A Dream for the Future ...

I have a dream. A dream ... of the future ( ur! ur! ur!)! Not my future. THE future.

In this dream, there is a history class. Children dressed like they just came out of filming Devo video come hovering into class on their neat little hover jet-packs. The jet packs shoot little rings to indicate they are doing something, but the rings are nothing - a simple visual effect.

These children settle into their seats, the hover-packs folding neatly into liquid-metal cybernetic implants installed in the shoulder blades of each child around their eighth birthday. They begin to flick their wrists, producing from a wrist-mounted device a simple, palm-sized holo-emitter. These devices, the iSights, were provided to the students free of charge by the good folks over at Apple, one of a handful of beneficial megacorporations working to better the world for the simple sake of bettering the world.

After some calm but insistent instruction from a teacher with a dancer's figure, a bookish look to her, and an air of confidence (also dark hair, green eyes, glasses and ... oh, what the hell, a short skirt), the students prepare for their lesson. A boy and girl in the corner switch their iSights away from the Nintendo (an entertainment megacorp) channel and their long-running Pokemon battle. Another boy shoos away the children crowded around him and subtly turns off the channel he is using to hack the scoreboard of a game of blurnsball a world away - literally on Mars. One after another, the children open up their classroom channels, each holding above their hands a weightless, floating, interactive hologram of a history book.

The pretty, confident teacher (who secretly moonlights in various dance clubs, and has had her own hover-pack modded to resemble angelic wings) begins to read aloud. She reads of something called "banks," institutions that were the core of a system of "finances" - the trading of meaningless tokens in exchange for goods and services rendered. This draws chuckles from the class. When she mentions that many of these "financial systems" were supposedly based on the values of precious metals and gems, that indeed, the world itself was simply driven by the pursuit of these meaningless minerals, a girl in the middle of the room raises her hand.

This girl is tall for her age, but a bit awkward, with frayed red haired. But she is respected by her classmates for her intellectual curiosity and imagination. She asks why people worked for paper and coins that were really without any value at all, how these tokens could mean the same thing and carry the same value to different people, all of whom felt they were doing a good day's work, all of whom were contributing to their society in some way. She asks why people who didn't contribute in any meaningful way also received amounts of these tokens. She asks why people were so obsessed with precious metals and gems when most of these people could not have had any real use for them. She inquires as to the megacorporations and everything they have done for the world - not in the interest of money, but in the interest of people - and what they did in this odd system of paid laziness and unpaid effort.

Frankly, if this girl has a flaw, it's that she asks entirely too many questions at one time. But her teacher just smiles her flawless smile and explains: The world they are learning of was not one wherein people were allowed to do whatever they wanted, as long as it contributed to society. The world they are learning of is one where true contribution to society required extra effort, and sacrifice, and that this sacrifice was material and unreturned, unrequited. She explained that no one could really help anyone else even if they wanted to, because it cost too much of these meaningless baubles.

The world used to be a place where one was not rewarded for a hard day's work with what they needed to survive, let alone what they wanted to pass the extra hours. The entire world was driven by the pursuit of what was utterly meaningless. The entertainers of that bygone age actually had better lives than the people who saved lives - not that there is anything wrong with being an entertainer, but that was not an age of equality. It was an age of escapism and sadness and exhaustion. Corporations and people and countries hoarded resources so that they could use them to gain more resources that they simple spent to gain still more resources, with no feasible goal in sight, no true purpose to any of it.

Certainly not to make a world a better place, certainly not happiness, not even really for themselves. They gathered resources for the simple sake of gathering resources, and the resources were simply not good for anything.

The children are quiet for a moment after this explanation. And then, as one, they burst out laughing. The teacher cannot help herself, she joins in. After a moment, she explains the contrast of their society to that one: Here, entertainers are appreciated for their talents, but they aren't handed a better life than anyone else. Here, megacorporations like Apple are staffed by people who simply love to work on the technology Apple creates. Here, there truly aren't thousands upon thousands of businesses, all using as many people as they could to gain as much of the pie as they could. Here, there was simply enough pie to go around, because people were simply allowed to do what they wanted to do, and received what they needed to survive for doing it. And then some.

