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gender, Human, men, New World, relationships, Sistine Chapel, women, Writer, writing
Recently, a fellow writer (Tincup) posted a piece on his observations of the increasing failings of men (and women) to impress. It really had me thinking. It still does. I featured a link to that piece on my pages and much discussion took place following that which led me to writing this today. Brainiac, I may not be, but I do think and here are some of my thoughts on this matter.
Myself, not so much a golden age dreamer as I am a “here now” thinker in terms of watching an insidious wave of social illiteracy occurring. This, in my observation, is thanks to the proliferation of gadgetry and other “dehumanizing” possessions and obsessions that encourage alignment with the masses and physical alienation as opposed to distinction and actual connection. (Yes, she admits to using a machine to communicate this right now… alas, I admit it is a double-edged sword/pen I acquiesce to).
My observation is the explosion of communication via machines is rendering many robotic and we are fast losing our “human touch” in this drive-through mentality, instant gratification, disposable people, sense of entitlement thinking/living that not only encourages laziness as an acceptable lifestyle but actually results in a general frustration expressed as spontaneous rage or mobbing while wholly discouraging that anyone bother to even try harder. Only when required to, do we humans tend to “try harder.” Perhaps even to repaint the Sistine Chapel ceilings… as Dragonstrand mentioned in discussions.
Why is this happening? I believe it is because we are letting it. We have to stay connected to what matters, tossing even our penchant for analysis out the window because the last thing we need is more “analysis of analysis” of well documented ills whether organizational, governmental or society at large, all while fanning the embers of yet another inhumane act of insensitivity against another individual or group.
Not a bleeding heart here either, just saying what I see all too often in local, national and world news reports, nevermind the daily world around me. I do believe enough collective voices can result in not only impressive human beings once again but lasting world changes for the better.
While having dinner with friends last night in their home, I noted that there were four remote controls on the coffee table. Not only that, my friend held another in his hand. He was showing us pictures, movie clips, etc from his laptop on his ginormous screen TV. When he had to get up out of his easy chair, it was cause for moan and groan, laughingly of course, but it struck me that had something not gone wrong, he could well live in that chair save for eating and toileting himself.
He is a lovely fellow and his wife is adorable, too, but when we sat down to eat, I was shocked when she said, “I didn’t feel like cooking tonight.” What would possess someone to invite you for dinner and then make such an announcement just as you lifted your fork? It struck me as something I must remind myself never to say to a guest. Especially if I am, as she was, serving packaged pasta and sauce with a ready-made bread warmed in the oven. Now, I am not ungrateful for the meal, I loved it but it was a little hard to swallow. Have we really lost our manners to the point that we can treat others this way and if anything at all, from simply walking across the floor to the TV when a remote won’t work or boiling a five-minute pasta is so much trouble, it causes a lot of trouble in terms of stress or tension, what are we coming to as a people?
I sure hope the people who matter to me know I would be glad to get off the sofa and change the channel for them (if I watched enough TV to bother) or cook them something extravagant that took me more than five minutes. I’m trying to use what I see and apply it in my world so that the next time I have a chance to impress, I don’t fail myself or offend others.
We do have impressive folk among us and their numbers grow daily though some days it appears the opposite. I won’t bother naming all the lone soldiers I can think of who changed history/the world for the better. We all know their names by heart. I will say if history is any guide and does, indeed, repeat itself, we are just about due more heroes or heroines if only to prove that we are not only distinct from one another gender wise but, more importantly, collectively humane.
This may sound horrible but I hope I am dead before the differences between men and women become so blurred I no longer care. I don’t want to live in a world of “sameness” where distinctions of female and male are assimilated so effectively, we have nothing to long for or admire in the opposite sex.
If we bring it down to where this topic started, I agree with my friend. Given the huge numbers of people on the planet it appears there has been a decline in the numbers of impressively behaving men and women… But then I think that reflects the larger state of the world on the whole.
As much as we think we are actually “connecting” and staying “more” connected, many of us are actually participating in the most monumental “disconnect” of all time and this is bound to show up labelled as a male or female failing. Because it is. We are all only human. Ahhh, mother-lode progress… when will it ever end… advancing to “what” I wonder… yikes.
I know I digressed into other areas but this is a huge subject that could take the might of ages to address. Right now my might is fading so I am off to attend other things. Including being the best communicative, caring, warm, loving, feminine, female woman I know how – with the loudest voice I have, lol.
PS
Reports of bloopers welcome, I am very tired, typing on a machine that is so slow, every click requires a “waiting period” grrrrr So if I did a mess of typos or forgot a word, etc. you’ll know why. Happy night, all. J
I love this post…but I am getting so tired of words…of my own written voice…when I criticize us modern people…I only do it out of love and hope…perhaps it is tough love…and I always include myself when I am thinking about our less than impressive state…I wish someday I could produce something like the Ninth Symphony…but I know I am not capable of such an incredible work of art that celebrates not only one immense human being…but all of man/woman kind.
