We’ve all got moments worth-retelling. But all will be gone to waste if it’s not from and by us since we’re both the narrators and the primary source vs through someone else’s recollection of us, or worst of , they stole our thunder by re-telling about us as if we were absent in the room.
We are transitioning from man-to-machine e.g. withdraw $20 like the last time, your browsing history, the AI that cracks the Beatles “who wrote this” code etc… From online retail to online learning, online sex to online religion.
I wrote about going through the whole 24- hours without interacting with a human being. At this rate, I might as well go see a counselor trained by online counseling schools, and who can recognize the agony of those have already had their 15-minutes of fame ( of course, the line was quoted from Andy Warhol who frequented Studio 54) or face time.
We used to be jealous of real people, now it’s against social media, against Youtube and Facebook that monopolize our loved ones’ time (at least 6 hours a day one post at a time). It’s the revenge of the nerds whose upload speed is now decent enough to make up for decades of lost times (yet household data spending remains at level). Just poke and get a thumbs up, down to the lowest common denominators.
A friend I haven’t seen in 47 years said ” life is like chewing gum, after a while, it gets less sweet”. I wonder where facebook is going to take us, but I am worried that its content will get watered down to 1% common denominator while 99% creeped and crammed in by AI and online ads catered to and curated in our own image.
Alone together.
Attention starved. Nobody is there for us to retell those hard-earned memories:
memories of the flood ( district 3 Saigon) and of the family fight ( 4 adults running Chinese fire drill around dinner table)
memories of the fright ( thief in the night) and flight (7th fleet on the Pacific horizon and a duffle bag full of defunct currencies, tossed into the sea like cremated ashes).
Memories of face “the first time, I ever saw your face” (Aily of the Apple 3).
Memories of fear “Daaaaaaaad” (seeing him fall down the stairs)
memories of fun “don’t jerk off in the showers” yelled someone in a Penn State dorm showers – walking distance from Sandusky’s infamous & echoing gym showers
memories of peace, waking up from a nap in mom’s assisted living one-bedroom.
Memories of my child’s cries and of the opposite-sex orgasm.
Memories of rejection ( 1st sale job) and reception (1st fax machine sold).
Of singing in the choir (and touring the nursing homes) and the band ( while watching my girl friend slow-dance with her x-boyfriend).
Memories of seeing people running away after withdrawing from Three-Mile Island ATM’s or Saigon last day of bank opening.
Memories of Tet, of burning incense and burning monk.
Memories: all of which trans-continental and bi-sexual. Memories of victories (winning cars) and defeats (getting fire).
Memories on the road to individuation and becoming.
Yet we will soon let all of them be flushed down the toilet, either because of Alzheimer or AI. We will leave behind only digital footprints – those machine-aided and re-constructed memories i.e. facebook memories – reposted over and over, hence allowing ourselves be re-composed and re-cycled into unrecognizable digital forms, distorted and disjointed.
Remember me in organic forms or not at all!!!!
Loved ones will be limited with our re-constructed and recommended memories, only selected peaks and parts, two-dimensional (sound and sight). I am “half the man I used to be”, no matter I did “my way” or not. When Milli Vanillin started to lip-sync their songs, I saw the hand-writings on the wall.
All the struggles to stay human i.e. angry, loving, hateful and compassionate; out the window. What’s left are second-hand sources, hearsay, snippets of re-constructed (photoshop?) fragments:. the eulogy self.
Damn. The age of analog and anger is nearly over. I’d rather watch the raw smelly-vision than having virtual sex with an EX Machina. I am born this way: with 5 senses yet deprived with only 3 frequently used, hence not even half the man I used to be: a form of slow death. Unplug me, or let me re-tell those memories and milestones paid dearly with my own price. Let me be the primary source cause I am a man who can speak for himself.
Thang Nguyen 555 