Their system is closer to a barter system used in a far-gone age. One where you pick a trade and you work at it, providing those things people want and need and simply receiving those things you want and need in return. Sure, some people still like those precious metals and gems simply as they are, but it's far more common that they are used up in the technology that powers this world.

This world where one's reward for a good day's work is knowledge that you've done good, and in return for taking care of the people around you, they take care of you.

I can't decide if I like this one better, or the tribal, post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Decision Making

I feel like I should have something important to say tonight. But I do not. I'd rather not post anything emo in this blog, as that's not the point of this blog. But if this post becomes that, I apologize in advance.

Life is a series of choices, it is nothing but choices, it is what we choose and what comes of those decisions and their outcomes. I have lived a life relatively free of regret, and regret has only recently become a real factor in my life.

Well, relatively recently.

But regret has reared its ugly head, regret borne of choices I made in the name of loyalty and in the name of love. Choices made under the influence of these two reasons are, of course, the most important choices one can make in life. My philosophy on each of these things - love, loyalty, and choice - could each be posts in their own right. They likely will be, at some point. I keep meaning to come to that choice one ...

Anyway. I made the wrong the choices. And I continue to do so. At some point, I lost any love and loyalty to myself, which is a problem, since I abandoned love and loyalty to others almost entirely. And I did so in my own self interests. But someone had to be interested in my best interests, and no one else was.

I can handle anger, I can handle impatience. I can handle sadness and weakness and exhaustion mental and physical. But I have a very tough time handling regret. This is one of those things that makes me feel different from everyone else: You all seem to handle regret with relative ease.

I have trouble settling, that's the problem. And that's not something I plan on changing. But it's time to return to my roots, to a life lived for love and loyalty.

Only this time, I need to find someone worth love and loyalty, and someone willing to grant me love and loyalty in return.

Makes perfect sense, right? I mean, everyone seeks this crap. Works out fine for them, no reason it shouldn't work out fine for me.

I hope.

The (Modern) Art of Storytelling

Let me toss this out there: Anyone who doesn't believe modern video games are a viable form of art and storytelling is simply stupid.

Look at what sits at the heart of a story, what has made up the central essence of stories since man first sat around a campfire and came up with the reason night fell. Stories are meant to engage us, to teach us (not necessarily the truth), to show us the way and threaten us with what happens should you stray from the light of camp and into the night. They are there to tell us of the greater powers that hold our world together, in whatever form those powers might exist.

It doesn't take a book to do these things.

I just beat Mass Effect 2. I won't spoil anything, but holy crap, did that game every throw me a curveball towards the end. So did Dragon Age: Origins, when I played through it the first time. Final Fantasy X was like playing through a modern fairy tale (and I don't care that it was linear). So was Kingdom Hearts, and it even tossed in a plethora of recognizable, modern icons of age-old fairy tale and mythological characters.

Some of these games let you choose, some of them make you think. Take them seriously enough (as I do), and you can end up agonizing over a decision for ten minutes, even though this decision has no impact on your life. That's because this decision can have an impact on your reality. In the same way the morals of fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood or the Bible (hey-oh!) teach us right from wrong, a game can. A game can teach us the meaning of sacrifice, the power of the human spirit, the depths of love of friendship, and it can do it all while pitting you - YOU - against impossible odds and challenging you to win.

Is there anything at stake should you lose? No. But then, there was nothing at stake for you when you read your first Greek myth or vampire novel (a category that does not include the Twilight series, by the way) or story about a kid wizard (keep holding out for that owl, it'll be here any day now).

