what is it going to feel like to be old in the 21st century? . . . well, I kinda already know. . .how it feels to let that next big wave of new technologies, of hyper online fashionistas crash overhead and leave you entirely behind. . . for to have longeivity in this system, one must be fluent in tech, a rapidly changing language of testosterone and youth, surface information, popularity, fast graphics, and accessibility. one must also have the patience and energy to learn how to do the things you already knew how to do, in an entirely new way, over, and over, and over. it's humbling and refreshing and exhausting. . .for as long as we're willing to play, it will keep us unusually young into old age.
( I'm wondering, then, how culture might divide into certain zones of maturity. . .where do those with overarching wisdom fit in to this glocal human situation? well, I certainly know, I'm always looking for good teachers. meaningful elder life advisors and actual role models are hard to come by. we are emancipated from the strict bindery of so many traditions, but it's also a lonely, demanding highway out there without firm voices of authority and guidance. although our bodies may become less relevant as we live more and more of our lives online, age & death is still an innevitability. we still look to those ahead of us to guide us along. age is not just a pejorative thing, it's a resource.
a first foreshadowing of death in our culture, is that moment when a participating citizen just completely stops making the effort to keep up with current tech. could happen for some at 20. . .others at 40, 60, 80. for some it's a slow process, for others gradual.
I suppose seniors of my generation will fill up significant virtual space with their nostalgic laments, their cheezy conformist snapshots, their endless 80s music. . . .will others lurk and laugh?
me, I hope that I'll be that old mountain lady, or desert-mountain lady: long hair, mystical eyes, tatered lace & cowboy boots, library full of kick-ass books and objects & plants, a fast computer at a large wooden desk, a view of the sunset, an eletromagnetic travel device. I'll be in communication with other contemporary edge dwellers around the globe, plus the spirits, the rocks, and the animals. its a nice dream. . .wonder what will actually happen?
(I like the description of that old lady katy thompson cory, life-long photographer of the hopi indians. she dropped out of high society nyc in her youth (1908), hopped on a train to the west and never came back. they say she wore ripped up dirty old lace. . .she was that old lady in donny darko checking the mail, that invented a time machine, she was a person elegently walking between radically different worlds, both oddly on the same planet.)
-kt
5 comments:
i can diggit.
i often wrestle w/ an idealistic romanticism about dotcomreality, how it's a grand continuation of self-publishing w/ unlimited distribution & hardly any operating costs, & interacting w/ a wide variety of folks -- but, electonic media seems to lack presence, this may be, well duh...of course, being a cybergnostic thoughtvehicle, but what is it thinking? it more so thinks or doesn't think about things, little actual action, but yes, there is action, no? i've seemed to lose track of my plot, hmmm, our post-info globescape gives us an immediate connection, but does that connection provide the juice to erect our very own powergrids?
actually, i don't know what i'm trying to say, here's an excerpt fromma book i'm now reading, by Anthony P. Cohen, "the symbolic construction of community", it may or may not be relevant to anything :
"...In what has become one of the most celebrated statements in recent anthropological writing, Geertz proclaims, '...man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun...' These webs constitute 'culture', whose analysis is, 'not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning'. There are three interrelated and powerful principles contained within Geertz's precise & eloquent formulation. The 1st is that culture ('webs of significance') is created & continually recreated by people thru their social interaction, rather than imposed upon them as a Durkheimian body of social fact or as Marxist superstructure. 2ndly, being continuously in process, culture has neither deterministic power nor objectively identifiable referents ('law'). 3rd, it is manifest, rather, in the capacity w/ which it endows people to perceive meaning in, or to attatch meaning to social behaviour. Behaviour does not 'contain' meaning intrinsically; rather, it is found to be meaningful by an act of interpretation: we 'make sense' of what we observe. The sense we make is 'ours', & may or may not coincide w/ that intended by those whose behaviour it was. Thus, in so far as we 'understand' the behaviour which goes on around us & in which we participate, we make & act upon interpretations of it: we seek to attatch meaning to it. Social interaction is contingent upon such interpretation; it is, essentially, the transaction of meanings.
