Sunday, August 16, 2009

Where are we now?: A big Rant.

So its 40 years since Woodstock and 40 years since the moon landing. What exactly happened when the 60's ended?

How is that we have come to the way things are now. Back then there was a threat of Mutually Assured Distraction and young men were dying in Vietnam. Here in Ireland we were still destitute and VERY catholic.

And then at some point in the 70's and 80's Entrepreneurs, yuppies and other opportunistic people changed the world. Under the hyped oppression of Reagan and Thatcher, probably not all that bad, we some how lost morality and instead started making money. Its the making of money that really changed how things run.


One thing i could never get my head around when reading 1984 is that it was dated. Sure Surveillance and Socialist Dictatorships and constant war are still believable but the lack of consumer goods and sheepish devotion to brand names such as iApple and so on is just impossible to imagine.

Could a world exist without iPods, mobile phones, soft drinks and bottled water? News at you finger tips, celebrity gossip and scandal a few clicks away?

If anything the world has changed for the worse. Its more subversive and far more worrying. After all i have to admit that i am a sheep to the Internets wiles. I can't help but click click click. I don't need to know any of these things but i click anyway. I am slowly learning who the talentless gobshites are, or at least why they're always in the gossip columns, and to me that's scary.


Woodstock, a legend a dream:


40 years ago in the spirit of free will, music and taking copious amounts of drugs a group of people organised a concert.

It was a logistical nightmare and situated in a state park near Woodstock, but closer to other small sleepy towns and far from a good highway.


After a few days they realised it was pointless to keep the fences up, to many people wanted to be there. So they opened it all up.

They ran out of food. The toilets over flowed. The music kept on playing and a state of emergency was declared.

The emergency services couldn't get there by road because of all the traffic blocking it for hundred of miles.


Food was airlifted in, and sick, heat stroked, dehydrated, and the tripped out were lifted out.

It eventually ended. A legend had occurred. The clean up would take weeks. An industrial level of clearing needed to remove the rubbish.

Never again was a concert so large and so influential.


As for my youthful interpretation of the whole occurrence all i had was this when i was growing up, followed by waynes world 2:

This is better:

Who's On stage?

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The Moon Landing:


A dream that by the time the decade was out Man would set foot on the moon.

Not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

What ever happened to that kind of determination?

Man walked on the moon. They went a few times and then had to give up, one rocket still waiting to go.

Instead they stayed in orbit of earth for 30 years with shuttles while probes did all the work for us.

We never made that bold leap again. Expense they say, but the adventure was gone.

We could have made it to Mars by now. We could have a base on the moon.

We "could" in theory be shipping back Helium 3 for clean efficient energy.

Instead we buy consumer goods smarter than all the machines that landed men on the moon.

An average watch has more computing power than the Eagle Lander.

And yet with all our advance's in the name of a cold war and then Capitalism we have made no further strides into space.

It's a real shame.






When it all come's crashing down:


How long can we keep this all up.

I'm no green hippie or any of that but it worries me how we can ever keep going the way we do.


Our main geological contribution to history is Ring Pulls and Bottle Caps.

The industrial age left behind Clay pipes, the Romans Coins.


Can we leave Virtual Credit behind? Can we leave behind foreclosed homes, Obsolescent iPods, Cheap cars we never truly own, Plasma screen tv's, vhs, dvds, blu-ray or even the Internet.

The boom years melted away when the banks ran out of steam and their insane 100% loans got too much for them and became worthless.

Instead of spending millions on weapons to kill our enemies we spent millions of our own money on things we didnt need.

We live in order to feel safe and secure. To have a roof over our heads, food in our stomach and our kids in good health and education.

We spend our wealth to make ourselves happier when all we need are the basics. And yet we've wanted more for as long as i've been alive and possibly longer.


Our over consumption of the what the world has to offer may or may not contribute to climate change. It sure as hell has contributed to the 2 other large problems we face.

The Global financial crisis is based off of our own greed and gluttony.

The swine flu pandemic is also a result of the same thing. People wanted Pork. So it was mass produced in a factory in Mexico. It was so mass produced that standards of hygiene and safety were poor. The pigs only cared for so they could get fat quick, not live healthy. Disease spread and mutated. A new Swine Flu Strain developed. It reached the poor unhealthy Mexican workers and spread like wild fire in a rural town. It then spread to the rest of Mexico thanks to migrant workers, refugee's and pilgrims for religious festivals. It also reached tourists and then the rest of the world.

