It has been over a year since any Margolian has posted on this site, I cannot speak for my four sisters, but I have used this time to get in touch with myself by embracing my humanity, expanding my cooking skills, quieting my mind so exquisitely that I can hear a butterfly's flutter and hatchling in Kathmandu cry for its mommy, and reading great books that have blessed me with a clear lens to see our hurting world. I now eschew social networking and seek true companionship with friends and loved ones, yet part of me that wonders why nobody ever calls me or wants to hang out? I guess people are intimidated by the depth of my knowledge and soul, I have taken deepness to the next level.
In reality, I have been off Facebook for 2.5 months and am rediscovering things that I enjoy like reading, yelling at my mother, reflecting on my past, and trying to be present with my family(not jonesing for the next scrabble move). This is what a recovering drug addict must feel like. In the past, I would jokingly list dudes I would sleep with like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Barack Obama, Eddie George--Jesus this list is getting disturbing and throwing off my flow--My point is that I fucking love Neil Postman. I am sure he is elated to be the first white and dead man added to my list.
His writings got my passion bucket overflowing and unplugged a lot of my thoughts. I have read three of his books Amusing Ourselves to Death, Technopoly, and Disappearance of Childhood and believe his critique of American Culture is freaking amazing. In a nutshell, the printing press civilized man and made us a literate based culture and television is quickly returning us to our savage visual roots. It is not a groundbreaking idea, but he does it in a funny, hopeful, and insightful way that inspires somebody like me, who believes that our ability to think critically and live richly is being degraded by gizmos and gadgets that distract and stress us. I am not a Luddite (they were not peaceful), however I do harbor fantasies of smashing a parents smartphone when they're too distracted to manage their kid or try to engage in discussion with me while clutching and gazing at their dumb ass phone.
So much of technology requires no thought. Has anybody ever claimed to be a great smartphone user or television viewer? Do you get better at watching tv? Can you become a master smartphone user? Does a smart phone make you happier? Does figuring out how to access videos on your computer make your kid a genius? The fact is anybody, even a monkey, can watch TV or press buttons on a phone because it requires no thoughts, yet society keeps putting mindless technologies like these ahead of our other needs. Don't get me wrong technology is freaking amazing and supplements so many vital tasks, but I don't think it should be our primary focus. When schools are literally falling apart, teachers are grossly underpaid, and students are hungry and/or hopped on ADS meds, I don't believe bringing I-PADS will make the school better. It simply mindlessly transfers the same problems into a more entertaining format. There are countless examples of these transfers--everything from commerce, scheduling, healthcare, entertainment, and education are being reformatted for the digital entertainment age and with little thought about the consequences.
In Disappearance of Childhood, Postman writes, "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see," what kind of things will our children say? Fortunately, we have the freedom to choose of how we live and there are so many things we can think about with our kids. I believe, like my new hero, that kids are different and we should not educate them to become workers for our consumer driven society, but as thoughtful citizens capable of making their own path.
I am beginning to sound like a testosterone depleted douche bag, however I must take the next step in my recovery which is to write more and hopefully become funnier and more cogent, but be forewarned it could take a lot Neil Postman posts to get me there.
I will end with a list of books I have enjoyed in 2013 so far:
- Gone Girl
- Drop Dead Healthy
- Technopoly
- Disappearance of Childhood
- Moonwalking with Einstein
- Going Clear
As always, thorry for my rant.
RAnt my brotha, rant!
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