Ah, I wonder if anyone can relate to this sickening feeling of being in the Western 21st century.

 

We're stuck in a mass-producing society that hates the workplace as it has a lack of job satisfaction and then of course we're left with 8 hours of free time every night in which we're dumbed down and forced into watching 7 hours of television and then maybe having some fast food. The only release is chasing dreams that only a tiny percental of us even stand a chance of achieving.

 

There's just, something wrong, it's in the air, and yet, it doesnt feel like anythings going to change. I'm anxious and frustrated, and I believe Im not the only one.

 

The problem with rebelling against a faceless problem is; where to start.

 

What is this problem? Why does everything seem so shit? Shouldnt all the amazing changes in technology in the past 5 years mean that things should feel easier?

 

The problem, for me, is that everything is too easy.

 

50 years ago if you wanted to hear your favourite artists new album you'd have to get a bus into the town to look for the best price for a vinyl and then get a bus back home so you can appreciate it.

 

Now, you can download it in seconds, in fact you can download it 50,000 times because in the past 5 years our computers (And Ipods) have gone from holding a sufficient amount of music, to being capable of holding every song, ever. Sounds like a beautiful dream, doesnt it?

 

That is just one example. But it's in everything.

 

All of the tasks we used to go through that seemed like labour have been cut out of our lives and what we're left with is, a hell of a lot of time.

 

At this moment of time I have 600 television channels and there are ways and means of watching any program that they show at any time, at the push of a button. I have the internet which of course has unlimited choices of information I can recieve or ways that I can interact (And christ, dont even get me started on how absolutely perverted and lifethreatening Bebo and Myspace are). I have a mobile phone full of people that I have absolutely nothing to say to right now. It's all beginning to feel, a bit much, in the way that everything is moving so god damn fast that I sometimes fail to catch my breath at the thought of it.

 

Everything we do is controlled and monitored either by someone else or even by ourselves, yknow, to cut out those 'mistakes' in life that we and our children are beginning to learn, there is simply no more time for.

 

If you work you do it well, you show up on time because your sat nav is showing you the way or warning you of the time you need to take into account because of traffic. If you work in a factory, god help you, because efficiency is no longer monitored by the hour or minute but by the second, and if you arent achieving the company's goals by the second then you may be forced to work harder or risk falling below that dreaded failure curve of 15% and hope you get out before the end of the business quarter-year.

 

I'm sick of it. The worst part is not even being sure what I'm sick of, its not like this is the holocaust or the plague, its a much more slower disease then that. Is it as horrible? Well, obviously not, lets not go crazy here. But if it continues like this, someday, who knows. Quality of life is shit right now.

 

Where's the relief? Any social activities that release us?

 

Yes, lots. I could take the dog for 2 walks a day, I could cook my own meals 3 times a day, I could read more. While its healthy, its still not very social.

 

Perhaps the only social activity I can think of that actually involves time wasting is going to a restaurant. Of course, once you've ordered your meal a team of people are working their hardest and fastest to ensure you eat it and get out so that more people can come in and spend their money in your seats. But the 10 or so minutes you spend deciding what to order is all your's, congratulations.

 

But what will happen to that in a decade? Well, the amount of people choosing to eat at McDonalds or something greatly outnumbers those who take the time of going to a restaurant. The world is becoming like the fast food industry.

 

Here's a CD and book that in some ways sum up my anxiety;

 

CD- Arcade Fire; 'Neon Bible'

 

Sooo many references in this CD. Most notably, 'Anti-christ television blues'. You can download it from Apple convienantly at a low low cost.

 

Book- George Ritzer; 'The McDonaldization of Society'.

 

This is great, intended for sociologists but thats bull, it's for everyone to enjoy. Chapter 6 on 'human and nonhuman' robots is available on Google Books.

 

Oh the irony.

 

Somebody please read some of this and try and make me stir with how wrong I am, because I have to be in some ways.

 

Is anyone else feeling this vibe?

