THE AGE OF ABBREVIATION

The age of virtual instant access may well be the contemporary cultural trend where our archaic collectables, mementos - call them what you will - seem redundant in the eyes of the pubescent thumb-texting technocrats, but with the supplanting of these tactile items (greeting cards, books, magazines, records/CD's etc.) by what's "accessible" in the cloud, ownership has fundamentally changed and I would argue, nuance has died. 

It isn't that hard to accept the world is an evolving, dynamic environment but I believe it to be fallacious to simply accept that technological advancement is by default an anthropocentric improvement. It's a change unarguably but it's only better from a time, size and convenience perspective. And if those are the precepts whereby we validate our existence then by all means we've achieved heaven on Earth - we've arrived. I elect to think otherwise without denying myself the use of technological tools. The untrendy concept of "balance" springs to mind. 

However, the "use it or lose it" premise most certainly does apply here. If less of something is being consumed, usually through the aggressive marketing of the online equivalent, then the tactile version begins to dwindle until it becomes an esoteric (in the original sense of the word) commodity and a specialist niche market evolves from that. Literature is the most obvious example. I'm a writer and I selfishly advocate the advancement of eBooks certainly, but a tablet will never feel better in my hands than a paperback or a coffee table book still does. And you will never experience the smell or the energy of the book unless that too will be interfaced via our handheld devices some time in the future. I suspend any astonishment in this area - I'm sure it will be done. 

With the advent of an electronically generated and maintained pool of data-resourcing, i.e. The Internet, we have been reprogrammed to think in an entirely different way and, I would posit, think less about individual problem solving and summarily hand that power over to the gods of cyberspace who even go as far as to evaluate where we are, what we've asked before and what we historically like to do in this space so they can algorithmically predict what we're going to ask this time around. And chances are we'll allow our search engine to do that for us too while they're algorithmically hinting at what others who bought this also bought. 

I had a spat online just yesterday with someone who wrote a post which, without the categorisation, labelling and stereotyping of groups of people, made absolutely no sense. Remove all the labels and the comment had no point. And that's what big brother does "for" us - categorises us into target consumer groups. That's what it boils down to. 

Our education system is not designed to create original thinkers who will trailblaze new pathways for the overarching benefit of humankind, where the majority will become high-powered decision-makers; the whole system is geared toward dumbing the rest of them down while simultaneously producing consumers. If we had a system that augmented the intelligence and worldliness of the masses, the population would become empowered and the elitist regimes that control everything would become redundant. It's our perceived yet illusory dependence on those we've elected and the technology they sell us that maintains us in this ongoing state of acquiescence. 

We haven't yet figured out the real evolutionary paradigm that's most powerful of all - there is strength in numbers and collective choices dictate our future. As passive consumers we don't realise or exercise that power - we're too busy handing it over via another handy cloud app that frees up more space in our home and saves us from leaving the house while the competitive distraction of sports and reality TV oozes from our screens, interspersed with massive doses of fear-laden newscasts running on repeat looping. 

This is how we elect to become informed. This is how we interface with others for the most part too. Conveniently. 

A fantastic meme I saw the other day said simply: stop the glorification of busy. 

And that's it in a nutshell. While we may be able to produce and procure things more efficiently than ever before, it's paradoxically bizarre don't you think that we've got so little time on our hands? Not really. Not when we fill up all the space and time we should have available to us with our constant link to everything through devices and IC technology. We are consumed with inane distraction because everyone else is doing it and "it's what's trending."

When the old fashioned businessman re-read the letter his secretary had typed for him, signed it, handed it back to her so it could be snail-mailed to the respondent, he generally phoned the client and arranged to have lunch or meet face to face while the wheels of non-instant access chugged along. There was time for other stuff too and if he was out of the office he was pretty much unreachable. Yet shit still got done and it got done properly albeit with less stress and in a longer timeline. So what? Nowadays, if you're not at your desk, they'll try the mobile. If you don't answer that, they'll text you or see if you're online somewhere else and message your through that vehicle. What they don't get or accept is that you might want to be unavailable. 

But here's the thing - it's okay for someone to be unreachable. The world does not come to an end if you don't have an answer within twelve nanoseconds of your desirous urge becoming manifest. 

We might have arguably better technology but that doesn't make us smarter - it only makes the devices smarter and as the devices become smarter we become dumber and more acquiescent while we believe that we're too busy for anything really - even reading to the end of an email or having the time to read a book. Who reads when you can skim and get the gist of it? Point being, the gist is what the consumers deem workable but those writing the stuff we skim, know the nuance and the devil to be in the details and that's the place the drones never look until it's too late. 

We may have less and less need for physical "clutter" when we can simply download or stream 1's and 0's to see or hear something that once we held in our hands or placed in a playback device but unless we have a backup somewhere that resides within our physical domain and we don't need a licence to validate the information, we don't actually own it. 

I love technology. 

As a tool. 

But the system is no longer a tool, the roles are reversed and through our total reliance on it, we become the system's bitch. 

So party on, bitches! 

I'd still rather have collectables and tactile stuff that reminds me of times and places as well as the now and I'd like to think I'll always have time to go for a walk with my wife. Those are important things in my life and I own them. 

As they said once upon a time in the Orange Free State: nothing is that important that it can't wait two weeks... 

Amen to that. I'm relearning that ideal and I like it.