Back –to- Basics
The future is an exciting place, flying cars, holographic butlers, and what features the Iphone 25s will have on it are all awesome to think about, but I can’t help but to be scared of it as well. As I think about all of this, scenes from I-Robot (that Will Smith movie where robots take over the world) play in my head. These advances can become a destruction to the human race, by the human race. If the world does ever end and go up in flames, it will be on our watch, if we are not careful with how we continue to technologically advance.We are too smart for our own good, and I think mastering the practicals first can help us live a lot longer. Humans are kind of like squirrels when it comes to attention spans. Rather than figuring out how to stop umbrellas from flipping up, we move on to drones and what cool bomb we can make to wipe out a whole country. Priorities are all screwed up and it is screwing us up… and we are all going to die.
Okay, I’m kidding. Maybe I did jump ahead to an extreme of world domination by robots and drones, so lets rewind to how going back to basics is necessary for us today in 2016. It really starts with the youth… no, it starts with the parents of the youth. Media is ruining the development of children. Our generation can use a lot of help but it’s the babies and the next generation that is in trouble. Babies know how to ask for phones before their first word is “da-da” now. Instead of a two year old playing in a box or rolling in some grass, they just got a high score in candy crush, and these violent video games have to stop being shoved in our boy’s faces. These gun games are conditioning our kids to think that its okay, that killing is fun, and if nobody is teaching them otherwise, they want to be just like the video games. Go out, get a gun (cause it’s easy as hell), and shoot another kid. The difference is though, there is no reup on a life: dead is dead (unless you believe in reincarnation, but that’s another topic). We need to get back to the simple things because it teaches us to appreciate the beauty of the world more, and not take so many things for granted such as family dinners with no phones out, board games with friends, or just having a conversation that doesn’t involve typing it out. This in turn is also making us a lazy society and in the long run, I don’t think it helps anyone out. This idea of easy living doesn’t appease me. Relationships are held behind a screen, everything is remote controlled, even store clerks are being replaced with kiosks. I feellike the future is going to be a world of everyone sitting on their couches.
This balancing out of basics and advances not only applies to day to day living but the art world can use some scaling back as well. I’m taking a film photography class and going through the whole darkroom process has made me appreciate the technique a lot more. This also applies to movies and how it seems as though the more special effects or blow ups, the better it is, but what about the classics that didn’t need all of that? This can pertain to architecture as well and how hand drafting is pretty much obsolete but it is the most beautiful style of drafting to me and the list goes on and on.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to go back to the 50’s way of living nor am I completely against technology because I am a sucker of getting the newest iphone and to be honest these inventions are cool as fuck. I’m just saying have a balance. Don’t lose sight of the basics, teach our kids rather than shoving a phone or video game in their face to get them to be quiet, appreciate what makes classics classics, and finally try to figure out how to stop umbrellas from flipping up (major key).
