Paradigm Shifts: Technology

In our global society and economy, technology is overwhelmingly deemed as inherently good. The rapid growth of this industry in the last ten years has not given any time to contemplate, analyze, or speculate the societal repercussions these expansive changes will have. We merely guess. We merely imagine, with childlike faith (sometimes fear). But we have no true historical insight, beyond the recent effects of industrialization, to draw our conclusions off of.

In the United States, as well as other developed countries, the average man has access to the newest innovations technology has to offer. Without any understanding of its functions, the processes of design or assembly, these changes are placed in his lap, exposed right at his fingertips, and posed as an additional tool that is supposed to add value to his life.

Those who are skeptical as to the value these new technologies add, have no true insight with which to base their criticisms. Their fears are easily argued and readily dismissed by innovators and users alike. A growing pressure on the general population then ensues- if you don't adopt these new technologies, you will be buried at the bottom of the ocean of change that is taking place right before your eyes. Technology screams to the modern man, "Quickly, take my hand! Please jump in my boat. You are sinking and if you don't get on now, it may be too late!"

It becomes our hero. Technology is making our lives far more brilliant than man could have imagined. It asks men to stop imagining, with exception of employing the utilities if offers. "Imagine with us". It is the ship sent to carry man to new frontiers and new futures. However, when we look at a larger frame of this illustration, technology is also the cause, unclear if through deliberate intention, of this flood.

We are witnessing entire industries being swallowed whole by technological innovations, especially through the digitization and automation of information. (I am going to name drop some companies. This is not out of disrespect or disapproval, but just to illuminate the gravity of what is currently taking effect.)
Google- through its super-database and alluring advertisement space is killing newspapers.
Amazon- is destroying electronic retailers- small and macro alike.
LinkedIn is all but eradicating the recruiting industry.
Spotify is wiping out record companies.

And these paramount changes are just the beginning of a massive paradigm shift we will soon face. This is just a beginning. These are just the adapters and changers who stand the best chance of thriving in this new digitized economy. The consumers are becoming the products. The private walls of urban life are crumbling behind our social media presence and online footsteps.

We live in a society that is gluttonous in its creativity. This is where technology thrives. Scientific innovations are trapped behind doors of political tension, philosophical implications, historical transitions, and ethical concerns. All the positive advances in this field must give due credit to the aid of technological advances. In fact, all schools of thought and human advancement must, at the very least, give a slight bow of gratitude to technology.

Its expanses are limitless. Its power-limitless. Its impact is limitless. It has no constraints. Those who try to confine it are too weak in their assertions to be helped. Those who are moving technology forward aren't necessarily pummeling over all skeptics, however. They soothe the doubters. "We understand your concerns and assure you, we've had the same convictions. We promise that we are taking every effort to ensure ethical standards are upheld." But ethical standards are largely determined by social norms. And social norms are being shaped and wielded by the introductions of these new technologies. So really, the assertion of ethical and moral integrity, are all but idealistic hopes. They have no full way of controlling their impact.

Should we forsake our new technology? Should we embrace every new innovation with full commitment? Most of our convictions fall somewhere between the two. The success of navigating through this quickly shaping world will be determined by our relentless questioning of the utility and impact of the tools set before us. We must not loose sight of humanity, and we must not loose sight of what's important.

Snow

I'm being hunted
Still keeping my pace slow
On a path he can track
Footprints still light
Scent, gently whispered on the leaves
Breath, giddy and low

I know what the hunter doesn't know
He cannot hear you howl at the moon like me
He cannot see your shadow behind the tree
You were the wolf all along

Too far away to see me cry
But you know the stars eyes twinkle just like mine
As soon as I decide
To run
He'll shoot me down

And we'll die

Halloween Stuff

He says I’m creepy and I like creepy things

It is a cute thing to say and a cute way to think

Little does he know of who Sinister is

I’m good don’t get me wrong

But I’m growing older and exposure is prolonged

To the monsters in my room

Their chokehold is strong

This news isn’t new

But he’s a new guy

What is creepy to him is just another black sky

To me

What I go to bed to every night

“Are you going to have nightmares from that?”

He put the image of a worm crawling out of a man’s head

Into my mind

I laugh and I’m cute again

Little does he know, Sinister stands behind

Fright turns to excitement to comfort every time

If I could cry on command

He would hold me strong every dark night

But it’s one am and it’s time for me to go home

They’ll be waiting for me

Insistent I return alone

They’ll hold me tighter in the night than he

Insistent on choaking out my eternity

Children

I love a boy

Against my will

Against my better judgement

Like a child

This love is too big

This world is far too big

To try and exist at all

This love makes me small

It makes me a small little girl

Reminiscent of days when my hair used to curl

And I would talk to the sage and the wind

Reminiscent of days that lasted a thousand years

And I would twirl my dress in the wind

I can’t save his soul

You make our souls glow bright

Something we never asked for

We grew accustomed to the darkness

Until you took us up in flight

Until you made us twinkle like the stars in the night

This love makes us innocent and small

In this world we tried to leave behind

Is his lost soul what it took to save mine?

