Surrealism and my Journey through my mind

I'm not meaning to be cynical or pessimistic, although it may come off as that. This was inspired by an IM conversation(ironically) I had with Courtney. These are just some thoughts I wanted to put out into the world.

Corey and Johnny, two close friends of mine, and I sat on the edge of a lake in Wyoming looking at the sunset discussing surrealism and technology, and then we all slept out under the stars, The whole time observing natures beauty. None of it came from a computer, none of it came from a factory or out of anyones head, it was just there. We noticed that on the edge of the lake and as far as we could see there weren't any man made "improvements", anywhere.

According to the Department of Land Surveys and property ownership related things any man made feature added to land is an “improvement”, but is it really? What is it improving? Can you even improve on natures beauty, so far all I've seen is scars and pollution on the natural beauty of earth. Staring at the pinkish orange sun reflecting off the watter we discussed how we all three love really advanced technology and how its all amazing, but then how we all also love just getting away from it all for days on end, just totally isolating yourself with a few good friends in the middle of NOWHERE. With no technology, no phones, no one to interact with that you couldn't look at. What contrasting interests.

Because on one end, it is completely amazing and a bit compelling even, how far we have made it in the world of technology. How much we're able to do is almost scary, but on the other end, we almost forget the beauty of simplicity.

We all love our toys, and honestly they are amazing, we the lighting nerds especially love new toys, but way too often we forget about life without our toys

While writing a paper on technology dependency I realized just now much we need technology to live the way we do. We do need technology only to maintain our life styles, but to live we don't need any. The cave men and Cromagnon managed and got by, obviously, or how could we have evolved from them.

It's so strange to think about how far we've made it in all these different fields, like medicine. 50 years ago, we probably couldn't do around 60% of what we can now.

Also, while writing this Shakespeare script I'm working on I'm reading this packet on how and why they spoke the way they did in the Elizabethan times. Their often flowery and figurative way of speaking because they had nothing like TV and computers to make them rush everywhere, so they sat around and read and and talked to each other and came up with flowery language just to show they could. The more figurative your language the smarter it showed you were.

Now day we are taught to speak in as short and precise sentences as possible because we don't have the time to sit around and talk. Or do we have it and we choose to fill it otherwise? All regular conversations ever are is the exchanging of information, or surreal opinions and gossip. Far too rarely do people sit around and talk about their true feelings, thoughts and GENUINE opinions.

Now, with IM conversations, the world has gotten even more surreal and trivial with the use of so many abbreviations and strings of letters meant to be phrases. (lol, omg, ttyl, gtg, brb) Already we are "too busy" to actually walk to someones house to talk, too lazy to drive, too lazy to pick up the phone off the wall and call them, and far too lazy to reach in our pocket for the cell phone that everyone always caries at all time,. WE INSTANT MESSAGE. I think the name says it all, instant, that what we want in this world isn't it? Instant Gratification. Later isn't good enough, we want it now, we want our STUFF now. Like a screaming four year old we want it now. Everything is about stuff. The modern measurements of success are material goods and objects. It is no longer one's intelligence or happiness, or ability to string together long figurative sentences that measures success in life. Shouldn't happiness be the measurement of how well someone does for what they want to accomplish? Believe it or not, there are still some people out there somewhere that don't live solely to get the biggest house and the fastest car.

Some of the wealthiest people are also some of the must unhappy. Its true, you cant buy happiness.... So I guess we will all have to try to rent it.

Wow, that was a rather long rant.

I guess I'll just step off my soap box right now, but if I step down, who will take my place? No One. We're are all too busy listening to our iPods and text messaging our friends while doing IM and myspace with our other hand to bother to think for ourselves. Many people merely think and agree with what the last posted survey of their best friend said.

We think that we are so smart because we can remember more facts that the person next to us in class. But the real important part is to understand them, not just know them

It seem s as though we've forgotten how important thoughts are. It reminds me of Fahrenheit 451. Everything is so rushed. What are we doing now that is supposedly more important than taking the time to listen to one another? And as we've learned more and advanced more, we've lost so much in value. We keep wanting more, and everything is becoming less personable.

