Appreciation and Surprise in the 21st Century
When stars were a thing of dreams and destiny, there you would find the best version of you and I, perhaps everyone for that matter, but I’ll leave them out for now. Now a days all I am lucky to get is a bunch of bitching and whining when the life is a beautiful one. Still, nothing without the stars and the dreams… and the destinies. Hey, it’s not our fault that the life we lead has failed us miserably, and instead has replaced it’s own self with a cheap, carbon copy with no use for a thought and no drive for a goal that has been seen before a million times all over the intarwebs.
I used to like it when everything was more exciting and I could feel a sense of unknown. A literal definition of something that was truly and uniquely unknown to me. Today? I can’t step two feet without checking my iphone for fb updates, texts, sports updates, directions, reviews, videos… Twitter! Ease of use has defined our society. Don’t you recall a time when you would grab a magazine and find out the latest on something you loved, be it a videogame, movie, album, and get truly excited for it because you did not know any better and you simply had no way of knowing until day of release of said medium?
Sure, one could argue that with the internet and all that is at our fingertips, it rewards us with more knowledge and knowledge is power after all, and we can steer clear of all that is “shit” for all that is “epic”. In doing so, however… you completely lose all elements of surprise, all elements of appreciation. Surprise; Youtube previews, reviews, whatever… anything you are waiting for you can almost make a definitive opinion on simply by using Google and either viewing loads of videos or photos or take in other peoples views and opinions. Appreciation; abundance of supply and demand for an impossibly high quality. Piratebay. Need I say more? Don’t mind if I do, Winnie the Pooh!
Back in the 90’s (yes, I’m either old or not old enough, take your pick) which I believe is the last true decade of surprise and appreciation, every game, album, movie, toy, car, food, person, whatever YOU were wanting badly, you had to get by with ads on tv, magazines, newspapers, or ok… the internet in it’s earlier stages had some information obviously, these were the only means of getting your fix before the release. Also, you were limited to that of your bank account or allowance, what have you. What you bought you had to stick by because you were fucked if it was a piece of shit. But, it didn’t phase you too much, because you would hype yourself up so much for shit that you would like it even if looking back on it today you could point out various flaws. It didn’t matter, it felt better, you listened to that one album start to finish a hundred times over. You played that piece of shit flawed game till you finally beat it perfectly and perfected it even though it was a steaming pile.
Today? Appreciation and surprise are not so relevant or as important. What is your music library sitting at today? Oh, well I have 34,000 MP3’s, as well as over 4 TB’s of movies, music, games, etc. Wow! The new internet-everything is fucking free-age is amazing! No, truly… it is! For the most part, it is!! Let’s review, I can make a huge playlist of all my favorite songs of all fucking time, which I have. That’s so awesome, and then I put said playlist on my fucking iPhone and rock out in my truck or at the gym to all the songs I grew up with up until my faves of today. AWESOME! Oh, and did I mention free HD quality movies? HELL YEAH!
Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge pirate and supporter of all that is piracy, buttttttttttttttttttt….. there comes a time when one gets a new album from an acclaimed favorite artist of all time territory and might only listen to it for one week max, start to finish. Then, quickly move onto to the next thing that peaks ones fading interest, since you just downloaded probably 3-6 more albums that week anyways. Abundant supply of really good music, for example, does not make you appreciate the stuff you would have many years ago more so had you been without most of the other stuff surrounding it. I cannot make it any more simple than that. Really. I know I cannot be the only one who goes through this. Geez, and then we have the audacity to crave for more and better, like something wasn’t good enough, when really… it’s our superiority complex of this new century that has turned us from wanting to jump up and down in the beautiful blue skies and green grass and kick life around all day to ultra elitists on all things and completely devoid of passion and merit to be able to APPRECIATE and be SURPRISED by something that probably, more than likely is really special.
Yet we continue on. We prosper in our difficult ways. We look down at our hands as we type on our laptops and smartphones while listening to “Omobolasire by Prozzak” (I could be the only one, though…) and update our fb statuses saying how much something sucked and how much we can’t wait for this and that while providing links with information that completely rapes every sense of appreciation and surprise.
What I will do is this…
Back when everything was true and the world seemed more unknown yet also brighter, this video (and song, obvs) fucking moved me! It shook my very foundation as I recorded it on to a VHS tape and would watch it all… the… time. Think about that, think about the process of how I could listen to this song, and how much more it meant to me because I went through all the effort and in turn, it delivered and it delivered on all epic fronts. With everything being so fucking easy and at our fingertips, it’s not hard to get lost in a huge black hole of what was a past, what is the present, and what will never be the future… and it is on this path that one must come to terms with the single fact that not only are you lost, but you will never be found because you do not wish to be found in this day and age. This is… the 21st centuries suicide. We live on, yet are content with simply being truly dead.
Meow. Whip Whip!
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