Tuesday 31 December 2019

Aged Like Fine Whine

This post is created in a weather of chattering keys and teeth. There is a shiver passing through fingers and the mind of every individual who happens to be alive on the fleeting rock hurtling through space as it distances itself from the warmth of random luck and veers closer to the surrounding void of ineluctable darkness.

On the other hand, Netflix is rolling out lots of great content so that is something to look forward to!

The year brought out something which I see reflecting not only around me but in the very fabric of the culture surrounding us and unsurprisingly it took the viewing of South Park to make me realize the sheer obviousness of it. This narrative isn't just limited to the kind of funk I feel at times but it happens to be the core root of most of the things going topsy-turvy nowadays.
"Nostalgia".

Image result for memberberries

In a story arc lasting several episodes a character states "It may seem fun to go back and recycle the past we loved, but we end up with no sustenance". While this wasn't the end of the arc it was definitely the climax which just echoed too strongly with me.

Isn't that the entire discourse around us? The call to a better time, the invoking of cultural influences of the past in the present day. Leveraging advancements and technology to not bring out something new but to recreate what has already been made. And you can see the appeal from the creator's perspective. I mean instead of having the burden of content and delivery they are kind of free from the expectation of content. Interpretation and delivery is all that they have to focus on and the much bigger aspect of creation relies purely on the past free from the terror of new development.

But who is really guilty of this regressive behaviour? You see, I think that onus falls squarely on our shoulders. In a hyperlinked world with an exploding population and a millions of points of diversity with a marked integrated presence of our online personas with out real selves, we just feel lost. There is an increasing sense of alienation of individuals as they float away to their own systems, that any semblance of belonging seems to enticing to pass on. And consequently instead of our past uniting us, we end up uniting for our past. And some might say there isn't much of difference, but I think it is stark! Most clearly you can see it in the entire political landscape around us.

People are not uniting because they all belong to a country but they want to recreate some fictitious past or are so engrossed by this past that they are completely oblivious of the present they are a part of the future that they are creating .

We are so wholly consumed by our own species' records that attempts to do anything new are not what gain real traction. Our media outlets are so busy reporting rehashed happenings and trying to make patterns that they sometimes try to forcefit the present into their own moulds of the past and that would've been okay for a person but when you give that power to organizations capable of reaching billions, you have a very wrong influence capable of poisoning an entire generation's psyche.

It is almost like this mass illusion which people are trying to create where everyone will have their promised past and more importantly the feeling of security and emotions of their past to create some magically insured future insulated from changes. Which isn't just juvenile to hope for but just plain deranged.

I think it is essential we learn to appreciate the reality of today's day and time. Things are certainly better than they were 30 years ago. We are eradicating more diseases, we are able to help out more sections of society and are really progressing, trying to reach the further corners of the cosmos. And our apprehensions might be just because things are changing too fast, but the solution to that does not lie in running back to what felt safe and secure, because that was a very different time! We have to find our safety and security with the new present and reality. And the answer to that cannot lie by any stretch in the past, simply because it has never happened before.

We really need to reach out and include the march of progress in our own culture. We need to capture development and changes and better record them and encourage them. We can't remain stuck to our past because that's the difference between leading our journey into the future and being dragged into it crying and screaming.

I think that is one thing I want to be a part of in 2020. Bringing out some change to people who want to remain stuck to a dogma of their past. That they find the merit in moving above and beyond and carrying their world with them. Not just a rehashed imitation of what used to be.

Happy 2020!