Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Rejection of Technology

Why do I have dreams about throwing my computer into the street and smashing it with the back of my heel?

Right before his last schizophrenic breakdown, Neil told me he was sitting online on his Macbook. He got up to get a drink of milk, and when he looked back over at his computer the Apple logo was shining through the Meat Puppets sticker he put on the back of it. This sent him into a frenzy, and he took his computer outside and smashed it on the sidewalk then threw it into the dumpster. When Neil asked me again if he thought I was crazy I could only say that that may have been the most sane thing I've ever heard, and that was the truth.

I am beginning to hate this glowing little rectangle that dominates my life. I hate that I go to work and stare at it. And I come home to stare at it. I come back to it like some sort of amphetamine, sitting through hours of mindless idle flickering for the few minutes I have a comment or message or link. I browse friends' pages like some sort of overly curious stalker type who goes through peoples drawers and reads peoples journals while they're taking a shower. Its like any other drug, where I sit back and think to the early days when I found something of entertainment or something of substance but now only find myself asking why I keep refreshing my Facebook to read the status of people I don't even talk to anymore.

Why do people become fans of being barefoot?

I feel like being barefoot symbolizes everything that becoming a fan of it on Facebook isn't about. Does that make any sense?

Is it ironic that I'm posting this on an online blog?

Lately I have thought that perhaps culturally we are not accustomed to this overload of convenience of technology. My constistently shallowing social life, my growing contempt for mindless YouTubian comedy clips and my widening appreciation of physical, tangible art is starting to concern me. I can't tell if I'm becoming some art fuck who sits in Plush reading a book or if I am just following that half-witted rebellion thats been sitting in me since I was old enough to know how to provoke my parents. I think that the technology pendulum has hit its apex in our culture and we will soon be learning to reject it. Maybe we haven't figured out how to use it in moderation. Or maybe I just haven't learned how to use it in moderation.

It sickens me the amount of time I could have spent writing. Or reading. Or writing songs. Or doing all the things I did before this little world that exists on this little screen overtook the time between getting out of school and going to work.

Well, I'm not wasting my time anymore. Maybe it's adolescent. I don't care. I am human. I hate this fucking thing. And I'm not coming back.

Until I check to see if I have any comments on this tomorrow.