Chapter 7: Social Commentary

Election as Pop Culture.

It might as well be covered as a tv reality game show. Instead of voting, we can all text our choice to American 'President' Idol.

1-888-TXT2VOTE-OBAMA
1-888-TXT2VOTE-MCCAIN

Each vote costs 25 cents, some restrictions may apply, contact your provider for extra fees that may apply.
Stay tuned next week when your votes are revealed to see who will become the NEXT AMERICAN PRESIDENT IDOL!

lol.

Chapter 6: Home-Work

So I've been on a sabbatical of sorts from work for awhile. Recently, I've started a new job getting to work from home. It's still generally the same career line without the emphasis on career.

It's so true what they say. About how your priorities change as you grow older. Ideals get torn down, optimism dies, and realism sets in. Those all sound like bad things but I actually am pretty settled in learning the lessons of life.

I think everyone should get to go through these phases of life. I think it's a natural mechanism so we can learn to live with each step of our progression to death. LOL. Okay, yeah, I'm still a little morbid.

Anyhow, working is great. It's a chore of course but it's great to feels great to be financially productive again. Plus, I love having little distractions in life that make me feel like my brain is being exercised.

I was always a workaholic. I worked 70-80 hour weeks at my peek. I never saw weekends for months. I always did my best and always pushed as far as I could go. But one day I woke up and realized that I was wasting my life trying to "become" instead of just "being"...

At some point, I think everyone starts to decide, is this how I'm going to live the rest of my life? Is this it? And for me, sleep-eat-work seemed completely useless. Sure, I could have propelled myself into a high-track career and I could have become extremely successful.

But honestly, I don't really care what anyone thinks about me...whether or not I'm a great famous Architect! At the end of the day, I just want to be with the people who make me laugh. And some people might think I'm just settling but if settling means that you're finally happy, I'm okay with that.

So I'm pretty excited about the new job as it affords me the lifestyle that more suites who I am today.

Chapter 5: The Death of the Personal Homepage

Back in 1996, when the internet finally exploded into the main stream, personal websites popped up all over. Angelfire and Geocities were highly populated with "new neighborhoods" added every week. Unfortunately, where the people are, is where the money follows.

Everyone probably can agree now how commercialized the Internet is in present day. The idea of coming across someone's personal homepage is far less accepted than major ".com" sites. Instead, the personal sites have all been sized down to the blogosphere. In a sense, what happened to personal websites is that the static data is now gone. Meaning you won't find the typical pages of the 90s, pictures-bio-poems-cams-pets-thoughts-guestbook-etc.

Actually, it's not that those types of sites are gone so much as segregated into multiple profiles. For the most part the personal website of today is a blog with dynamic links to other sites which house the "static" data of the personal websites. All the data is housed now in sites like Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Etc.

Also, based off the context of the content presented by most people, personal blogs or whatnot no longer are about personal expression so much as networking. I don't see this as a bad thing necessarily but just rather limiting. Before, it used to be me and the void so you tended not to care so much about what you expressed or said or shared.

Now, it's very intentional and usually directed with intent. So when I move from site to site now, I feel a loss of intimacy in those sites....mine included. It's far more about expanding the scope of viewership and getting exposure than anything else.

One thing I can say is that the more personal and transparent you are about your life on your site, the more people feel connected and want to stay connected. Again, one of the greatest limitations I face right now with trying to shield my personal identity from merging with my meta.

That might crumble soon. I'm not sure.

Chapter 4: Morbid Curiosity

So recently I joined the fast paced bandwaggon of Facebook. However, I still refuse to use my real name or post my real picture out there. For me, lately, there is something fundamentally important about remaining purely meta.

As for those who know me on the RL level, I've noticed Facebook as something of an anonymous tool of judgement. And my friends say I am very cynical to think this way but seriously, when you're finally adding a "friend" on face book whom you haven't seen in 10 years or more...and not only that, but you were never really friends in the first place.. How can you tell me that they're not just using the networking tool as way to see "how you turned out"

Did you get fat? Are you successful? Who has the higher degree? Who has the better job? Who seems like they have it all. And even if you got past those usual judgments, then you're usually left with the "now what?" question.

After all, you're just seeing someone's surface persona. You're judging them by a line of statistics, questionares, and a few carefully chosen pics. You're getting to know them by what they want you to see. And then what do you do? Do you really have a real relationship with someone when all you do is make short quips on their "walls"?

I don't buy it but I also realize that my definition of relationships and friends have always been far more guarded and particular than most. I keep a close knit group. I don't care for a wide circle of acquaintances. I see no real value in them. However, I know a lot of people do. So I respect that.

My issues is mostly with my division between my meta self and my real self. They aren't the same anymore. Not at all. The people who knew me in high school wouldn't recognize the meta me. I only projected a personable mirror when I was in high school and most of college...and especially at work. The meta me, is the real me.

I don't like the idea of my old HS acquaintances discovering who I am now. The gap between understanding is too large to overcome. I know that sounds harsh and snobbish. But I am so far beyond surface relationships at this time in my life. I was burned by the notion of friendship a long time ago. People come, people go.

But somehow being meta seems more permanent, stationary, and real. Is that odd?
I suppose it is. So I guess the truth is, I don't want them to see the real me. If I use that logic. Hmmm. So it seems.

