then i met and married the hubby whose idea of a soothing bedtime activity is grabbing a hank of my hair and twirling it until he falls asleep. couple that with my inherent laziness and throw in a scroogishness when it comes to non-material things like haircuts, et voila! long ass hair that is two inches past my bra strap and gets in the way whenever i drive.
do i sound slightly bitter? perhaps. it's difficult surrendering what i thought was quintessentially me - my bob was veddy asian and made me look like an anime character. win! - for the sake of marital bliss. [this is where i'd be inserting a pic of me with short hair, but all those predate the digital age and i can't be arsed to scan and save any at the mo'.]
however, my "commitment" to long hair - a patient, years-long investment - has got me thinking about the state of our society today. forget for a moment important, thought-provoking information a la the story of stuff (although here's a sneak peek at the 21-minute video that chipped away a little bit of my consumerist lifestyle):
i'm talking about something as simple and seemingly petty as blogging. remember ye old days of livejournal? yeah, probably not. but i do. and it was amazing. here was a community of folks who were brave or stupid or exhibitionistic (is that even a word?) enough to bare their souls for all the world to see and comment on. don't get me wrong; a lot of the journals out there were crap - angsty rumblings of a disaffected culture made powerful by the instantaneous notoriety of the written word. but at least people were writing, investing time and energy and thought into what was, in essence, a public show of self.
but in the search for quicker, faster, more, more, more (and i attribute this to consumerism and capitalism and misplaced ambition), blogging evolved into social networking, where the exhibitionist element was still alive and thriving but what was left on the wayside like spat-out flavorless gum was the depth and passion and sincerity of *thought*.
we've become such an impatient thoughtless society. we don't take the time to take an idea, turn it over and examine all its facets slowly and deeply. instead we chuck it out there for all the world to see in its half-baked, unformed glory. we want to be the first to say it, the first to post it, the first to tweet it. never mind that we lack proper grammar or spelling or punctuation. never mind that we've discarded politeness in our haste to word vomit. never mind that one-liners and emoticons and acronyms have infiltrated even the most hallowed halls of academia. it's all only as good as the next tidbit or soundbite. it's all disposable anyway, right?
this mentality not only breeds superficiality, it breeds laziness as well. case in point: tumblr. i tried one the other year when everyone was grinning smugly about this next best thing. but it confounded me. it seemed the interface was all about following other people's tumblrs and "reblogging". well, score one for literacy because at least it was compelling people to read others' writing, right? well, not really. what most people seemed to be reblogging were pictures and quotes and youtube videos. here i was, trying to set up a tumblr where i could post chapters of my fiction, and i could barely fit a paragraph onto a page before i was unceremoniously kicked off. (ok, that may be an exaggeration, but you get my point). now, to give it the benefit of the dount, perhaps i was just being an ignorant luddite and i just needed a good wiki to guide me through the whole tumblr process, but it still got me thinking about this whole quicker/faster way of life.
it's a wonder i manage to keep my sanity as a teacher of english. i beg and beseech my students that the most vital part of writing is the revision: the pausing and perusing and evaluating of one's words, the manipulation of said words into elegant, articulate, persuasive prose. but no one listens. it takes too long. it's too much work. too much effort. who bothers to read something so long anyway? how many sentences minimum can i get away with to make a paragraph anyway?
sigh.
are we ever going to go back? will the tide ever turn? they say that all things are like a pendulum: wait long enough and everything eventually swings back to the way they were. i can only hope it happens in my lifetime. but while i wait for that day, i'll stick to my blog and politely refuse tumblr, thank you very much.
(and btw, congratulations! all those words and you still made it down this far! there *is* hope for our society after all!)
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