Too many people rag on video games as the death of creativity. I've read Stephen King feels video games are the death of imagination. But if that is true of the modern video game, it must also be true of all other forms of media. Plenty of people spend hours staring at paintings and sculptures, letting these works "speak" to them, and no intellectual mind trashes on them for it. Significantly more people spend hours upon hours with their noses in books, absorbing stories like they were air, and receive no noise over it. And still more people are allowed to waste a third of their lives (this might be an exaggeration, but I genuinely don't care) in front of a television, watching any number of stories - most of which aren't worth the time, cost, or effort put into watching them, let alone making them.

Sure, a lot of video games are utter crap, but so are a lot of paintings, television shows, and novels. So why do those media get excused?

Why the hate against video games? I'll never understand it, it's hypocritical.

Video games are the media of the next generation. They are the stories of the next generation, they carry the morals that will guide the next generation, they show your children the way.

Now, I understand that this is a terrifying thought: "Video games show your child the way." But is it any scarier than reading your child Grimm's Fairy Tales? Any worse than the Bible (yeah, I'm back to that comparison)? Most people would say yes.

Most people are wrong.

It isn't important HOW you teach your children what you believe in your heart they should know. What's important is that you do it.

All stories have power, this cannot be denied. Perhaps the power of an interactive game is greater than that of other media, for the simple fact that it is interactive. And, sure, some games are just a waste of time - I'm looking at you, every MMO and almost every FPS ever. But such is evolution. At least, when your child learns a lesson from this story, it will mean that much more to them for the fact that they came to this lesson themselves.

None of this, of course, touches on the fact that video games are also art. But this post is already pretty lengthy, so I'll leave it here.

The Rules of Retail: You're Not the Center of the Universe

Or: "How to not appear to be a self-centered, condescending, self-entitled idiot."

For some years now, I have been of the mindset that every American high schooler or perhaps college student should spend a year of their education working at least part time in retail. And I mean a real job in retail, a customer service job in retail, not working the stockroom or being the girl who takes care of price tags. A job that is real fucking work of the worst fucking variety: dealing with dozens upon dozens of people a day who look down on you for no reason. Fuck.

Lately, I have been compiling a list of what I call the Rules of Retail. It's been slow work, as many of the rules run together and I want to keep the list and the gist of each of its rules concise because, well ... most people really are basically retarded. And I don't mean that in the sense that they are stupid, so perhaps it is unfair to use the term. What I mean is, people have a nasty habit of thinking of themselves as the center of the universe. This brings us to the first rule:

Guess What? You're Not the Center of the Universe.

See, I don't get why people don't already know this. Fact of the matter is, outside of your common retail outlet, the average person doesn't think they're the most important person alive. But they walk into a Target or a Wal-Mart or some shit (and seriously, people: stop shopping at Wal-Mart), and they suddenly think it's all become about them.

Now, I understand: sometimes, something in your meaningless little shopping experience goes wrong. Sometimes, that something is even directly related to an employee (just not as often as you think). However, that something does not make your whole shitty day the fault of every person with a name tag on. See, this is the problem: all the people who never worked retail (hell, and all the people who DID work retail twenty years ago when the world was a different place) seem to think they're better than all the people who DO. You're gonna get mad at me because I'm not trained in hardware and I can't find a single type of screw? Guess what, jackass, you're not trained in hardware and you can't find it, either. Get over yourself and rest assured: if you're patient, we will do everything we can to help you.

That's another thing: don't be impatient when it comes to lines or waiting for service or the like. As I said: the world does not revolve around you. But this works both ways. Just as the world is not here for your personal comfort, whims, and desires, so too is it not here for the simple task of fucking you over. A long line is not an indication of "how shitty your day is going." It is an unfortunate fact of life. Hell, it's usually not even that long, you're just impatient and think lines shouldn't apply to you, for some reason. But the fact of the matter is, people are pack animals. You move in PACKS. In retail, there is no such thing as a steady pace: either there aren't enough customers, or there are too many. I don't know what phenomenon causes this, but it's practically science. But the more people you pile into one place, the more things can go wrong. And the simple fact of the matter is this: when something DOES go wrong, it is rarely the fault of the cashier or employee. The other rules will illustrate this, whenever I get around to posting them.

