missing-city05

[missing-city05]

I think dyson spheres are stupid

they inherently rely on the human capitalistic lens of being unable to further society without destroying our planet.

[missing-city05]

Just clogged the toilet so bad my roomate had to call his mom. FML

[missing-city05]

City Journal #1

Today on my dinner break I met the most fascinating homeless man. I walked to an empty bench on a busy but not crowded street; hoping to shamefully pick at my caesar salad before returning to my textbooks. People watching while I eat has always been a slightly creepy but entertaining habit of mine. On occasion people look back, usually brushing you off in a second with a mild furrow in their brow. However, this evening, as I sat and passively observed the crowds; I made eye contact with the most intelligent, breathtaking amber eyes. They belonged to a 40 something year old homeless man, with a thick tan (the type you only get after too many cruel summers spent outside,) and symbols sharpied on his hands and arms. 

Having spent time on the streets or near them for the early and late years of my teens, I personally refuse to treat homeless people as anything other than another person in the city. 

So, I smiled at him and gave a slight nod. He seemed mesmerized by my simple acknowledgement of his personhood, slowly coming to a stop in front of my bench. 

“Have we met before?” His voice had a soft yet gravely tone. “I don’t believe so” I responded with a conversational manner.  He scrutinized me further with his piercing gaze, “I'm sorry for stopping, but I’m just naturally very drawn towards people with different frequencies, you have a very different vibe, and a very different bone structure, not a bad one, just different.” I nodded as he spoke. He also had a bag of dinner with him, he didn’t bother me, and I was somewhat fascinated, so for a while, we sat eating in a comfortable silence. Staring at the workings of the city, we chatted about home, his living in the city, he explained to me the symbols of protection he had sharpied on his arms, and we spoke in depth about religion and symbolism. I found that he possessed a wealth of knowledge on Judeo-christian biblical lore and iconography. He spoke about how as he was imprisoned, he thought about how Jesus had been turned away by the semites and they soon lost everything, and how still God accepted them as his chosen people; he said the last point of which brought him to tears. 

We spoke a bit more as I finished the last of my salad, I was so drawn in by his eyes as he spoke, the intelligence that shone in them despite his odd and on occasion unnerving tangents. 

Eventually we both stood again, we engaged in the odd human ritual of sharing names only after speaking with someone for 30+ minutes, and as I turned to leave, the man offered me a two-fingered fist bump. Which of course returned with enthusiasm.  City life I guess?

[missing-city05]

How cable tv decided my career.

 A sociological reflection on self image and media

Growing up isolated in the mountains of Appalachian Virginia, the only neighbors I shared my family farm with were miles of pine trees and an apple orchard to the east. While the spring and fall months were dedicated to bushwacking and ATV riding in the fall and spring. However, the grueling, humid days of the Virginia summer were spent sprawling on my fathers couch and indulging in the maladaptive playground of cable TV. 

I wouldn’t say that I was raised by cable per say. My father did some of the work, but over all on the fronts of education, morals and world view; the TV took care of that.  

Growing up isolated, whether from family situations or social issues, leads to a fundamental lack of identity and understanding of where you fit into society. Having been raised in a generation of screens, the natural replacement of my social interaction or meaningful connections was a screen. When we’re young, the things we are exposed to mold us on a fundamental level, we expose kids to children's programming, to teach them basic lessons of our world and how they fit into it. Growing up in a very, well, eccentric household I wasn’t allowed to watch normal cartoons. The only acceptable programs were the science channel, the History channel, and Fox News.   And so when the reruns of Ancient Aliens were getting dull, and interacting with my father was not a pleasant concept, I would turn to the box set DVDs where the minds of Sherlock Holmes and Poirot lived. Not to mention a ridiculous amount of BBC crime drama soaps. When I watched TV shows they transported me to another place, and gave me a strong role model to look up to. My role models being detectives and puzzle solvers made me naturally want to be inquisitive and quick thinking, forming habits that reinforce that as a core part of my self image. 

Later in my adolescence the role of TV, while still a maladaptive coping mechanism, changed fundamentally for me. I had built myself as a person, and now needed to know where, if anywhere, that person could possibly fit into society at large. As my horizons were broadened by the new era of streaming, I was still drawn to crime dramas and scientific documentaries; indulging in night long binges of Criminal Minds and Forensic Files. I was set on becoming a field agent in the FBI, I decided my major and my school right there, criminal justice and psychology at GWU. When my life changed again, this time to somewhat of a rock bottom, I spent my most miserable days in a hospital bed, a book, a sitter, and reruns of M*A*S*H to keep me entertained. I had always abhorred the thought of becoming a doctor, I hated hospitals, I hated the sick. But as days passed, and I found solace in the TVs glow, the show completely reinvented the way I think about doctors, about the impact of a single act of care. 

I was so influenced by my consumption of all this media that It completely wrote my life plan. I started to work hard in high school and graduated early, got accepted into GWU, I had found a passion again, a place in the world, and it completely changed where my life is heading. 

With a world so immersed in media, visual and otherwise, we are all guilty of building ourselves as mirrors to what we see. From teenage boys watching Patrick Bateman edits to extremist news sites, our identity is inherently linked to the media we consume. The only question left is how much does it consume us?