You knew his soul is tethered to mine?

Grab our small hands, clasped and intertwined

And cast out our fears past the sky

The train is coming and we want to go home

Its Not What You Say

The music hums past a loud drone
We're trapped inside
The sea outside keeps us alone
I've tried
Times like these before I've tried
To play the game between strangers' eyes
But none have nibbled at the bait
Until tonight

You have hooks of your own
Ones I'll tempt you to use
Ones that'll make me sick
Ones that I'll want to abuse
Perhaps you understand

If someone like me
Has looked at you
In that way
You froze your breath
And looked away
But even when you looked back
They set you on fire with wanton gaze

If enticing looks lie inside the imagined world
Of what you crave
Look back at me
It won't rain all night
In this desert sky
Let my lightning bolt light you up
Until you die

Electrified

T.S. Eliot

This is my favorite excerpt from T.S. Eliot's Family Reunion.  (The very last part of Act III)

Chorus: 

We do not like to look out the same window, and see quite a different landscape. 

We do not like to climb a stair, and find that it takes us down. 

We do not like the maze in the garden, because it too closely resembles the maze in the brain. 

We do not like what happens when we are awake, because it too closely resembles what happens when we are asleep.

We understand the ordinary business of living,

We know how to work the machine,

We can usually avoid accidents,

We are insured against fire,

Against larceny and illness,

Against defective plumbing,

But not against the act of God.

We know various spells and enchantments,

And various forms of sorcery,

Divination and chiromancy,

Specifics against insomnia,

Lumbago, and the loss of money.

But the circle of our understanding

Is a very restricted area.

Except for a limited number

Of strictly practical purposes

We do not know what we are doing;

And even, when you think of it,

What is happening outside of the circle?

And what is the meaning of happening?

What ambush lies beyond the heather

And behind the Standing Stone?

Beyond the Heaviside Layer

And behind the smiling moon?

And what is being done to us?

And what are we, and what are we doing?

To each and all of these questions

There is no conceivable answer.

We have suffered far more than a personal loss--

We have lost our way in the dark.

Ivy: I shall have to stay till after the funeral: will my ticket to London still be valid?

Gerald: I do not look forward with pleasure to dealing with Arthur and John in the morning. 

Violet: We must wait for the will to be red. I shall send a wire in the morning.

Charles: I fear that my mind is not what it was-- or was it?-- and yet I think that I might understand. 

All: But we must adjust ourselves to the moment: we must do the right thing.

[Enter, form one door, Agatha and Mary, and set a small portable table. From another door, enter Denman carrying a birthday cake with lighted candles, which she sets on the table. Exit Denman. Agatha and Mary walk slowly in single file round and round the table, clockwise. At each revolution they blow out a few candles, so that their last words are spoken in the dark.] 

Agatha:

A curse is slow in coming 

To complete fruition

It cannot be hurried

And it cannot be delayed

Mary:

It cannot be diverted

An attempt to divert it

Only implicates others

At the day of consummation

Agatha:

A curse is a power

Not subject to reason

Each curse has its course

Its own way of expiation

                       Follow Follow

Mary:

Not in the day time

And in the hither world

Where we know what we are doing

There is not its operation

                      Follow Follow

Agatha:

But in the night time

And in the hither world

Where we know what we are doing

There is not its operation

                     Follow Follow

Mary:

A curse is written 

On the under side of things

Behind the smiling mirror

And behind the smiling moon

                      Follow Follow

Agatha:

This way the pilgrimage

Of expiation

Round and round the circle

Completing the charm

So the knot be unknotted

The cross be uncrossed

The crooked be made straight

And the curse be ended

By intercession

By pilgrimage

By those who depart

In several directions

For their own redemption

And that of the departed--

                          May they rest in peace.

The Dark Erosion of Consciousness

Ivy threw herself on the bed

Plummeting into a waifing ocean of lavender and downy pillows

Recklessly tangling her writhing body in a pile of covers

She was waiting

Waiting to emerse herself in her prophetic dreams

Daytime is when she would usually meet

The Shaman

Lazarus 

King of the dead

He 

Lazarus

Was the one who taught her how to spin the mirror

Until her image had turned

And she had become a monster of the stagnant night

"Lady Green"

Is what he called her

His prodigy of manipulation

Blissful chaos ensued in those dreams

Little Ivy

The nymph of the well

Lured men into the deep

A certain torturous hell

For those afraid of the slippery, damp and dark

Lazarus ate those mens' hearts like cherries rotting off the pits

And she sank deeper,

Deeper,

Into a dark sleep