So maybe next time you're stuck in a long line or can't find what you're looking for, you should take a serious look at the situation and decide if it really is the fault of the orange apron in front of you before you start treating him or her like shit.

 

Misdirection

Been stupid-busy the last couple of days. Work, homework, Mass Effect 2, Valentine's Day and an interesting misadventure that gets filed very deeply in the "Never Spoken of Again" folder ... yep. But I thought I would take a moment from the awesome that is Mass Effect 2 and its gelatinizing effects on my eyeballs and thumbs to put up a post that's been running through my mind the last couple of days.

So I was watching this movie a couple days ago, Cashback. Interesting film, British or something, about this college student who wants to be a painter. He breaks up with his girlfriend, can't sleep because of it, gets a night job, and starts freezing time and drawing people - most often naked.

I mean, they're naked. Not him. Really, come to think of it, he only draws women. Lots of boobs.

See, now that's kinda creepy.

My point is, in this movie, it is mentioned how romantic it is to be involved with an artist. They specifically mean a painter or sketch artist, a visual artist of some type - someone who sees the beauties in all the bits and lines and curves that make up everything. The whole time-freezing schtick is metaphorical, see?

But that got me thinking: Yes. Dating a visual-type artist must be very romantic. They will see beauty in all of you, flaws included. They will draw it and recreate it over and over again, in a way you can just look at and enjoy and don't necessarily have to ever think deeply about.

But dating a writer? An author, a poet, even a songwriter? It dawns on me dating a writer is probably a total pain in the ass. And I don't say this because I have anything against writers. Writing is MY art, I can't draw worth a shit.

I say dating a writer must be a pain in the ass because I AM a writer. See? I can see this flaw, this problem, and just lay it out there, in cold, hard words for all the world (or, you know, all two or three people who read my blog) to see and be perfectly okay with that.

Do you see where I'm going here? Dating a writer, you're not dating someone who is seeing all the bits that make you up and finding beauty in the result. You're dating someone who is seeing what you are, and breaking it down into all the bits whether you like it or not.

It's probably worse if you're dating a poet, because they will, of course, attempt to be all poetic in their description of you. They'll be flowery in the language, insincere in how they say what they say, and then get mad at you for not finding visual beauty in the way they wrote it out or spoke it.

God, poets are a pain the ass ...

But maybe it's worse if it's an author you're dating. Probably doesn't even matter what kind. Because we're gonna be sincere in what we write, and how we write it. There's no visual or auditory "art" to what we're doing, it's just a story. And there you are, an author's girlfriend, lain bare before the world. And not in a hot naked painting sort of way.

In a way that they're gonna read you, and learn stuff about you - not everything, but they're not gonna fill in as many blanks, and there won't be as many blanks to fill in - and then they're gonna see you for what you are and make a decision about you. Classify you and file you away.

And you'll do it to yourself, too, if you're unlucky enough to read you mate's writing.

Sure, it can't be all bad. Plenty of beauty comes from writing of the non-poetic variety. Authors are not villains by nature. They're just very, very capable of making you look like one, and making everyone else believe it.

It's Just Better When Greedo Shoots First.

I had a couple post ideas for today. But I whiled away my evening with class and Mass Effect 2. It is now one in the morning, and I don't really care for a long-winded, deep post.

This will, of course, probably end up long-winded, anyway. But not deep! Oh, no, because tonight I would like to post my thoughts on Star Wars and why it's better when Greedo shoots first!

First of all, let me just say: Like Halo and the Beatles, I find Star Wars to be very overrated. This is not to say I don't enjoy aspects of any of those three things, but I understand this opinion often invalidates anything I say about Star Wars (or Halo, or the Beatles) in the minds of many a fanboy. Or fangirl.

