Through various experiments and the study of the facts of our own history, we have determined the root of our current addiction to irony. We work too hard at things which do not matter at all, spending ludicrous amounts of time on pursuits which affect no one but ourselves, justifying our existence with endless reams of documentation, creating narratives for and about imaginary people we call "customers" or "heroes" wherein the person addressed or described has powers far beyond what we imagine for ourselves. We then discuss these ridiculous wastes of paper, time and intelligence with our peers in a tone of jocularity, recognizing that we ourselves do nothing of importance to the world, hoping that we can find some pathetic level of comradery by sharing our drab uselessness with another person. Predictably, such simple humor always finds its audience, and we are allowed the mundane pleasure of these tiny jokes from our first "gainfully employed" day straight through to the grave.
What our ancestors once may have enjoyed directly - romance, hard work well rewarded, exploration, discovery - we must receive via proxies. We vicariously employ movie stars, strippers, scientists, doctors, fishermen, violent criminals, and all the possible simulated analogues thereof to provide us with the experiences we desire but can no longer attain. There are not enough hours in the day for us to do all the things we want to do, too many rules of etiquette or of the state for us to worry about - the resources available for each of the six billion people on Earth are not enough for all of us to actually do anything fulfilling. We have trapped ourselves in a bubble where fantasy is our only means of feeling alive and work is a means of avoiding plain suicide. To show up each morning at the office still breathing is the greatest affirmation most of us can ever hope to achieve.
― TOMBOT, Sunday, 27 May 2007 08:19 (nineteen years ago)
alternative thread title = MIDLIFE CRISIS
― TOMBOT, Sunday, 27 May 2007 08:20 (nineteen years ago)
you could always build a tron suit
― latebloomer, Sunday, 27 May 2007 08:23 (nineteen years ago)
http://town.surpara.com/ragnarok/job/img/bard.jpg
― nathalie, Sunday, 27 May 2007 08:28 (nineteen years ago)
There's hope for you when you're 64 and recovered a sense of wonder...witness Paul McCartney's recent musings:
You know, in some ways we live in a world where things appear to be very logical, very rational, and mechanical aspects of our world are rather scientific and rather straightforward. But I read something recently, it was just talking about trees and what they do as machines. The fact that they pump up these thousands of gallons of water, without anything we would recognize as a machine. It's just a nature machine, it's just a green machine. And the trees then convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. And we go, "Yeah, it's just a tree." But Jesus Christ, you try and do that! If only we had some people who could do that, we wouldn't have global warming, we wouldn't have these problems. Hence we're encouraged to plant more trees.
But to me, you can look at that and go, "Yeah, well, that's what trees do." Or you can look at it and go, "Holy cow, that's what trees do!" And you can be totally amazed by it-- because it is pretty amazing. You find that all through nature, is riddled through nature, amazing things that happen that because we're kind of used to it, because we see it all the time, we take it a bit for granted.'
But what I'm trying to say is, I'm now at a kind of point where I realize how magical some of that stuff is, and how blessed we are to be part of that thing, to be part of nature. That's just pretty amazing stuff.
― Bob Six, Sunday, 27 May 2007 10:52 (nineteen years ago)
But what I'm trying to say is, I am happy my ex lost on that dance show.
― nathalie, Sunday, 27 May 2007 14:00 (nineteen years ago)
What our ancestors once may have enjoyed directly - romance, hard work well rewarded, exploration, discovery - we must receive via proxies.
RONG
― max, Sunday, 27 May 2007 14:42 (nineteen years ago)
i dont understand why things were authentic in the past and now they're "ridiculous wastes of paper." what was the turning point? when was it that people were living free of irony, totally honest, direct and authentic? which ancestors were enoying "romance," and whose definition of "romance" are we using, seeing as "romance" to shakespeare meant something different than it does to most people now? what "fulfilling" things do we want to do that we're prevented to do? what things are we doing that "do not matter at all," and "do not matter" in what sense--cosmically? in which case, since when has anything that humans do "mattered"?
― max, Sunday, 27 May 2007 14:51 (nineteen years ago)
since when has anything that humans do "mattered"?
-- max
Yes, this is the obvious ripost. No human or animal can do anything of ultimate consequence given our infinitesimal size and relative impermanence. Nor is this a new insight - there are plenty of writings from antiquity in every culture that make exactly this point, and that was before we were humiliated by modern astrophysics.
― moley, Sunday, 27 May 2007 16:05 (nineteen years ago)
I think about this a lot.
― Curt1s Stephens, Sunday, 27 May 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)
i should try living totally irony-free and see what happens. it will be hard, though.
i guess i'll have to get rid of the beer mirrors.
― homosexual II, Sunday, 27 May 2007 17:23 (nineteen years ago)
Erm, we are currently living in the midst of the fourth Great Extinction Event in the entire history of life on earth, a history that stretches back over more than 1,000,000,000 years. So, you see, humans, with all their many peculiarities and eccentricities really do matter sometimes.
― Aimless, Sunday, 27 May 2007 17:24 (nineteen years ago)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs http://theskinnywebsite.com/
― daria-g, Sunday, 27 May 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)
<3 Deleuze
― pretzel walrus, Sunday, 27 May 2007 18:10 (nineteen years ago)
What our ancestors once may have enjoyed directly ...... hard work well rewarded
gazillion ghosts of slaves, serfs, peasants, indentured servants, sharecroppers etc to thread
― bobby bedelia, Sunday, 27 May 2007 19:10 (nineteen years ago)
I looked at a street sign earlier today and thought 'why can't that be in a more 'interesting' or exciting (decorative) typeface dammit? And realised it was because somebody would complain that it wasn't readable enough and might confuse people/enable their inadequacy further.
― blueski, Sunday, 27 May 2007 19:14 (nineteen years ago)
Paul McCartney in continuing to sound like a child shocker.
― Hurting 2, Sunday, 27 May 2007 19:15 (nineteen years ago)