February 2012
5 posts
Sometimes it feels like the frontier is truly gone, is dead and all we have are facsimiles. There’s litter on the moon. Now we long to be the first to comment on a blog post, the first person to get an iPad, the first person to have a new pair of Jordans. People fight to be first to consume as a way of fighting against the lost frontier. There seem to be no, or rarely any, original experiences. We can traverse the Grand Canyon online, traipse Parisian alleys on Google Maps. You can see the Mona Lisa in High-Definition, brushstrokes. All the great movies have been throughly reviewed. The new movies have Rotten Tomatoes scores before they hit theaters. Before you meet a person you’ve see their Facebook, or Googled them, set your opinion. In lieu of exploring the world we turn inward and navel-gaze, in lieu of actual experiences we play up our poor copies, exaggerating the excitement of a tailgate or alcohol binge or nightclub. We bought a bottle and so did everyone else, but we had a better table. Expectations ruin experience, and we always know what to expect. We are born with deja vu, through osmosis. To be born is to be a grain of sand among seven billion. Eight billion at the end of this sentence. Ten billion. Though we may wear our pants differently or like a new band no one has heard of, we truly have no illusions of uniqueness, and that is why we pretend so hard.
But then, but if, but maybe…
Maybe we stumble across something something we didn’t expect. They called for rain, it’s sunny. Another human being surprises you with their kindness. Their uniqueness. Maybe the last page of your book is missing, bad binding, you imagine how it ends, and no one else knows the ending you have.