I have the internet which of course has unlimited choices of information I can recieve or ways that I can interact (And christ, dont even get me started on how absolutely perverted and lifethreatening Bebo and Myspace are). I have a mobile phone full of people that I have absolutely nothing to say to right now. It's all beginning to feel, a bit much, in the way that everything is moving so god damn fast that I sometimes fail to catch my breath at the thought of it.

 

 

you know, i agree with a lot of what you've written but never really full-heartedly. maybe because everything is going right in my life that i don't notice a lot of crap happening in the world, that and in the past i've reflected on the status of the world and thought completely helpless it wasn't funny, so in a large way i chose to acknowledge everything but move on before my brain turns to marshmellow and i start thinking impossible ways to fix this place. i can't change the world but i can change myself and now and then, do something good for others that give me complete satisfaction but without them knowing, and hopefully others are doing the same for me.

 

you've got a lot on your mind, and after reading that so do i but i struggle to write it all down in a way you'd all understand without thinking "what is this girl on about?" but this bit i had no problem completely understanding. i've felt that way many times. life is just zipping by and i know i'm living it but when i do find time to look back i have no clue as to how i got here and so quickly too. distance doesn't have to be living in different countries as it was a few years ago when a friend would move overseas and you'd wonder how on earth you'd keep in touch . internet sounded like an amazing thing, but think we're on the other side of the bell curve now with friends just a few houses away now, and the accepted way of "getting together" or seeing each other is in chat or myspace comments where people mainly give to recieve one in return.

 

that was random but hm, i don't know. i hate feeling helpless and unfortunate when i think about life today it makes me wanna turn everything upside down, who knows we could be better off, maybe not, but something has to change and i know i'm not the first or the last to see it, all it takes is a good look around, preferably actually going out and not opening google earth, or some website yeah.

 

interesting post.

Is anyone else feeling this vibe?

 

Totally feeling it. And agree with most of what you said... personally, I blame the industrial revolution, and whoever the lunatics are who are so hell-bent on this (imho FAKE) idea of "progress". It's the reason I do still take the bus downtown to buy cds and vinyl when I can (unfortunatly the best store for vinyl shut down due to lack of customers thanks to itunes and the like, though). It's also the reason that I like to write things out in cursive with a fountain pen... sometimes it seems like I'm the only one in class without a laptop.

 

I have some thoughts... I'll say more when they have been organised.

 

But for me, you know what the best cure is? There's a bike path near my house... a long one. It meanders alongside a river, through woods, past lakes and marshes I didn't even know I lived near being trapped in suburbia as I am. Suburbia has a funny way of making you think that there isn't anything but the endlessness of it, so I was shocked the first time I found out how much cool stuff was right there just 5 minutes away by bike.

 

When the weather gets a bit warmer and the ground dries out enough, I'm going to get my bike out, tune it up, and go for a ride. I may spend 20 minutes on it, but I could very well be out for a couple of hours. I'll turn the cell off so I only have it incase I get a flat or something, and I will effectivly be unreachable for that time. Every moment will be my own. It'll be hard work getting as far as I want to go on that first ride, but if I do, I'll feel better afterwards from all the exercise, and there will be some of the most incredible views to stop at and just enjoy on my own time along the way. No limitations except the sunset and how far my legs can take me.

 

Endorphins have to be the single best cure for that sort of feeling, and just getting outside takes away everything that's wrong with the gym. And that's how I survive in this crazy messed up world.

you know, i agree with a lot of what you've written but never really full-heartedly. maybe because everything is going right in my life that i don't notice a lot of crap happening in the world, that and in the past i've reflected on the status of the world and thought completely helpless it wasn't funny, so in a large way i chose to acknowledge everything but move on before my brain turns to marshmellow and i start thinking impossible ways to fix this place. i can't change the world but i can change myself and now and then, do something good for others that give me complete satisfaction but without them knowing, and hopefully others are doing the same for me.

 

you've got a lot on your mind, and after reading that so do i but i struggle to write it all down in a way you'd all understand without thinking "what is this girl on about?" but this bit i had no problem completely understanding. i've felt that way many times. life is just zipping by and i know i'm living it but when i do find time to look back i have no clue as to how i got here and so quickly too. distance doesn't have to be living in different countries as it was a few years ago when a friend would move overseas and you'd wonder how on earth you'd keep in touch . internet sounded like an amazing thing, but think we're on the other side of the bell curve now with friends just a few houses away now, and the accepted way of "getting together" or seeing each other is in chat or myspace comments where people mainly give to recieve one in return.

