Hey, my face is up here!

My darling, I love you, and you know that my love is true. But something has come between us… that new phone just isn’t you.

You don’t need to be Richard Dawkins to know that you didn’t evolve an opposable appendage so that you can thumb-fuck the shit out of your choice of smart phone while I’m trying to talk to you. Or when I’m trying to impress you with the social commentary delivered in the newest South Park episode. Or while we’re meandering around campus together, or while we’re sitting at a bar.

I like to think of myself as a “whatever makes you happy” kind of guy, but this sentiment is difficult to extend when you’re indirectly (but audaciously) letting me know that what I have to offer is of less importance than your twenty character reply to a message which is (statistically) highly unlikely to have any meaning whatsoever. Let’s be honest.

This is what gets me. Most BBM/What’sApp/MXit conversations are drearily carried out purely in worship of the fact that they don’t cost anything. But when did meaningless, mediocre, pitiful conversations become worthy of their tediousness just because they are free? If I really don’t care what you’re getting up to on Sunday afternoon but I happen to find you online, I’m not going to ask you whether you’re watching the Simpsons or jacking it to Johnny Depp in Chocolat, because it’s not free. It costs time, and more importantly attention, which could have been (more wisely) spent absorbing and immersing yourself in your immediate environment rather than being asked and having to answer a question like “So what are you doing?”, with your thumbs.  

So put it down, at least until you’re alone. Or use in appropriate moderation. You’re missing out on emotions conveyed through the eyes in a real conversation necessitated by the presence of familiar human contact, at the expense of colons and brackets in a conversation you would never have deemed necessary had it not been “free” and readily available. Fair trade?

I Am the Dreamer

Time for a good ol’ fashioned Tassenberg fuelled rant.

The times they are a changin’, a wise man once said. This is an undeniable fact of life, both ancient and contemporary, ubiquitous. It’s how you deal with change that is important though, and dealing with change has to start somewhere. My suggestion is, to start dealing with change by not giving too much of a fuck.

Christians call it serenity. I hate to admit that some of the shit they come up with applies to, well, things that actually exist, but I like this concept. Lord, give me the power to change what I can, and the serenity to accept what I cannot. Or as I like to put it, do what you can to make a difference, but only when it's not too much effort. 

Based on a system of utility, any attempts at acting benevolently or altruistically should only be endeavoured if the potential good that they could do outweigh the personal effort involved. The rest of the time should be spent getting the fuck on with it and making as little problems for others while experiencing the most amount of sensual pleasure possible for yourself. At the end of the day money is worth more than caring, and caring is worth less than shit, except for care given where care is due. Everyone grows out of their teenage angst-need-to-fit-in sometime or later, paths divulge, relationships grow weary and reunions are less sweet than they used to be. Such is life, the end of one era brings about the dawning of the next. 

Let's make this next one one hell of a party.