Interpretation implies a substantial degree of what, faute de mieux, we must cal 'subjectivity'. When it is a feature of social interaction, subjectivity clearly suggests the possibility of imprecision, of inexactitude of match, of ambiguity, of idiosyncracy. In other words, different people oriented to the same phenomenon are likely to differ from each other in certain respects in their interpretations of it. They may not be aware of this difference, esp. if the phenomenon is a common feature of their lives. Their disagreement is not necessarily, then, an impediment to their successful interaction. Indeed, often the contrary is the case. People can find common currency in behaviour whilst still tailoring it subjectively (& interpretatively) to their own needs.
These interpretations are not random. They tend to be made within the terms characteristic of a given society, & influenced by its language, ecology, its traditions of belief & ideology, & so forth. But neither are they immutable. They are, rather, responsive to the circumstances of interaction, both among individuals, & between the society as a whole & those across its boundaries. The vehicles of such interpretations are symbols. By their very nature symbols permit interpretation & provide scope for interpretive manoeuvre by those who use them. Symbols are often defined as things 'standing for' other things. But they do not represent these 'other things' unambiguously: indeed, as argued above, if they did so they would be superfluous & redundant. Rather, they 'express' other things in ways which allow their common form to be retained & shared among members of a group, whilst notimposing upon these people the constraints of uniform meaning. Because symbols are malleable in this way, they can be made to 'fit' the circumstances of the individual. They can thus provide media through which individuals can experience & express their attatchment to a society w/o compromising their individuality. So versatile are symbols they can often be bent into these idiosyncratic shapes of meaning w/o such distortions becoming visible to other people who use the same symbol at the same time."
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wrdvrfctn captcha:
mentmand
pretty rad post. . .thanks. . .
notes to self:
(4 essay on the power of the image. . .)
presence.. . cybergnosticism. . . .
cultures are webs of significance, created by social interactions.
different people oriented to the same phenomenon are likely to differ from each other in certain respects in their interpretations of it
People can find common currency in behaviour whilst still tailoring it subjectively
symbols are malleable
They can thus provide media through which individuals can experience & express their attatchment to a society w/o compromising their individuality.
so, one might say , that a language of images is more polite (and therefore creating less disenfranchisement/terrorism) in a world tightly knit together in communication.
-kt
" so, one might say , that a language of images is more polite (and therefore creating less disenfranchisement/terrorism) in a world tightly knit together in communication. "
aces!
that's one of the reasons i've been drawn to asemic writing as of late,
here's a recent brief post i did touching upon the subject:
Ѯӄҧ Ө ɐȣʥɕ ɚɠʁ ʘ
& here's acoupla linx that may also be useful:
On the meaning of the visual
words made flesh
will you publish your essay here?
i'm always interested in the subject.
for the hell of it, here's a classic example of minimalist poetry:
m ss ng
thiiief!
- George Swede
(one of my favorites)
= )
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btw, i like the concept & execution of yer blog, jammin' apples!
(sophia)
ɷ
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troy-(m ss ng) is great!
kt-i wonder too, will the mentorship,the passing on of ritual,knowledge and info in general become a thing- to be stored and accessed online somewhere???..as a place to go for historical data,maybe almost like general storage of fundamentals & common knowledge...info that quickly antiquates into hysterical...the younger jetpack (or emf powered,yes)terminally online generations will carry forward,tho. they will be creating their own as they go go go!im not sure myself what loss of tradition means actually..i have personal ingrained nostalgias and things I associate with normal..i recall holiday cultural traditions "shared" in public elementary school..is that a loss of tradition?..or do traditions just slowly change..only now it is happening in tighter quicker (but larger jumping) cycles.
(maybe we will have gained control of the immediate area around earth called space by then.whoever "we" is...that will change world dynamics in a heartbeat. screw strategic defense intitiatives when you can operate a "gun" from a button in yr house- and blow away an entire village via a satellite image.
"glocal"..that was good.
i feel like i need to go read some marshall mcluhan or alvin toffler now..or maybe mister marxistmatrix himself, zizek.
in the future, bet there will be laughs..i already laugh myself at the thought of a beeper. or how massive cell phones were when first introduced..and that wasnt really that long ago.
but more than anything, im afraid that with the rate of things and the turbulance it is kicking up in its pace,it wldnt take but a slight wrong nudge to send our car spinning/crashing into itself..
people arent really that fascinating...but life in general is. oh life,it's bigger.
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