A vivid memory still haunts me today. In my youth…I quit my job in Europe and traveled for over a year. My older brother was an art history major and he came out to visit…we tore through museums at the correct pace…you know…spend an hour or two and the leave and return the next day and so on and son on. We absorbed art from Ancient Greece to the present…the key vivid high-level point that I took away was…relative to the quality and content of the art…TIME DID NOT EQUAL PROGRESS…there were many peak and valleys…and I am afraid…we find ourselves currently in a deep canyon. I am going to come back and post a video from Dragonstrand that he imbedded on another post of mine. It is regarding a unpopular topic…war…but I think it illustrates a point…regarding detachment as you so eloquently alluded to above…I believe if we have to go to war…it should be man versus man (and woman vers woman)…not bombs and guns and nukes that destroy everything else in the blast zone…strange to highlight this point I know…but I will return and post the video…
Here is video…I hope it works:)
Now…take this sublime film (and ignore the gory ending)…and think about it in terms of the human race on those horses…not riding with passion and in unison to kill other men (although that option may be necessary )…but riding for higher aims…visions…progress…
Sorry, I couldn’t watch it, when it gets violent, I can’t cope. I feel helpless and anxious. This is what I propose we do:
1. Maintain the vision
2. Use our words to our advantage as long and as loud as we can
3. Never lose hope
It’s not a fix, that is for sure, but it is a way to make the “here now” manageable without despairing over that which we cannot change. Thanks for the vid and the comments, TC
LMAO…don’t like blood hey:) It is really simple Janice…my name Brian by the way…we have made great advances in technology, science, engineering, aviation, blah blah blah….we have all the tools…but first and foremost we must be in control of our creations, not vice versa…and economics is the beast we must tame in order to move the ball forward. In that same vein, population must go down…way way down. Less of us means more for us. And…once we create longer term higher visions…life will slow down…so we can enjoy it…for it would no longer be a sprint…it would be a marathon…each generation passing the flaming torch to the next.
I like it. That’s a vision I can support and live with. Thanks for the explanation, I’m sure I’d have had nightmares if I had to watch it. No, I know I would have, I could tell just the way it was going, I wouldn’t last. lol. Glad you visited again, Brian, see your pages soon
Minority report time.
Maybe it is coincidence that the rise in the internet and allied technologies coincided with my personal discovery of a space in which I could be creative and confident in a way that I had not been up to then – via my writing, which is where I put all my personality, energy, and courage. The internet then gave me a place to slam it, to open-mic it in a virtual arena, to put my writing and poetry ‘out there’, albeit via (arguably) an increasingly debased and an increasingly self-debasing medium, but out there nonetheless. Would I even be half the writer I am without this? Would I simply be a recluse, an agoraphobiac, and nothing else? Likely I would.
This was also the arena in which I could rehearse, refine, clarify, and express my politics, which are dedicated to the liberation of humanity by humanity itself, to our raising our heads from the mud. I could be accused of being an ‘armchair anarchist’, but at least I am not silent. At least somebody listens and, I hope, somebody hears and is changed.
J, people will never ‘try harder’ when work is tied to ‘price’. Why should they? Why shouldn’t they give no more than what has been paid for? Only when we break the heart of price, break it from within, shatter it without hope of repair, and work joyfully for nothing, for each other, will we ever find the impetus to ‘try harder’ as a race.
M
Thank you, Minority, lol.
I’m not saying there isn’t a place for technology or that I don’t avail myself of use of the “machines” as you do. Still I notice people all around me satisfied with “machine” communication and it creates a bustling frenzy of keeping up with the latest messages so that everyone is walking around attached to some gizmo or other and ignoring the human being right beside them. It’s just not enough for me, personally, I prefer “face time” but that said, am grateful for this forum and concur that it is an arena like no other that, without technology, I would not have as an outlet either.
There is a lost virtue somewhere when we talk about price, I think. My ideology is not price based but based on a humanitarian way of being with one another that speaks louder than any amount of money could. I envision a time where people are more attuned to one another, more giving, sharing and caring about their fellow humans than they are about obtaining or possessing the latest destined for the landfill gadget, vehicle or whatever.
A peace is born of doing something for another without expectation but I see the majority slipping into an “entitled” mentality that leaves little room for the soulfulness you speak of nevermind giving to others unconditionally.
Internally, I try to do better, be better every day than I was yesterday. No easy feat. But it requires a certain conviction and value. Even listening to others and truly hearing them is a gift that is in line with that valuing. Trying harder as a race…perhaps the answer lives in more voices like yours… if only more could truly hear.
Armchair Anarchy works just fine from where I sit
Fire away, always listening, or at minimum, trying to. And I am changed. Thank you.
Janice
Technological advances have taken us far, and at the same time have set us back on other levels. While we are communicating more than ever before, we don’t seem to be reaching those closest to us on personal level…I miss the intimacy of relationships at times…gone are the days of just popping by and visiting…we must plan and have agendas, be busy all the time…and yes, I, too, feel I must be productive rather than just be…
“Face time” is the missing link, I agree. If we don’t get some face time of some sort, we can wind up feeling very isolated no matter the productivity. I like at least connecting via telephone if geography won’t permit an in person connection from time to time. At least a good old gab fest on the phone gives me something to remember, the emotional voice that is lacking in technology. I know there is Skype and everything else but I don’t use any of that. I already feel technology has enough of my daily banked allotment of minutes and when the 24 hours is over, I don’t want to feel I flushed it all to machines. I want something in there that grounds me in the world I live in while I enjoy the advances we have. I think Lorna said it best, balance.
