Modern Technology and Us

When was the last time that you wrote a letter? Not an email, not a text, not an IM. 

A letter. 

I get emails on a daily bases, texts on an hourly basis, and have instantaneous IM conversations throughout the day. I don’t see these people though. I’m communicating with them, staying informed, but I don’t see them. It’s personal and impersonal all at the same time. 

Think about how you feel when you get an email. If you’re like me it’s just a little notification that pops up when I get an email. I don’t have a feeling of “Yay an email!” or any other form of excitement. It’s just an email after all. Same thing for texts or IMs. 

There’s no sense of it being special. 

Now think about the last time you got a letter from someone you care about. Your name is handwritten (usually) across the envelope and you can feel the thickness of the paper within. You can almost feel how important you are to the sender just from the amount of paper that’s within. You know that person took the time to sit down and write out their thoughts to you. 

Physical letters have become something special, because we now have to “take the effort” to actually handwrite something. I’m much faster at typing something than I am at handwriting the same thing. It’s just something I spend more time doing, so handwriting something really is more “special” than just typing. 

Now it’s a bit ironic that I’m talking about not using technology to communicate on a blog, which is a large technologically based communication tool. I’m not against using technology for it’s intended purposes. Facebook has kept me in touch with people I never thought I’d be talking to all across the world. Texting has been a great way for me to communicate with friends, and IMs are a convenient way to “talk” to people wherever they are. I just have to make sure that I’m not just relying entirely on those technologies to communicate. It can be horribly impersonal to just communicate through technology. 

So I’d like to issue a challenge everyone who reads this blog. Go write a letter. Doesn’t matter who the letter’s to, but write the letter and mail it. 

I’ll bet that the person who receives the letter will feel like they’re way more special to you than if you were just to email it to them. 

Music and the Musician's Life

Yet again I seem to be writing a blog post while being slightly intoxicated...perhaps this is just the norm for me now. 

This post is about a few things, but mainly about music. I’d like to think that I’m a somewhat accomplished musician, and I’ve worked hard at getting to the level that I’m at currently.

I’ve played countless shows, ranging from solo performances, to small ensembles, to full on orchestral masterpieces, and each one has their own little bit of wonder and magic to them. That being said there are still a select few performances that stick out in my mind as ones that I truly feel changed me as a performer. 

Tonight was one of those times. 

It’s tough saying goodbye to someone who has become such a regular part of your day to day life, and it’s only right that you should celebrate all you’ve had once they start to leave it. It was during this celebration that my good friend inadvertently gave me one of the best gifts they ever could. 

They gave me the gift of music all over again. 

I’ve been done with my music degree for about a year now, and I’ll admit I was a bit burnt out. Playing this show reminded me why I love being a musician. It’s not about the scales, the notes, or even the musicians on the stage. Music is about reinvigorating life. 

Playing this show tonight reignigted my love for my instrument. It reignited my desire to perform. It reignited my love for music. I’d become so tired of the endless work with so little payoff. I’d become so tired of the endless politics I had to play beyond just my audition. 

Tonight was just the opposite. Tonight was spontaneous. Tonight was music for the sake of music. Tonight was a celebration. 

I think that’s one of the most important things that a young musician has to realize. You can’t get too caught up in ever little thing that is going on. You have to once and a while take a step back and realize why you’re doing this. You have to remember why you loved playing your instrument (or singing for that matter) in the first place. 

Music is nothing without those with passion for it, and the passion to pass it on to others. So I just want to thank you to all those who have inspired that passion in me and many others. What you do is more valuable then you will ever realize. 

Siblings

I just recently got older. 

Yes I know each day, minute, second, I’m getting older, but I just hit the marker where I now say I’m actually a year older. For those of you who know me (which I’m assuming is pretty much everyone who reads this), you know I have a younger brother. We never went to the same school (he was in private schools I in public), and we (like most male siblings) would argue and fight a lot of the time when we were younger. 

After I’d been off at college for a while and came home for a break, we were talking and he said to me “Since you’ve gone to college you’ve become a lot cooler and easier to talk to”. I kind of shrugged this off at the time, but now that he’s in college too I see what he meant. 

When we were younger I would always tease him. I would always be irritated with the things that he did. Sibling rivalry was very much present. To this day I still call him “short man” or “little man” even though he’s now my height. Here’s the thing though, I think that for brothers (I can’t speak to sisters), the teasing and the like is just how we deal with our younger counterparts. 

There hasn’t been a single moment in my life that my brother’s been present for that I wouldn’t have gone after anyone who hurt or made fun of him. I’m not a violent person, but that’s just how I felt (and still feel) about him. 

He’s my younger brother.