(Interesting. My browser's spellcheck tells me Greedo and Beatles are both misspelled, but fanboy and fangirl are actual words. How 'bout that?)

Anyway. If you're one of those fanthings (hey, spellcheck doesn't like that word!), feel free to walk away. But I'll take an RPS over Halo, Green Day over the Beatles, and Lord of the Rings over Star Wars just about always.

Still with me? Probably not, you rabid freaks. But if you are: It's just better when Greedo shoots first.

("What did he say? I can't believe he said that! And I can't believe we didn't know he was gonna say it when he made it the title of the post! Man, what a sneaky but good-looking and charming bastard!")

Settle down, kids. Put away the torches and pitchforks (where the hell do you get those, these days, anyway) and toy laser swords. It never made any sense for Han Solo to just up and shoot Greedo. And I don't give a rat's ass what invalidated Expanded Universe prequel bullshit you throw at me to prove it did.

Han Solo is not a villain. He is not the Punisher. He is not even an anti-hero (and, for clarification: I don't consider the Punisher a hero of any variety, anti- or otherwise). He's just the reluctant second-stringer. All stories have them, and he's lucky he wasn't a whiny traitor whose primary character development was redemption (sorry, Lando. But you're still cool) in addition to his reluctance.

A bounty hunter walks up to Han Solo and a fight ensues, then yes: Han Solo will shoot to win. A bounty hunter walks up for a conversation in a bar and pulls a blaster? No, Han Solo - the reluctant hero with a heart of gold - does not shoot. He kicks the table at his adversary, or throws a mug or punch after a witty but obvious (to us, anyway) distraction. When his foe pulls the trigger, THAT is when Han shoots back.

The Han who shoots first wouldn't've come back to help Luke murder a couple thousand Storm Troopers and Empire lackeys in a single, Force-infused missile strike. The Han who shoots first doesn't work for Princess Leia's affection, and doesn't care about some incestuous kiss. The Han who shoots first kills Lando for being a punk.

That's not your Han.

Greedo pulling the trigger first is much more in line with your Han, people. The character isn't new or original, and this is simply how the character is done. And don't go spouting some nonsense about how it's okay to be original and rework these age-old stereotypes in minor ways - I KNOW that's okay.

George Lucas doesn't, though. You hardcore, frothing Star Wars fans don't like to see it, but there is NOTHING original about the story of your movies (the original trilogy, I mean. There's plenty of terrible -but-relatively-original crap in the prequels). So why start with Han?

Now, that thing with Han dodging the laser beam (or blast, or shot, whatever)? THAT'S bullshit. Greedo shoulda just missed. He was shooting from the hip, and we all know that's a penalty to the attack roll, anyway. Woulda made perfect sense.

Time Travel and Why It's Stupid (With One Exception)

Day two, and I think I have discovered a potential use for this blog: a place to put all the rants and half-baked theories I have that no one wants to actually listen to.

We shall start with time travel.

Time travel is stupid. There's no two ways about it: it's dumb. Every time I hear someone talk about how they would, "totally go back in time and change such-and-such," I wanna smack them. This isn't because I necessarily believe time travel to be impossible. I mean, yeah, it's more than an idea you have when you crack your head coming off the toilet, and then slap into a DeLorean. But I won't go and just arbitrarily declare it impossible.

Mucking about in time, however, is all levels of impossible. The way I see it, the effects of playing around in time can only turn out two ways. Two possible results.

First, and far cleaner: anything you do when you travel into the past has already been taken into account by history. This means you can't  go back and, say, save Abraham Lincoln. In point of fact, your attempt is already a part of history. Just because it isn't in the books doesn't mean it ain't true. You got yourself a time machine, hopped back to save Lincoln, failed, and that's that. Way too go, loser, what do ya do for an encore, become your own grandpa?

The second theory is an alternate timeline theory, but it doesn't really work. I don't wanna knock Back to the Future, but its theories on time travel are all outta whack. See, say you go back in time to save Lincoln, and you DO. What have you done? You couldn't have altered your own timeline, because if you saved Lincoln and he lives, you never have reason to go back in the first place.