I honestly think much of this comes from the we’ve used technology and advances to make our lives more frenetic and crazed and expand our to-do lists and expectations rather than making our lives simple and allowing more time for reflection and individuality. We all run at top speed, with so many must-dos, and then we guard our teeny bits of spare time like precious gems but are too tired to do much with them. I would never want to go back to a time where a woman’s place was defined as “in the home,” but I do wish that all of us could disconnect and really be “in the moment” more than we do. I think we impress less because we’re all only half-paying attention to where it is we are and who we are talking to at the moment. Half our brain is texting, checking something on a screen, or making a mental to-do list for later in teh day or tomorrow.
From your head out of my mouth! Pam, that is so well summed up, I wish I could just say I said it myself, lol. You hit every nail on the head. Including that we are often only “half” present. Agree wholeheartedly that there is something crazy about how efficient this was supposed to make all of us and I feel I can’t keep up with even my cell phone features nevermind keep learning new information online to manage programs, sites, etc and then they change or “upgrade” as they call it and I am on the spin cycle again, a hamster on a wheel that will never stop turning. It impedes actual human connection and I am not getting done half of what I used to. There, that said, I need to think about how I will approach this and prioritize my days in future regardless of external pressures to “keep up.” Thank for stopping by to make me stop and think once again.
I like some of the technology. At least I can put my thoughts out where anyone can now see them. But I am thinking back to the 1960’s and 1970’s. We had the Civil Rights Marches, the Anti-Vietnam Movement. People actually died in both events. People were killed only because of hate. So many died (of course black and white) on the Civil Rights. People died in the War protests (remember places like Kent State where unarmed students were shot down by soldiers). People were brutally beaten and wrongfully imprisoned for peaceful marches and demonstrations. This then caused more violence sometimes. Can such things happen here anymore? I know the 1 percenters, but they seem quite weak to what went on before. Whether you agree or not for their cause, the point here is they also are being intimidated by authorities just like the other protests mentioned above. Yet little is made about it. Not like the other protests where it was top news stories on TV and on every newspaper headlines. Or are we so tied to our machines we really don’t care anymore? Do we not get involved in any peoples’ rights to protest anymore? Am I just sulking? Am I totally off base here? Or was the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements seemingly all in vain?
OH! I cannot believe this thing, I wrote you a long reply ending with this quote and now this *#!!@$$$# thing just lost the entire lot… well, here’s the quote for now, working on a blasted slow as molasses machine here and if I can remember it all, I will reply again later, Randall, thank you kindly for your thoughtful comments …
”Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” –Calvin Coolidge
Interesting. I would never invite someone over for a meal and then feed them packaged, processed stuff. I mean, sure, some of it might come out of a can, because I don’t make everything from scratch, but it would be a thought-out meal that took me some time and pride to create. I love to cook, by the way…I just don’t have time to do much these days. As for getting up to change the channel on the TV…I don’t think my TV can even be changed manually! How funny is that? If it can, I don’t know where the button is! Of course, the actual TV stays on one channel all the time, because the “channels” come from the U-verse box. I think back to days long gone, when I had 5 channels to choose from, and the TV had a KNOB on it that had to be turned to change the channel.
Yes…I fear technology, as much as I love it, is turning us into the kind of people that appear in the middle of “Wall-E.”
It’s true, Jeff, I feel your fear and love of technology at once, just as you do. I feel a bit badly that I shared my observations of friends who are adorable but it was only an observation that spoke to me so loudly of what we are becoming in our great “disconnect.” My mother would always prepare for company and on one of my visits to Ontario, not only did I have flannel sheets when I arrived but there on the dresser was a fresh bouquet of one of my favourite flowers: Lily of the Valley. She then served cabbage rolls while I was there (one of my favorite dishes that only she could make right, lol) and over the years, I heard or watched both she and my sisters prepare for company, baking pies, setting out special dishes, bouquets. It seems what used to be an honour is now just so taken for granted that it’s hard to know what really matters to people any more. I like my TV best off but it does have a purpose, especially if I am down with flu or something equally exhausting like too much computer time LOL
I think we need to remember “all things in moderation” or balance. Yin/Yang, female/male, personal/technological. Everything has its place, but not in extreme nor in merging so much that what was once unique becomes the same as everything else. How would you know happiness without sadness or light without dark? But I wouldn’t want to live in a world of a blended down version of either, or a world where one was all there was.
I’ve been reading blogs all afternoon and probably I’m not making much sense here. Sorry…
Yes, Balance! It is critical to all we do, say or live. But how quickly balance can be forgotten and only when things get so out of kilter that eruptions occur, do some notice. Thanks for visiting, woman who walks in balance
No worries on the blog reading, I know what you mean, so many good writers on here! I feel bad when I can only get to a few in a day but I do try – thank you for visiting me today, Lorna xo