[INSERT PICTURE HERE]
[INSERT COLLEGE DEGREE HERE]
[INSERT MARITAL STATUS HERE]
[INSERT FUTILITY HERE]

Chapter 3: No Place Like Home

The new social mediums are a hoax it seems. Although we might feel like these tools are being developed to help enhance the communication of our meta selves, they're actually diluting our very essence.

Okay, that's a little melodramatic. But take for instance this new form of connectivity. Plurk. It's a bit like Twitter but even more degrading in terms of actual human communication. Seriously, facebook, myspace, friend book, twitter, whatever else is new out there. They've all filtered out any real human thought outside of "I had cheese for Breakfast" and "On the train to work" or "I LOVE tofuu in the rain"

Seriously? This is what we're down to in terms of communication via the meta? How are you seriously supposed to get to really KNOW anyone anymore.

I guess the thing is that the general population isn't into blogging. I understand not everyone has four to five paragraphs to spill out a day. And for them, twitter and plurk are perfect. But lately, it feels like everything is so vapid and separated.

There are just too many mediums to keep up with and we're all so segmented into those dozens of communities throwing out tid bits of our minds into a void...with no cohesion or real connection. And everyone just accepts it and moves onto to the next best networking site.

There's no real home for us who exist in the meta. What most of us do is just grab onto whatever portal they have out there and we latch on as best we can. But we all know that we're just renting space in the next temporary fad.

I just want to click my heels three times and spam/blog/twitter "there's no place like home"

Chapter 2: Influence

You know that old stereotype we have about the general American follower mentality? That we're all just sheep led by the herder called consumerism and society?

I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps we have this whole sheep mentality pegged wrong. Where does originality come from anyhow? Is anything ever of our own accord? Are we ever really thinking for ourselves? I don't think so. So much of who we are is about how the people around us have influenced us. Even when we think we've come to a decision on our own, odds are that idea had to have come from somewhere...

I definitely think that how we decide to process what we're given makes us individual...but I notice when I look around, we're almost all the same kind of people in any given society. Does liking yellow vs blue or chicken vs steak make us really all that different? Not really.

Does our political views make a real difference in our society? Not really? When was the last time your political views changed the face of how our government functions or what laws are passed or what wars we fight in or what countries we decide to aid?

I tend to judge people a lot on their religious and social views. But I guess if you really think about it, the issue probably isn't about how "mindless or ignorant" I feel their thinking is... What it really comes down..the only thing that really matters is how it effects how they treat other people around them.

Being influenced is okay. We all are influenced. The people around us help us define what we like and who we like. Co-workers define what products we like to buy, parents help define what we want to be, and friends can define what we like to do...etc

It's okay to be a product of influence...but how is that people can be okay being influenced to hate. But if it's a given that we're influenced by everything else, what stops us by being influenced badly? Nothing I guess.

I guess it's another proof that we're all just programmable biological bots. :)

Chapter One

I've been blogging for a really long time...since before there was the term blogging. LOL. ...hahaha before there was even L-O-L.

I have a horrible time sleeping at night and what I often do when I feel kind of lost to the night is blog. I used to blog about everything that was on my mind and everything that was going on in my life. I stopped that all about a few years ago when I started blogging specifically about an MMORPG I started playing. World of Warcraft.

But a part of me thinks that chapter of my life is slowly ending. And at the end of it, what's left? Just me again. Alachia the haunted lonely pessimistic anti-social dreamless insomniac.

I had thought about continuing on my old blog but I'm not such a fan of livejournal anymore ever since they wouldn't allow me to post videos.

First things first.. I have got to figure out how to sleep and get on a regular schedule. Second step is to figure out what to do with my life. I don't know who I am or what I want to be anymore.

I'm kind of sick of people saying that I have nothing better to do but hang out with them or talk to them....like...because I don't have a career anymore... I'm obligated to be desperate.

The reality is that I'm actually been pretty content with being a nobody. I am however not comfortable with how other people try to make me feel like being a nobody is pathetic. It might be...but if I'm okay with it...shouldn't that be okay?

I don't know, we live in a society of judgement. Half of the conversations I had with my co-workers and friends was always about bashing someone else's lifestyle, choices, relationships... He's going nowhere..She's self-absorbed...They're going to break up for sure....There's no way they're happy...etc and on and on.

Why doesn't society teach us to be happy for other people....to not downplay everyone's life like an awaiting tragic story?

"They make a ton of money"... often is followed by "They don't know how to spend money. I'm sure they're not happy if they feel like they have to be that tight They're so cheap"

"They've been together for 2 years now"...often followed by "He's always looking at other chicks and she's totally obsessed with getting married. It won't last"

The books say to not pay attention to what other people think about your life. The Dr. Phil's of our society tell us to just be happy about being who we are. That's just not realistic. Maybe if we lived in a glass box that was perfectly polished and kept on a special shelf all by itself. The problem is that our lives are more like a hacky sack that makes its way by being tossed from foot to foot. I was brought up to get a good chunk of my validation from other people. Suckage....but my life.

Okay. Before this turns into a full scale monologue of all of Alachia's flaws...I'll stop for tonight.