So assume you save Lincoln, but still need a reason to go back. Time gives you that in the form of branching time lines. You saving Lincoln creates a whole separate branching timeline, one which evolves differently because Lincoln never dies, while leaving YOUR timeline - and, thus, your reason for going back at all - intact.

But now how does time know where to send you back to when you time-hop home? Most logically, it'll send you back to right from whence you came, in your original timeline. So ... grats. Lincoln still died, despite your effort, but at least you saved him! Wait, wut ..? But that's the point: you cannot know the fruits of your time-labor, for good or bad.

See, say you DO go back to the new branch you created - or time doesn't branch, at all - and your future does change via your actions in the past. Next thing you know, you're going all Marty McFly, with fading photographs and changing newspapers and this weird thing where your great-grandfather somehow managed to marry a woman who looks exactly like your mom. You save Lincoln, and pop back to your time, and see a world where your efforts changed something.

So then, why did you go back at all? Okay, maybe you went back and time was just overwritten, a la McFly's misadventures. Then you simply CAN'T have gone back at all, or else now there are two of you, or something stupid like that. I mean, say time overwrites itself and you have a new past. Either you replace yourself or time makes a new you, doesn't matter. Either way, the you of THIS history is DAMNED unlikely to have the chance and reason to go back in time like original you did. Maybe s/he won't even want to.

There's an exception to this rule, involving a twist of fate allowing you to exist independent of changes to time, no matter what. But where the deuce does that come from?

Wait, there's another exception to all this. The Doctor. He gets a pass on time travel for two reasons: one, he doesn't overcomplicate time travel. Two, he's the frickin' DOCTOR.

First Things First ...

I can't imagine I'll be too dedicated to this blog. I'm starting it because I was offhandedly challenged to. And offhanded challenges should rarely - if ever - be turned down. I already had a Blogger account (two, it turns out) for a couple of classes from two semesters or so back. Thanks to that little bit of forgotten homework, I've locked myself out of the URL I would have preferred for this blog. But whatcha gonna do ..? At least half the work of starting a blog was already done, which makes this easier for me to sit and do, since I know not a whole lotta people're gonna be reading this, anyway.

So, what do to? Start with a biography, or jump right into things?

...

I've got nothing to do today, see. That's the problem. Had plans, and even got responsible about them and did all my homework last night so I'd be good to game it up today, play me some RuneWars. My friend canceled. For his sake, it better have been for a girl. I didn't buy this game so I could never play it.

But nothing to do means I'm just stuck here gaming. Video gaming, I mean. Some 360, some Wii; I'm full-on back into my Civilization Revolution addiction. So there's that. But time to game (alone) means time to think, and that can be dangerous for a guy like me. Don't get me wrong: in the last ... mmm, six months or so, I'd say, I've dramatically improved my Time Spent in My Mind-to-Time Spent Being Emo ratio. Sure, The Emo still hits every now and then, but it is usually the result of specific stimuli. And alcohol. So it's easy enough to avoid, for the most part.

I'd just rather have something to do today, dammit. This is what I get for being responsible: nothing. To. Do.

I do wonder how this blog will shape up, however, considering my life really IS in a good place, right now, and the only real problems I have are a couple things I can never, ever post here. But, then, that's what I do. Think and wonder and prepare myself - mentally, at least - for all the possibilities I see in all the day-to-day drama I hate but can't avoid.

Oh, and prepare myself (again, mentally more than physically. Not like it's all that likely to happen) for the coming Apocalypse, of course. Fingers crossed, I'm hoping for a basic Zombie Apocalypse. I have a roommate, she is terrified of zombies. Unreasonably so, I think. Is it cruel of me to hope for at least a tiny, Resident Evil-style zombie outbreak, despite her fear?

Ah, I do that, too: pose a lot of rhetorical questions. In fact, that's probably what I'll name this blog.