He’s someone who I can’t imagine not having been a part of my life. He’s amazingly intelligent, caring, and is so like me in so many ways (thank you genetics). 

I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly told him that I would do anything for him, but somehow I think he knows. 

I’m sure he’ll read this posting. I’m sure at some point or another I’ll be made fun of by him (or possibly one of his friends who may also read this), but I think it’s something that has to be put out there. 

He’s my brother. He’s going to be around for all the things I go through in the future, and I for him. It’s just how life goes. 

Nothing can change the fact that he’s my little brother. 

Dating/Relationships

Disclaimer: While this is a posting about dating it will not be a whiny “my life sucks because I’m single” kind of deal. It’s not going to be a look back on things that have failed. It’s just going to be a set of observations. 

First dates suck. It’s like an audition to see if the person is going to be the right fit for you. Having done enough music auditions, I know exactly how it feels to feel like you’re on display, having every bit of yourself being quickly analyzed by someone else. The main difference between a music audition and a first date (besides one being for a job and the other for a potential relationship), is that for a music audition you know exactly what to expect in terms of the things you’ll have to “perform”. First dates are all improvisation. 

You never know what the next topic is going to be when you’re on a date. You don’t know if the other person is going to like what you’re saying, how awkward it’s going to feel (and let’s be honest a lot of first dates are amazingly awkward), or how well the other person is going to open up to you. 

If you do happen to make it past the first date, then comes the period of time where you’re “dating” someone, but not “in a relationship”. This period of time has always felt like a bit of a grey area. The best comparison I can come up with is that it’s like an extended test drive of a car. You take it for a spin, try it out for a while, and then decide if it’s actually what you want or not. If you’re lucky, you’ve found someone that you actually want to start something serious with. If you’re not, you go back to the drawing board and try again later.

An actual relationship is a whole other thing in and of itself. It has different “rules”, different expectations, and different outcomes than just dating. It’s a step up in many different ways from dating. You end up putting more into it, and in return you get more out of it. Along with that though is the fact that if things end when you’re just dating, it isn’t nearly as bad as when things end after a relationship. By putting more in, you stand to lose more in the end, but at the same time you could gain a whole lot more if it all works out.

In the end relationships are tricky. There’s no set way to approach them, there’s no set way to start one. Most of the time you just luck into it, and then you work your hardest to keep it going. The thing is, when it’s right you never feel like it’s work. You never feel like you’re having to do anything particularly special for that other person. You just do what feels right with them and it works out. So when you do find that person, enjoy every moment of it, because you truly are lucky.

The Sequel That Wouldn't Die

How many Call of Duty games will we see before the franchise folds? How many different Halo games can there be? Even referring back to an earlier post (therssfeeds.blogspot.com/2011/02/who-can-catch-em-all-anymore-theres-too.html), the Pokémon franchise just refuses to quit. 

I get that there are certain franchises that have a story to tell and can’t fit it all into one game. I also get that the company executives want to get the most money they can out of something that is a proven success. It’s good business for them to do so and they’d be dumb not to, but sometimes enough is enough. You can only take an idea so far before it just becomes...old hat. 

You can’t sell the same thing with just minor improvements or changes either. Oh look you now have two wrist blades in Assassin's Creed 2 instead of just one. Look we added a new texture to this map, we can totally resell it as new now! That just doesn’t cut it, and yet it still happens. 

This holds true for anything artistic though. If we look at the movie industry they fall prey to the same problems. There are so many times that a movie series just needs to be ended. The Fast and the Furious movies, the Land Before Time series (of which there are thirteen movies and one TV series), or the Friday the 13th franchise which has twelve now, are all movie series that have just been milked for all they’re worth. They’re not even quality movies anymore. The Land Before Time was an iconic movie of my childhood (the original being released in 1988) and to think that there are now twelve other movies under that umbrella is just depressing. 

Stagnation kills when it comes to the creative field of work. If you look at some of the bands that have been around for a long time, you’ll notice an evolution in their sound. This comes from both the maturing of the artists as they age, as well as the changes in tastes of the majority of the listening base. 

If you don’t evolve as a franchise you’ll get looked over and eventually left in the dust. The worst thing that can happen to you is for people to think “Oh, I’ve already experienced the previous iterations of this...I don’t need to get/see the new one”.

It does take a certain amount of guts to abandon a system that was a proven way to make money and just say “We’re going to change pretty much everything”. To me the best example of a company doing just that was the Mass Effect series. Between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 the development team listened to many of the things that the fanbase was saying and did a major overhaul of the interface of the game. They changed some of the combat, streamlined the use of extra things, and just built on the successes they’d had in the first game. It’s great to see that there’s a company out there who really does take into consideration what the fans are saying. 

