A few Paragraphs from the Openning Chapter of The Godseed

Opening Chapter

We shape what we are, creating ourselves and our world through a series of metaphors bound together.  Truth becomes nothing more than mere contingency.  It is hollow and empty.  What truth will shape our future?  What will we take hold of and place over the forge of our minds in order to shape our destinies?  What will we open our eyes to?

On a tree he dies…

His mind was shattered into millions of fragments and he scrambled within to grasp at each piece, to hold onto something, anything.  Everything faded, a darkness creeping across the edges of his consciousness like the movement of a slick black liquid.  Thick and engulfing, it pushed away at any thought that railed against it, slipping around edges, sliding over, under, and around.  There was no use fighting, the darkness was everywhere.

Pain shot through his body, bringing his mind back into consciousness.  His mid section burned with it, and his shoulders felt an immense pulling pressure. The pain radiated from where two large metal spikes impaled his flesh.  They were driven through his shoulders pinning him in place.  It was a burning pain, like a million tiny needles were stabbing into his skin.  His body convulsed, his stomach heaving, trying to push out the boiling feeling in his gut.  Instead bile and blood seeped out over his lip, dripping down his chin onto his naked chest.  Snaking down his body it dripped to the dust covered ground, mingling with the already dried blood that had formed a puddle beneath.  His mouth gaped open in a soundless scream, and his mind reeled away from the intensity of the feelings, trying to seek out the comfort of unconsciousness.

It wouldn’t come.  Instead the pain seemed to be alive.  Like something tiny crawling through his skin, moving across his body, down his arms and legs.  It was everywhere, burning hot and cold all at the same time.  His limbs shook slightly with the shock his body was trying to endure.

The wind struck out like the tip of a whip, lashing at his naked skin.  In its grip it carried swirling sand and dust, and the tiny pieces slashed against him in their furry.  Any attempt to open his eyes to the world around him was drowned out by the density of the sand, so thick, like falling and blowing snow.  He couldn’t see anything, and he scratched around in his head for memories, for anything that might tell him where he was and what had happened.

The Apathy of Newer Generations

In all sense of appearance, today’s generation of school children have a higher sense of apathy than in previous generations. Their complete lack of caring as to what they believe applies to them is in many ways sad. Talking to several teachers who have been teaching for years now, all of them say the same thing; that today’s kids just don’t get it. They have this idea of entitlement that makes them think they are owed everything and that they don’t have to work for anything. Perhaps part of the problem is the system itself, where we push students through the lower elementary grades because it is widely held that their social development is more important than their academic development. At the same time though, children are learning that they don’t have any direct consequences to their actions. They can coast through life and not have to worry, because the system is set up to take care of them. This is a scary thought. What happens when they enter into the work world, and suddenly discover that they have to work, have to put effort into something? Will they step up and be able to perform? Will they even have the necessary skills to do that? Or instead will they rely on other systems that will allow them to coast through life, like unemployment, welfare and unions (Not all bad, and in many cases needed, but at the same time can be exploited). It is possible we could see a huge exploitation of such systems in the future by people who are just down right lazy. Yes, the “L” word, the word that we are told as teachers we are never allowed to use toward a student. They are not lazy we are told, they just need proper stimulation, it’s the teachers fault not theirs. It is difficult to perceive how these so called experts in the field of child development and educational psychology come up with their theories. It can’t be through actually spending countless years inside a classroom doing careful observation.

With all that being said, it is true that the current educational system is out of date. This is an opinion, but I believe it to be an accurate one. With the onset of technology, children’s attention spans have decreased greatly over time. The methods employed within a class room tend to be slower and more static. There does have to be a more up to date adaptation of faster paced teaching to help grab and hold children’s attention.

At the same time though, children have to start to be held responsible again. Their sense of entitlement needs to be quashed, so they can awaken to reality. They are going to have to put in the time and work to get somewhere in life. There are no jobs out there ready to be handed to them like they seem to think they deserve. I fear for the future, and perhaps most generations have felt this way toward the youth, but I don’t know, for some reason I think it’s different this time. No matter who I speak to, everyone in the profession says one thing over and over again “I don’t remember kids being like this ten years ago.”

