Tag: Leo Tolstoy

The grains of time

By now the transition from analog to digital has almost been completed.

Movies, music, photos and books. The old movies are easy to spot: actors using huge phones and driving old cars.

Vinyl albums made those hissy noise when touched by the needle.

And books, like the one I am reading, War and Peace, are so heavy. You can’t help realising that you are entering Tolstoy‘s Imperial Society.

Physical versus digital world.

24/7 always-on grid vs our 16-hour world (8 hours for sleep).

People, through connection, find suitors in the old world, friending others in the new.

More atomized more access, the new takes scarcity and locality out of the equation.

Just Google him or her.

Follow him/her on Twitter (despite the miles apart).

The social graph shows his/her photos, Likes, and Time Line.

Little Red Riding Hood was told not to trust strangers (wolf in grandma’s clothing). Now she is encouraged to click Approve, and upload every details of her waking life.

Yet those grains of time as appeared in old B/W photos speak volumes about our ancestors. Mine always seemed to appear in groups, staring straight and standing straight. It’s as though they had all been military cadets.

I have gone through life, never had a chance to see if my grandparents even smiled at all.

Now, with X-Gig memory cards, we can afford to leave behind traces of happiness. Limit not ourselves to event only, since everyday is an event. Monday, Monday, it turns out that way.

Having said that (technology enhances self-expression), I must give it to the previous generation whose movie theme music remains unsurpassed. Think of the old James Bond theme music (three cheers to SKYFALL which has just won the Golden Globe),  Moon River, Love is Many splendor Things…. You can always tell their genres e.g. Big-Band or string guitar. The 50’s gave birth to subsequent women liberation and self-expression in couture, hair dyeing.

Those shiny  but short skirts, the boots, and low neck lines. Furniture and interior decoration was hip as well. Now, with mass merchandising, young men and women took for granted their individuality online while at the same time paying less attention to outer appearance: metro-style, with T-shirts and trans-gender jeans.

While collegial looks are available to all, online “friending” is quite restricted. You need access to your “friend’s” page. Even then, you will know very little, besides what they wanted you to know. More access yet fewer information. Sounds like we are back to square one, with grainy B/W photos. I hope someday I come across in family’s album something resembling a smile. Maybe at the time, women colored their teeth black (to prevent cavity). Hence, the embarrassment. Or that they took pictures with a family patriarch who was stern and strict. Or the photographer had been trained to take ID photos only (no “cheese”. ) Then I remember Mona Lisa, and how we all “read” into that painting a smile that might or might not be there. Obviously, we can see it in her eyes. That smile stood the test of time, however grainy and non-digital.

Twitter and Tolstoy

My new-year resolution is to get through Tolstoy‘s monumental “War and Peace.”

The characters and ethos were deliberate and elaborating (everyone wants a piece of the inheritance while the man was dying etc….).

Visitors were announced at the gate (no intercom), received at party etc….

Tolstoy’s imperialistic people have time on their hands. We don’t. We tweet, text and retweet.

But man’s nature remains the same: greed, exhibitionist, illusion of grandeur.

Trapped in their place and time, would we be doing any better?

How much is man a product of nurture vs nature?

With chip speed doubles every 18 months and Google Kansas City SuperFast Broadband, where do we go from here (or do we wish to go on to infinity?).

The I-pod cannot get smaller (Shuffle).

A tweet cannot be shorter.

If someone could think of something to debunk Facebook and YouTube, they probably would.

Faster, more efficient and more savings. All fine. But that doesn’t explain Newtown, 9/11 and gang rape in India. (as of this edit, it has just happened again, this time, to a Swiss couple).

Stuff that Taleb coined “black swan” in human nature.

It’s a vicious cycle. We think like this because we are taught to reason, to ask question (Socrates). But then we are inside the system, like cog in the wheel, unable to have the bird-eye’s view, to see the weakest link.

With new Congress sworn in this week,  I sincerely wish the freshman class have fresh eyes, and hopefully, committed hearts.

May they live out their terms and their years with honor and worthy of our votes. Just hope that while they tweet, they would remember Tolstoy. We still live reflexively as cavemen, with Black Swan and blind spot. Our blindness is built- in, and should not be viewed as a weakness. Just is. (no one has ever seen their eyes with their own eyes). But then, we need someone to point that out. We need a team. A partner. Someone who is both prophetic, yet pastoral. Condemn and console. Yes, we are imperfect products of our times. Just as Tolstoy’s people, of theirs.