Whimsical Wamblings

Now that I have, on a whim, decided to start this blog, I find it very difficult to remember all the things I thought I had to say. They likely weren’t very original things, nor overly clever. Rarely are any of my opinions well thought out, and I don’t typically care whether or not I offend anyone.

 Is it all just a symptom of the information age? The internet quite readily brings out the worst in people, it seems, granting them layers of anonymity to hide behind from where they can lob grenades of biased, fiery opinions and derogatory insults. Anyone can feel like a badass on a message board or playing an online game.

It’s easy to talk shit to someone when you never have to look them in the eye to do it. Easy to be rude or hurtful when you never have to deal with any of the consequences, when the conversation – or confrontation – is over the moment you close the window. We have managed to take the single greatest tool in our history for connecting with fellow human beings and remove almost all semblance of humanity from it.

I myself don’t entirely understand how it has become so easy for so many people to forget (or just not care) that there are real human beings with thoughts and emotions sitting on the other end, right behind the screen names or gamer tags or what have you. The internet has allowed a mass dehumanization of our fellows, and I think that as a society – at least in America – we are paying for it.

I suppose this has gone somewhat off-topic of my original topic, which was that I don’t have a topic. Please see the blog’s title for questions.

We live in an age that is filled with wonder we’ve all been desensitized to; the possibilities are unlimited. When have ideas ever been so accessible, so easily distributed? Anyone can create, and now that creation can be delivered directly to consumers, potentially to millions of people from all around the world. That should be amazing to us, but it’s just another detail, something that we have accepted without any thought as to the implications of that fact.

In part, that’s why I’ve started this blog. I don’t expect to reach millions of people. Don’t expect to have my thoughts read by hundreds of thousands, or thousands, or even hundreds. Dozens, maybe. But that’s enough, isn’t it? If something I write here can make even one person stop and think, help them to consider something from a different angle...well, then I’ve touched the wider world and made some kind of mark on it.

The way the world used to work – the traditional models and methods of publication, marketing, and distribution – doesn’t really apply anymore. In effect, we have been given the opportunity to cut out that middle man. The one telling us that we can’t have that happen in our story, that you can’t say that in the lyrics of your song, that you can’t show that in your movie. Creative control is shifting almost entirely to the producers of these works, for better or worse, and it is now directly up to the consumer to decide if it is worthwhile or not.

I think it’s quite an exciting time. I can allow my imagination to run wild (and it sometimes wanders to the potential downfall of corporate America, an entity (see: THEM) that I have come to loathe) and just put it out there for anyone who cares to see it. I can present my opinions, my perspectives, my ideas, to the wider world and have meaningful discussions. I can forge friendships with people who live thousands of miles away.

So what it all comes down to is this: I’m going to use this platform to say whatever it is I might feel like saying at whatever moment I feel like saying it, and you’re welcome to read it (or not read it). Agree with me, disagree with me, love me or hate me or be totally indifferent towards me, whatever you like. But I’m going to attempt to keep a degree of humanity involved here. I’m going to attempt to operate with a respect for you, the reader, as a fellow human being struggling to stay alive and get ahead in this messed up little world of ours.