 

that was random but hm, i don't know. i hate feeling helpless and unfortunate when i think about life today it makes me wanna turn everything upside down, who knows we could be better off, maybe not, but something has to change and i know i'm not the first or the last to see it, all it takes is a good look around, preferably actually going out and not opening google earth, or some website yeah.

 

interesting post.

 

You focussed on a part of my post that is probably least relevant to the point I was making, but the reason I mentioned it is because I love talking about how fucked up these myspace sites really are. So thanks for bringing it up! Here we go...

 

I dont think they've really taken effect on our generation, but for kids growing into it (Like my 13 year old cousin) and soon they'll be experiencing it even before the end of childhood, its going to be a mental illness.

 

Like you said, people give comments just so they can recieve, and have another of the thousands of comments on their page, and maybe gain another friend to add to the hundreds. Why do they really need have this meaningless babble?

 

They want to feel like celebrities. They want to feel really important. They absolutely adore logging into a page, seeing their face, lots of information about them (Which some people even present in a way as if they havent written it themselves- sad) and lots of people saying lots of things about them or directly to them in hope of a reply (Seeing people wanting to reply to your messages is the sickest of modern day fetish).

 

In their free time they can look back on the past comments, its pretty frightening how just about everything that happens to us is being chronicled on file on some persons myspace page.

 

As far as escaping by reverting to nature (Or at least, getting out and looking around) I just dont know if it could solve much. I'll go on with this in replying to Erin...

 

Totally feeling it. And agree with most of what you said... personally, I blame the industrial revolution, and whoever the lunatics are who are so hell-bent on this (imho FAKE) idea of "progress". It's the reason I do still take the bus downtown to buy cds and vinyl when I can (unfortunatly the best store for vinyl shut down due to lack of customers thanks to itunes and the like, though). It's also the reason that I like to write things out in cursive with a fountain pen... sometimes it seems like I'm the only one in class without a laptop.

 

I have some thoughts... I'll say more when they have been organised.

 

But for me, you know what the best cure is? There's a bike path near my house... a long one. It meanders alongside a river, through woods, past lakes and marshes I didn't even know I lived near being trapped in suburbia as I am. Suburbia has a funny way of making you think that there isn't anything but the endlessness of it, so I was shocked the first time I found out how much cool stuff was right there just 5 minutes away by bike.

 

When the weather gets a bit warmer and the ground dries out enough, I'm going to get my bike out, tune it up, and go for a ride. I may spend 20 minutes on it, but I could very well be out for a couple of hours. I'll turn the cell off so I only have it incase I get a flat or something, and I will effectivly be unreachable for that time. Every moment will be my own. It'll be hard work getting as far as I want to go on that first ride, but if I do, I'll feel better afterwards from all the exercise, and there will be some of the most incredible views to stop at and just enjoy on my own time along the way. No limitations except the sunset and how far my legs can take me.

 

Endorphins have to be the single best cure for that sort of feeling, and just getting outside takes away everything that's wrong with the gym. And that's how I survive in this crazy messed up world.

 

Interesting thing about me, well, sortof, Im a student living in a city, as well as a son living in the country. My year is split between both at the moment, and Im not really sure that suburbia is an escape for those who live constantly within it.

 

We are being turned into restless human beings that cannot stay fixed on any one single idea of how their life should be. Either we're frustrated by the harshness, anonymity and buzz of city life, or we're sitting in the house in the country where nothing is moving and nothing is happening and it feels like there is no place for you to go and there never will be.

 

I dont just view it like this because I'm depressed. For the first week or so when I go back home to Ireland, I love it, for the first week that Im back in Newcastle I also love it, and by the 3rd week things are running dry and its back to the drag of normal living.