It continues to spread and incapacitate thousands and thankfully is not worse, but it still kills.


Our own wanton demand for things we didn't need has caused our own slow downfall. The world will be stagnant and devided for years untill this mess is fixed.

People are profiting from the very demise they created and we can do little to stop them. They claim some countries are "growing" again, that profit is up. But this is just to boost shares. To make money as we slowly pick ourselves up again.

It's the rest of us that suffer. And whats truly sickening is that as we hold onto our wallets and refrain from buying useless goods the worlds other problems persist unhindered.

Poverty will only continue and spread.

Drug trade will only continue and spread.

Weapons trade will only continue and spread.

Climate change will happen no matter what we do.

Desertification will continue because the rest of the world demands cheaper goods from climate and countries that can't supply us forever.



There aren't many solutions but expecting a status quo or equality is laughable. We all we always be exploited or the person perpetuating the injustice.



Capitalism, what's the worst that can happen.




Spirituality:


During the week, the day of leaving cert. results, i was walking to the station from the library to get the train home.

While walking along the path beside the cricket pitch i was stopped for a young girl seemingly lost.

She asked me "Is there a church on Campus."

Flummoxed by the question, and wondering why but not feeling too prejudice i said:

"Yeah sure, it's probably not open, it doesn't hold to many services as far as i'm aware"

She said: "But can you go into it, like, and..."

The sentance was something along those lines but wasn't really finished. I guessed she was trying to say something along the lines of sit in the pews and pray, or talk with the priest or whoever etc.


"i said yeah sure."

And then looking behind me gestured that it beyond the library was Fellows square and then the church is on the right in Front square, "the one with the cobble's".

She thanked me and left it at that.

Now she was cute. She was also full of excitement and glee in her appearance. So i'm guessing she received her results that day, and was checking out her most hopeful perspective campus that she must have known she had a good chance of attending since she took the time to visit.

Now i was early for my train. I could have described what i knew about the college and campus, and mentioned that if she wanted "spiritual" guidance or religious folk to talk to to attend the Chaplaincy office, because even years on from my guided tour i remembered vaguely where it was situated.

But i left it at that. After all i was unsure as to what faith she was. By the apparent urge to know where the church was i had no idea what she could have been other than some form of Christian. Not exactly a Protestant or Catholic thing to request. After all protestants, here in the south especially wouldn't need such a clarification and would find a local church, and a devote catholic, rare at that, would have there own Church or strive to find one within their local area and would not rely on the more Multi-denominational nature of a college, even an Ex-Prod one like Trinity.

I'm an agnostic as it is. So her desire for a church on campus was alien to me to say the least. I have no belief structure and i am predominantly a man of science. However i hold a small candle to the notion that there could be a higher power or greater meaning to the universe, i just don't think i need to know what it is or worship it in any way.

I get my "spiritual" experience's from music, the odd sport, concerts and movies and tv. I worship entertainment and popular culture because it gives me a shared understanding of the world through story telling and set structures. Most religions are based around this. Christianity especially is based on the intertwining stories and 4 gospels that describe god's works and his son's actions in his first few years and last few years.

After all popular culture, films, books and plays especially are all very Greek. They're all based around the idea of 3 acts, protagonists, antagonists and so on and very rarely stray from such structure. It's an ancient and well tested format that no one really argues with. It is after all more at least 3,000 years old if not older.

Story telling is what make's us human after all. It was at the camp fire that language and story telling was born. In that communal setting early man shared with his tribe the stories of the beasts they tracked, the bushes they picked and the great sights and stories they had seen and heard. It spread at that time to everyone. It pre-dates Sun worship, stone tools, settlement, farming and the taming of animals. Stories make us human.


Maybe Neanderthal's didn't have stories? But back on track.

Despite how cute she was, despite her giddiness and excitement over her success, i let it be. I could have chatted to her further. I could have been a welcoming guide. I could have even shared my views on spirituality if not concrete, but still interesting. But i walked on, left with a slight glow of happiness after seeing someone else happy.

And left wondering "what if?"




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