rattle around in the global economy. to pick on the poster-child of the day, look at Greece. it is easy to point fingers at the excesses they were living with and the many problems that exist in their system, but how would someone from an agrarian society look at our lives if we look up to find ourselves in what may be an immanent collapse?

we really are cattle at times (sorry, but it's true. i wrote we, not just you) marching to the beat of marketing and propaganda that sings a tune to our desires, without taking the time to simply stop and look at *why* we're making decisions, or if we're really making decisions at all.

i'm not pessimistic, potentially a cynic, but i don't see us breaking free of any system while we stand with our feet firmly locked in place with our face buried in the immediate matters of the day.

it takes you.

it takes nearly each and every one of us to take our lives into our control.

it takes you to no longer assume you will be taken care of by your system, or that your system is run by operators who inherently care about the outcome of your life, as long as you continue your function in the system.

we blindly see revolution in revolt, regardless of the outcome.

i ask of you no more than i ask of myself.

stop and smell whatever flower you pass, at least on occasion. throw convention to the wind when convention doesn't fit your life. find yourself, beneath the layers of facade you've built to fit into that round hole.

go square peg, go!

change the world. make it better.

know your limits, know your dependancies, and if you want to continue to rely on a system, take an active part in maintaining it or reshaping it.

stop sitting there waiting to die.

you're better than that.

i hope this finds you well.
.jason