 

We're restless consumers, literally but more importantly, mentally. We're the generation of dreamers that absorb everything we see in films, music or whathaveya, and we dream of being a part of it, which of course we cant. Popular culture is not only more important then ever, its more important then everything. Its a sickening mentality.

 

If you can enjoy nature, writing with actual pens or buying actual CD's, then I envy you, because like most people, I simply cant. The truth is, as much as I hate it, I'm lazy and my natural instinct is to cling to these pathetically superficial desires if I can.

 

When I try doing something like mentioned in the last paragraph, I usually end up feeling like I'm fooling myself into trying to feel good about myself, but its not helping.

 

This whole topic isnt about me feeling good, I'm genuinely anxious of how everyones life is going to be fulfilling with the current state of how we're being grown into adults. It's basically 16-22 years of fluffing about without any real values or morals, just indulgence, and then comes to cold bucket of water being slashed into your face as you wake into reality and realise that this life is not a joke, its very, very difficult.

as their wasn't much i totally agreed with, i emphasised the issue in your post that i did agee with which was the myspace craze. everything else had got me thinking and it would've been impossible to explain them systematically at the time and i wasn't going to post anything unless i could expain it, so let's give it a go:

 

whether you were talking about your own life or life in general, it is because i don't do a lot of the negative things you mentioned [constantly watching tv, glued to the net, downloading music, forever ordering take-out] that it's hard to see the world with such a dark perspective, or to completely relate but don't think i am oblivious to where you're coming from. i remember something similar maybe you or someone else posted a few months ago, and at the time i felt exactly the same way. as time passed things changed not so much the world but my world, and i no longer feel that way.

 

a few years ago i learned of this philosopher who was talking about happiness etc, and one of the key things is staying connected. i mention this as a lot of your post make me think of time and disconnectedness. we are no doubt living in an advancing technological world which speeds most aspects of life leaving extra time for x but all that time goes nowhere close to x, we spend it on other meaningless stuff which is never done, so we're constantly looking for time we continue to waste. it's a vicious cycle. as for staying connected, going back to the theory, it's all about connection to others that makes us happy, and not in the myspace, hi5, etc way, having friends and making that connection minus the barriers of monitors and phones. it comes from the solution that is now the problem.

like Erin said about not owning a laptop and writing etc, those things count for so much yet we have the mentality that tells us it takes too long. why, all of a sudden, has speed become the number one priority to success and happiness? where is this golden rule written and how has so many of us become slaves to the clock...

 

[battery running low....] for some reason i still feel i haven't explained that properly, just one of those topics.

My main concern is what people are becoming, I wish there was a word to describe the level of disgust I feel looking at the people surrounding me. I'm sure its not the people I surround myself with, I think its just everyones amounting too. I hope that makes sense...:laugh4:

 

What I am trying to say is, that I am frustrated with people who I thought were deeper, and not the shallow twats that most people are. It feels like everyone I know is the same person. Everyday has become so redundant, and wasteful it seems.

 

Maybe its because of our generation, and all the new faster technologies, maybe its not. I don't really know, but I don't ever feel like answering the phone anymore.

 

" I'm sick of feeling my soul

And people who'll never know

Just how purposeless and empty they've grown

Because the language confuses like computers refuse to understand how I'm feeling today"

 

I hope this rant wasn't too un-understandable..

It's funny how you talked about work efficiency by technology makes people have more time to do...nothing. But that is because somewhere along the lines, intentions were changed.

 

Back when people were still plowing their lands, square foot - by square foot... machines begin to come out to alleviate the hardships. These machines were made and put in use by all kinds of farmers and agriculture producers of all incomes in hopes of letting even the poorest of farmers to produce more, therefore feed more of their ragamuffin children.

 

Because working fields was less time consuming and less dangerous to health, along the years ... people began to live longer. Less strain, less stress. Slowly, they begin to love it.

 

But then greed stepped in and it was all for more money, more produce, faster and more efficient. Mass production made for more money more everything.

 

Then, very social service had to be closer to home, that meant more building and less tress. Basically, consumption of natural lands.

 

But see, it didn't START with greed. Greed grows and opens eyes to the want of MORE and FASTER and HIGHER.