My favorite quote from Fahrenheit 451 is some thing to the effect of: “we have filled everyone with so much information they have no room to think. Every man is proud he can take apart the television set and put it back together and they think that they are the smartest man alive.”

Something that a teacher that I greatly respect once brought up, and I'm elaborating on, is that Hitler could paint very well, yet he was not an artist. He could make an exact painting from a picture very accurately, but he was still not an artist. True art has expression and meaning. This is so like today where many people can learn facts very well that they simply copy from the book to the test. Unfortunately, many people don't take the time to think their own thoughts and discover their own facts, and most importantly many people don't take the time to discover themselves and who they are.

Surrealism is much too common in our society today, I know few people who are themselves around everyone, not just their one or two best friends. If there was a way to measure surrealism it would be growing at an exponential rate. As I walk the halls of my school I see so many girls, and guys too, all trying to be alike. They all try to dress the same, act the same, be in all the same activities, go to all the same parties, and have all the same friends as the most popular girl. One word: mannequinism.

It's true, as we grow up our personality and lives are greatly affected by the people around us, but thats not all we should be. We should be our own person!

I honestly respect the "weird loner" kid that sits in the corner listening music and ignoring the nasty looks of "why don't you fit in" he constantly gets from all the other kids. He isn't afraid to be himself! There are some people I respect for breaking the form of the standard Barbied-up high school kid.

Something people don't do enough is think. Sure people think plenty about the things that don't really matter, what to wear, how to do their hair and what color of eyeshadow to choose. But when it comes to real, genuine thoughts they just don't happen enough, we're all to busy. Commonly they aren't life changing , but instead life defining.

To put your life into perspective we are all just small specks on the side of the third rock orbiting a glowing speck that is the center of a very small part of a galaxy that is one of millions in a universe that may just as well be one of many more. That might help people realize just how trivial what color Polo shirt you wear on one day of the 1.68 trillion days the world has been here. Yes thats 1,680,000,000,000 days.

Over the last hour I have become closer to discovering myself by writing this. The important part was thinking it and then writing it. At all times there are 101 ways to talk to people, IM, Email, Texting, Cell phones, land line phones, and heaven forbid, actually talking to someone face to face.

Just thinking it out caused me to actually begin to get closer to understanding myself. Most of us have never taken the time to think about what we believe and think and what our opinions are. sometimes we say, "I have time to think to myself, see I'm not that surreal kid in articles and books, that's everyone BUT me". Your only trying to fool yourself, I know Ive tried. Truthfully, unless you have deprived, no, withheld yourself from technology, (no TV, no computer, and no phone), your just as surreal as the rest of everyone else. I know that any successful person in this society has not managed to do that. Today's surreal society demands that of us, everyone must be completely connected at all times to everything. "OMG, you haven't checked your myspace yet, I posted it like 20 minutes ago, what wrong with you, do you live under a rock?"

Maybe thats what it would take, living under a rock, figuratively, not literally of course. Don't get me wrong, technology is amazing and makes work much easier, but what is the benefit? More free time! But what do we do with the free time? We all sit in front of our computer and IM people, check our myspace, and surf the web in our own little surreal bubble of safety. What has technology made the jobs of many of todays workforce? Sitting in front of computers, starring at numbers, all day long. The common argument to that is, well, computers make it so much easier to do everything. But with out computers, that much wouldn't be expected of us.

You wouldn't expect an assembly line of 100 Ford workers to make thousands of cars a day, as is now expected of automotive companies. Perhaps cars aren't the best example for a "lack of technology" scenario...

In the past farmers grew enough food for themselves and maybe someone that helped them harvest. Now the comparably small portion of farmers grow enough food for the rest of the nation because they have the technology that makes it so they can single handedly harvest a field that would traditionally takes 30 or more workers. This way the rest of the nation can work in a city and a big tall building on their floor in their little teeny tiny cubicle analyzing numbers, specs, and figures at a computer all day, everyday, for the rest of their lives.