Think back into smoky mists of time (and they were damn smoky - candles and flames everywhere for light and warmth), to an age before the MTV and the hippety-hoppy music, before the talkies and the radio, the silent movie and peep show. Further back, past dozens and dozens of your Great-Grandmothers, to an age of silence. Think of it!
Finally home, to a cold hunk of meat, water, and a book by candlelight. Relaxing, right? But every night (if you're lucky - this guy looks rich), and can you imagine your boredom? No TV, no Net! No iPod to rock the jams. In fact, no noises at all, save the wind through your rickety roof or the rats in your walls. So damn quiet! Check out that table in detail - it's neat.
What would a nerd of this day do? If lucky, a monk or scribe of some sort. Treasurer types perhaps. Otherwise, nerds or not, they probably worked in the fields or some other grueling physical labor that crushed their snarky spirit as well as their bodies. Like most everyone else. Thus perhaps the appeal of the Monastery.
Buddha was a nerd, clearly. Also, did you know he left his wife and kid in the dead of night? Not cool, Siddhartha. He also starved/slept on nails/lived in woods under a tree alone for seven years, which is pretty good penitence I suppose. Very quiet.
Point being, however, for all we have gained - and it's a lot (greater equality, health, longevity, safety, etc) - we have lost an equal amount. Imagine living in a world of silence save for natural sounds, or the sounds you make yourself or with others. Discussion would become a major form of entertainment. Self made music or listening to friends play would be mind blowing.
You had to make your own fun, damnit! And now that we don't, I fear that part of the brain, that part of humanity, fades away to nothing. And we'll all be nerds then, if not already.
7 comments:
Of course you could have the best of both worlds -- the hygiene and safety and know-how and the silence of not being constantly plugged in. But that would take some seriously next-level discipline.
It can be done!
That was not a quiet time it was very loud horses animals blacksmithing Wars soldiers marching through the streets and that person is a reenactment of a Leonardo da Vinci biography since most people foolishly believed he was some kind of Genius inventor they want to keep making these little documentaries about them when he didn't invent anything he didn't build anything to completion because he didn't want to do much of anything. Funny thing is his paintings displayed in the louvers for years as of no import until the Mona Lisa was stolen by an Italian and a French reporter made it his personal mission to pit Italians against French. I think, as a "geek-nerd", the more appropriate question should be, what would the world's be like if Edward Bernay and his proposal that most of humanity being so stupid they are more easily herded than cattle.all one needed to manipulate reality was great pr. Damned if he wasn't right.
Note to self, do not use Dragon for the first time to comment on a Blog.
Let us not forget the greatest Innovations of humanity were achieved in times before technology ever existed before electricity existed. Since then not much of anything new has been accomplished. Maybe some of our best modern-day accomplishments have been the MRI and cell phone technology but let's face it that's not even modern Hedy Lamarr discovered that technology during World War II the government didn't want to admit that a beautiful movie star made radar technology and they refuse to use it imagine if they would have the war that ended 3 years prior she was a true genius. Even the first computer the one used to decrypt the Enigma was recruited by a woman and yet they give the credit to a man and then call him gay and chemically castrate him. Seems to me I'd rather go back to those times when research was revered in credit was given where credit was due.
Let us not forget the greatest Innovations of humanity were achieved in times before technology ever existed before electricity existed. Since then not much of anything new has been accomplished. Maybe some of our best modern-day accomplishments have been the MRI and cell phone technology but let's face it that's not even modern Hedy Lamarr discovered that technology during World War II the government didn't want to admit that a beautiful movie star made radar technology and they refuse to use it imagine if they would have the war that ended 3 years prior she was a true genius. Even the first computer the one used to decrypt the Enigma was recruited by a woman and yet they give the credit to a man and then call him gay and chemically castrate him. Seems to me I'd rather go back to those times when research was revered in credit was given where credit was due.
That was not a quiet time it was very loud horses animals blacksmithing Wars soldiers marching through the streets and that person is a reenactment of a Leonardo da Vinci biography since most people foolishly believed he was some kind of Genius inventor they want to keep making these little documentaries about them when he didn't invent anything he didn't build anything to completion because he didn't want to do much of anything. Funny thing is his paintings displayed in the louvers for years as of no import until the Mona Lisa was stolen by an Italian and a French reporter made it his personal mission to pit Italians against French. I think, as a "geek-nerd", the more appropriate question should be, what would the world's be like if Edward Bernay and his proposal that most of humanity being so stupid they are more easily herded than cattle.all one needed to manipulate reality was great pr. Damned if he wasn't right.
Post a Comment