Its been a loooooong year. Hell, its been a long couple of years for me. To be honest, I’m not used to saying that. Most of my years since my teens flew by. Not to say that as the older I get time doesn’t fly, but this year just wasn’t very monumental for me. And not that good things didn’t happen because I had several wonderful memories but all in all, I spent much of the time just wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do next with my life?
Now, I’ve always been one to reflect and contemplate all my past decisions in order to to see where I once was mentally, why I made the decisions I made, and where to go next. Usually I had somewhat of a plan to execute but this year, I’m not going to lie, I spent more time simply observing the world around me in a more digitally connected era than we’ve ever witnessed before. Sometimes it can actually be quite overwhelming, which I’m not going to lie, intimidated me to a degree I wasn’t ready for.
It seems in this present day in age technology has taken complete control of our lives. Between the multitude of popular social networks in addition to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we now have become completely socially digital. The problem is, while the internet generation has become entirely succumbed by social media as part of every waking moment of their lives, there’s a mismatched flood of what can and can’t be considered productive and useful.
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the variety digital entertainment that give us single-click access from our smart phones and how enjoyable and humorous it can be. I read blogs and helpful youtube videos every day to stimulate my intrigue. But again, amidst all this is an abundance of completely mindless and redundant trash that plagues my twitter feed every other minute almost causing me to cringe and ask myself, what the fuck am I doing wasting my time on here? I try to filter out what I can but then I come to realize there’s almost no avoiding cheeky, ignorant, so-called humor that millions get amusement from. Its just the nature of the beast.
My question is, when are we finally going to get bored of the goofy vines, redundant and overly used snapchats, and recycled RT’s that from my point of view are completely wearing thin? For the past couple years we’ve just considered social media as part of every day lives so I have to wonder, is there any type of balance that can give us useful, helpful, and knowledgeable information and content as well as temporary fun? Is there a viable means we can all learn to use this to evolve as a species in a general sense? Is the “internet generation” of teens who grew up with culture defining hashtags and twitter relationships goals going to grow up with a well rounded and down to earth perspective of the world? Can they contribute to normal society actively without needing their phone every 5 minutes of their day to day lives? So many questions I can’t help but ask and hope to see answers in 2015.
You see as an artist, writer, and multifaceted creator I try to consider myself the bridge between the gaps of at least a couple generations to give us a finely tuned medium we can extract proper understanding from. It gets harder as I get older because well lets just face it, kids (particularly adolescence) are exhausting because today’s attention deficient culture just can’t seem to grasp the deeper meaning of existence or see the bigger picture. Often enough I fear they’re handicapped in that regard because their brains have been wired to only retain literally minutes of information on a visual platform. Of course I hope I’m wrong in that regard and they end up using their knowledge of technological hindsight as a tool to assist in changing the world.
Yes, this is where I stand amidst all that I see around me. While I try to make sense of my own talents and capabilities and how I can utilize them to better my life as well as society’s I really do have to make sense of where society is headed. I know I’m not the only one but I do know with the unique opportunities that I’ve managed to attain recently, that I have a lot to offer the world we live in. Maybe that’s me being an optimist of what is out there for me, but what I do know is there’s an abundance of misguided souls out there who need a little inspiration and outside motivation, so I’d be lying if I didn’t think I was a suitable person to provide that for them.
So as I finish this year looking to advance my own situation and finally see some direction career wise, I hope I can handle whatever chaotic whirlwind of overnight trends and gimmicks the digital community has to offer us. And I hope I can find some way to shed light on what we can learn from it, in order to also advance as a whole.