In doing so they created a game that was not only a sequel, but something that felt like a totally fresh game that just continued the storyline from its predecessor. 

Snow Day

I used to live for snow days when I was a kid. I would do all the superstitious things, like wearing your pajamas inside out, in order to make that blessed event come true. Sadly it didn’t happen very often, but when it did, it was glorious. A snow day was like a sick day, but instead of being cooped up by the house you had the freedom to go outside.

Logically, if it’s a snow day there must be copious amounts of snow on the ground. This makes for fantastic childhood fun. I would go out with my friends and build snow forts, have snowball fights, go sledding, or just act like a general goof. After we’d finished doing that we’d go inside, enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate, and then sit down to play some video games. 

With today’s youth though, it seems they skip right to that last part. After sleeping in they sit down in front of their large screen TV and just play video games all day. They don’t have their friends over to play, they just are there by themselves in front of the screen. Sure they have the in game audio chatting, but that doesn’t have the same effect as actually having your friend right next to you, looking at your screen to figure out where you are (GoldenEye was one of the best games ever).

Even during the summer it seems like kids don’t want to go outside and play like they used to. I remember going swimming almost every day during the summer at one of the community pools in my town. If I wasn’t doing that I was outside playing with my best friend until well after dark, just running around and exploring the world. Sure I’d stay in and watch TV sometimes, but more often then not we were just out playing. 

I don’t see that as much anymore. Maybe it’s now where I live (going from the suburban to more urban setting), maybe I just don’t notice those things anymore, or maybe it really is that change from the outdoor explorers to that of XBOX Live talkers. 

That’s not to say that I haven’t changed as well. I find myself on my computer a lot more and enjoying the things outside a lot less. I play video games more often then I go for a walk in the park, I sit listening to music more often then I go for a bike ride, and I haven’t been swimming on a regular basis in a few years. 

Technology is an amazing thing. It’s provided people with an amazing resource in terms of being able to keep in touch with people across the world (hello readers in Brazil, England, Bulgaria, Canada). It’s provided amazing medical innovations. It’s made the world better in many many different ways. 

Let’s just make sure that we still take the time to take our eyes off the computer screen or TV and go outside. Let’s show the kids of the next generation how it’s done.

Object Permanence and Self Awareness

Somewhere between 8 and 12 months after being born, human babies usually gain the understanding of something called “Object Permanence”. The idea behind this is that, before this stage of development if an object is taken out of the field of view of a baby, that object would cease to exist.

Being slightly older than 8 months, I feel it’s safe to say that all the people I know have the concept of “Object Permanence” down. I know that my keys still exist, even if I can’t find them right away. Something I find myself thinking about sometimes though is not just objects, but people. Sure I know that they still exist when I’m not around them, but it’s interesting to actually think about how they are perceiving the world. They’re off doing their own thing, having their own experiences throughout the day, and probably aren’t giving a second thought to what it is that others are doing. 

We know that everyone is experiencing the world in mostly the same way as everyone else, but when you apply that thought to people who are “larger than life” (celebrities, famous company owners, politicians), it’s refreshing to have that commonality. It’s also interesting to think about how even the people you interact with daily perceive things. 

When I was younger, I would think about how people perceive the world, and what was common/uncommon in different people’s day to day lives. When I thought about the perception of people, it led me to some strange things. For instance, to me John is a normal fixture in my day, but to John I’m a normal part of his day. I’m used to seeing John walk about, talk to people, interact with objects and the like. You don’t see yourself for most of the day though, and while you may be doing many of the same things, I found that I wasn’t thinking of myself like that. 

This lead me to start thinking more and more about how my everyday actions were being viewed by other people. How my face was a common thing for people to see on a day to day basis. Basically thinking about what I was doing during the day, but trying to truly make it from a third person point of view. A few times while I was doing this, particularly on long rides on buses, I really started to be able to view myself in this way. 

In retrospect I realized I was having minor out of body experiences. It’s been years though since that has happened, and I couldn’t replicate it to save my life. I just remember closing my eyes and really being able to see myself and how I could be viewed by other people. There were no big religious revelations, there were no moments of depression or euphoria, just a sense of awareness of what was going on around me. 

I’m not sure that it’s not something I didn’t just imagine, or if it was just a dream (it’s very possible it was), but those few times it happened are intriguing to say the least. The things I took away from it I feel are still very important. Know that everyone sees you the same way that you see them, but at the same time they don’t see everything you do the same way you see those actions. Also remember that even if the person is rich, poor, famous, unknown, normal, or just a tad on the crazy side, that they experience life the exact same way you do.

Unless they’re on drugs. But that’s a whole other ballgame.

Blogger Disclaimer: Blog written at 4AM after inability to fall asleep. Blog may not make sense.