The Decline of Social Interaction

With the rise of hundreds of different types of social networking sites, and the huge popularity of certain ones in particular like Facebook and MySpace, it would seem that social interaction is at its height.  I however have to disagree with this.  True social interaction, face to face relations, genuine conversations have become less important to us than making sure we update our status, or check to see what the “Jones” are doing.  Now not only do we have to try to strive to keep up in a material world with our friends and neighbours, we also have to attempt to be as socially interesting.  The result is a rise of narcissistic attempts at making the most basic thing sound interesting.  The worst part of it all is everyone is glued to this way of existence.  Everyone genuinely feels it is important and a great way of socially interacting.  Don’t get me wrong it is a well thought out idea, and works on some very basic levels of keeping people in touch, especially those you haven’t seen in a long time.  The part that I think is ultimately negative though is when you rely on sending messages and status updates, and wall posts to friends rather than picking up a phone, or even better spending some time with them in person interacting.  So many people argue there just isn’t enough time for that, and that to me is a whole other issue and problem with current levels of society.

Here is an example of what I am talking about that I recently found.  It was a study conducted about the importance of sex compared to the internet.  For anyone who knows anything about relationships, sex is a binding power through connection, intimacy, and ultimately through biology, so quite often it is a way of strengthening a relationship.  Here are the findings of the study.

• Nearly half of women (46 percent) and 30 percent of men would rather go without sex for 2 weeks than give up Internet access for the same amount of time.

• For women aged 18-34 it was 49 percent and for women aged 35-44 it was 52 percent.

• For men aged 18-34, it was 39 percent.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20081215corp.htm

I would argue that the time spent on the Internet is being used mostly by such social networking sites as mentioned above, even though the study never actually said what was being done on the Internet.  In fact look at how attached people have become to such devices as blackberries and cell phones, merely texting, or accessing the Internet.  There are times you can be sitting beside your significant other, or friends, or family, and they are more engaged in a conversation on their mobile device than they are to anything going on around them.  Is it just me or is this not a problem?  I have a Facebook account, so I am not completely innocent of this myself, but I rarely use most of the applications, and it has mostly become a secondary email service/photo storage site for me.

There is a bright side to all of this.  I don’t want to sound completely biased.  The development of such sites does allow for wide open discussions, debates, questioning, and answers.  It opens up the world to a broader means of communicating about important issues.  The sad thing though, is most of it is not geared to do that.  It is instead what it is.  Perhaps I am just to cynical?

The Importance of Perspective

After watching the new version of the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” I couldn’t help but think about paradigm shifts and the perspectives we would have on the same situation in different contexts.  The premise of the movie is of course that an alien race comes to earth to weigh and judge the human race to determine whether or not we are a detriment to the continued survival of the planet.  That’s the basic idea behind the movie, but while watching it, my mind went in some completely different directions.  First of all the form in which the alien vehicle (for lack of a better word) arrives on earth is interesting.  It arrives as a vast sphere of flashing and glowing light.  Secondly the form in which the alien takes is as a human, adapting its own physical shape to match that of ours in order to better understand us, and in another sense to be able to adequately survive in our environment.  Now with those two things in the movie I started to think a little deeper.

My mind wandered into the idea of paradigm and paradigm shifts.  The idea that perspectives are created out of the current historical context of evidence, and that perspective is influenced by said things.  When the ship arrives, the characters in the movie instantly associate it with the perspective of something “alien.”  This is interesting because it is the result of our current historical context of living in a more scientific world.  If you were to take the same movie, and use the same glowing sphere and alien in disguise as human with these extra-ordinary powers, and set it two thousand years ago, what then would the perspective of the people living in that historical context be?  They would not have the exposure to science, or science fiction for that matter to attempt to answer what it is they are witnessing.  Instead they would have to rely on some other form of context.  More than likely that context would be to explain it in a religious aspect instead.  A glowing alien sphere emitting technology that augments our environment (current perspective).  A manifestation of ‘God’ (two thousand year old perspective.)  I mean some of the imagery in religious texts lend themselves to this idea rather nicely.  The pillar of fire that represents god when the parting of the Red Sea occurs, etc.  Anyway, I don’t really want to get into a religious debate about whether ‘God’ exists or not, but I just found it interesting on a contemplative level on how easily misunderstanding a situation because of a lack of understanding and knowledge could easily lead itself to a misinterpretation of events.

Contemplation of the Big and Small Things

Life often feels like a continuous chorus of questions.  Sometimes we manage to find answers that are suitable, that fit into what it is we need them to fit into.  Sometimes we find nothing, and have to continue searching, hoping that one day such an answer will arrive.  This is nothing to be feared, but instead cherished, for it is through this continued contemplation that we come up with better answers, stronger answers, answers that fit more perfectly into the questions we are asking.  Never stop asking questions.  Never stop contemplating the bigger and smaller things in life.  When you question, you grow, you reaffirm, you thicken, you strengthen, and you become wiser.  In this, I hope to continue.