Field Trip City

I wrote another eight pages of my Coupland paper yesterday, so I've hit the minimum length. Everything else I add now is gravy. I'll come up with a couple of additional points to make, ensure that all of my sources are accurate, put together a bibliography and that will be it.

I hung out with Mike and Sonja at Whelan's Gate for a bit last night. I hadn't seen them in forever. It was good to catch up. I'm more into the idea of keeping in touch with old friends recently. A few months ago I paid Mike a large sum of money that I've owed him for awhile, and it was nice not to have to think about that while we spent time together. Not that he was ever remotely a jerk about it. Money between friends is just one of those ills I hate dealing with.

Lately I'm becoming increasingly aware of my relationship with the Internet and popular culture in general and the kind of effect these things are having on me as a person. I'm reaching a sort of understanding that I've needed to reach in order to feel better about getting older. The actions that I take have consequences, they're just not always the consequences that are dictated to me by the information I encounter day to day. How to put it into words? Communications media creates an idealistic, virtual world that champions the average as being fantastic. The real-life consequence is that I begin to see life as incredibly, unbearably average INSTEAD OF fantastic.

I've thought about maybe giving up the Internet game, but it still doesn't strike me as the right decision. Just because I turn off my computer doesn't mean the rest of the world stops cruising. Then again, maybe I really am just a victim of this fear of not being plugged in.

You know, I haven't had cable television or listened to the radio for almost a year and it's been awesome. Every time I'm informed about some new trend I've never heard of, I feel... amused. Is this the way our parents felt when they fell out of the youth demographic? Information dieting is fantastic. Trims the fat off the soul.