 

 

And things like cell phones and emails didn't start with intentions of people wanting to become sexual predators. No way. It started with a healthy way to communicate with family members across the land because traveling on a jumbo jet is too expensive and far too tedious. Why not travel/communicate with the click of a few keys?

 

Greed comes in and people see that these mediums provide a way to take advantage of uninformed people.

 

I really think it's people that have changed WITH technology. Not that technology MAKES people change. I mean, yeah. It's there, hey use it. But in what way?

 

Myspace could be there and I could either use it to hold on to dear friends who refuse any other communication method but emails and pm's OR I could search for hot teens 13 through 18 so that I can meet up with them under pretentious lies with hopes of getting her alone for a rape session (as has been shown on the news)

 

PEOPLE MAKE THOSE CHOICES.

 

If you feel like life is buzzing too fast, and you have no ambitions and nothing to look forward to, Or no common to make it seem normal... then the problem is within yourself... not the things consuming you.

 

I do agree with parts of what was written in your thoughts. But others just made me say: Poor guy. What is his life?

 

C.

We're stuck in a mass-producing society that hates the workplace as it has a lack of job satisfaction and then of course we're left with 8 hours of free time every night in which we're dumbed down and forced into watching 7 hours of television and then maybe having some fast food. The only release is chasing dreams that only a tiny percental of us even stand a chance of achieving.

 

Although isn't what you were talking about, I'll just say...

I didn't truly realise how fucked up the world is until I went out and got a job. It's the "may I please examine any external bags you may have?" instead of the "can I just take a look in your bag there?", the "hello, how are you today?" as opposed to the "hi how're you going?". When did the world get so fucking formal, so cold, so commercial, so money hungry?

 

 

As a cashier at a supermarket you see all types of people, everybody needs to do the groceries and to be honest, half the people I see there almost kill any hope for the future I may have. They are the type that are standing there, beating their children, swearing at them for the world to see, I just stand there thinking "why the hell didn't you use a contraceptive?"

 

 

I hate the world right now. I wish I could stay as innocent and naive I used to be.

^I don't quite understand your post. You say when the world got so formal and then on your next sentence you talk about people beating and swearing at their children.

 

Anyway, the reason you feel that way is because you have nothing that has meaning to you. That's what you gotta find.........

Is anyone else feeling this vibe?

no

 

And things like cell phones and emails didn't start with intentions of people wanting to become sexual predators. No way. It started with a healthy way to communicate with family members across the land because traveling on a jumbo jet is too expensive and far too tedious. Why not travel/communicate with the click of a few keys?

 

Greed comes in and people see that these mediums provide a way to take advantage of uninformed people.

 

I really think it's people that have changed WITH technology. Not that technology MAKES people change. I mean, yeah. It's there, hey use it. But in what way?

 

Myspace could be there and I could either use it to hold on to dear friends who refuse any other communication method but emails and pm's OR I could search for hot teens 13 through 18 so that I can meet up with them under pretentious lies with hopes of getting her alone for a rape session (as has been shown on the news)

 

PEOPLE MAKE THOSE CHOICES.

 

 

 

C.

I'll try not to ramble too much

 

I couldn't agree more. People do change with technology, and they do have a choice, or at least they did a few years ago. I think it's a part of evolution, y'know people say someday humans will be born without appendixes, well, kids are born with technology being shoved up their asses and they don't know anything different from it.

Take cell phones, for example. 10 years ago they were these huge bricks, expensive and out of range for most people, it was only used to work. I got mine when I was fifteen and it was supposedly for my mom to know where I was (safety matters only). Then I started using it to communicate with friends, to talk about the stupidest things without having to pick up the phone.

Now you see 10 year olds asking for not just a cell, but one with an mp3 player, camera, internet and others.

 

This isn't only about technology but it's the easiest example.

 

We're getting tangled in this web we can't get out of. I just can't stop downloading music, talking to friends on MSN and all those things reilly mentioned on the first post, but unlike most people, I reckon it. I'd love to do something about it, I need to do something about it because it makes me feel good about myself, but it's a hard thing to fight against.

 

Hope it made sense.