Pilot

A few months back, I sent my best friend, Kenzo, a message in YM and it freaked him out. Nothing incriminating. It was just a simple “Hey”, followed up by a “Watsup?” And he was like, “Wow, hey, how’d you get your laptop to work?”, followed up by “I can’t believe I’m talking to you through YM! (insert huge smiley)” . The latter was definitely greater shock to him than the former, and the impression I got from him was that my first time ever “YMng” (I’m hip, get use to it) may be categorized as a breakthrough of sorts—next to the invention of the telephone, the mapping of the human genome and Pepsi with Lime. If this is any indication, I’m not all that big on online social playgrounds like YMs or multiplies (although I do have one for school purposes) or friendsters or blogs(hemm…until now). In fact, I’m not all that big on computers or gadgets either. The hip jargon, the indecipherable acronyms dumbfound me. I guess you can also categorize me as the polar opposite of a techno-savant, which I think is called a techno-retard. Or maybe I just like to keep things simple and personal.

I had my first cellphone for 7 years. Let’s just say, I had a tumultuous yet intensely gratifying relationship with my 3310. Only recently did the parental task force intervene, seeing it as an utter “embarrassment” to have around. I had them put off the “replacement” for well over a year—perhaps out of attachment or the fact that I didn’t really need a new one since the old one works just fine. Although it was not so much an embarrassment for me as it is, according to my parents, for the people around me looking at my phone (my equally weak counterargument went something like… “Sino? Yung mga tao sa jeep? Sa UP?), I did eventually get a new phone. So, my phone now is a respectable-looking Nokia 6020. It’s outdated (since, I guess, it came out three years ago) but not nearly as prehistoric as my 3310 (which came out a million years ago). Here’s one thing that’s hard to miss when choosing a cellphone though: there are WAY too many models to choose from, only be whittled down by the budget you have in hand. I, for one, had a budget so that left me with at least 6 phones to choose from. The saleslady kept offering the latest model in the bunch which of course happened to be the most expensive. She pointed out its many features—the built-in camera and radio, mp3 player, infrared, web services, GPS, its detonating capabilities, the works. If she only knew she could have had me at ‘pixels, displayed in 65,536 colors’. I held out another phone and asked what its features were (and damn if my myopic eyes can’t detect the subtle changes in form—they all just look like what a cellphone would normally look like). With a shrug, she goes “Maskonti nga lang features niyan kumpara mo dun sa isa.” which I’ve come to understand lacks just one or two of the main features she just mentioned. Again, if she only knew she could have had me at ‘the pixels with its myriad of colors’. I decided to purchase the second cheapest cellphone of the whole lot, with my integrity intact.

In a technologically-advanced landscape where you’ve got one hand in your pocket fiddling away with an iPod and the other sending a ridiculous “chaintxt” about a woman in white appearing at the edge of your bed at 2 in the morning if you “break the chain..!”, technology’s promise of an “Upgrade!”, “free P1000 load for every purchase of...” and of something “…sleeker, bolder, faster…” is just too good to pass up. You want an internet connection 100x faster than what you have now? Hey, I’ll dream if you’ll dream with me and together, we’ll make our dreams come true. How about an iPod that can store a million songs/ a million pictures and video downloads/is a camera and can be implanted in your head? Pitch your idea to Apple Computers CEO Steve Jobs and he’ll make your dreams come true. Coz your dream is apparently my dream, and our dream is his billion-dollar dream. He’ll even throw in every other model made in the past 10 seconds (hmm, wasn’t this in a Weekend Update episode in SNL?). If there’s anything these big shots know how to do is prey on the consumers’ wants and needs; how those two things in our day and age are readily adjusted to suit an idealized lifestyle. They know that dangling anything shiny and new appeals to the visceral core of consumerist culture: “Thou shall have what my neighbor’s having, lest I get left behind”. Our weakness is our insatiable want or need for more; for everything to be conveniently delivered at our doorsteps in the quickest possible time, with no delay. Technology is so much a part of every waking life—from our social interactions to our source of entertainment; from the production and distribution of our basic necessities to ensuring our security and employment. We are a slave to technology as technology is a slave to mankind. Man is a machine. Machine is man. We welcome it with outstretched arms only its consequences are more than what we’ve bargained for.

Everything is coming and going at such lightning speeds that our ability to embrace the changes is rife with alienation as it is with the trust for the bigger, brighter, more dynamic future we envisioned for ourselves. Thinking about this reminds me of this Futurist sculpture that came out at the turn of the 20th Century by Umberto Boccioni called the “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”. Distorted planes jut out of the human figure as it “strides” its way to the future, appearing almost like a blur. It’s supposed to capture the tenacity, vitality and dynamism of the technological age—the continuous movement to hyper-reality. I get this unsettling feeling looking at it because although you know it’s a human figure it’s depicting, there is nothing remotely close to human about it. It’s alive. It appears to be moving. But it’s almost...soulless.

I fear the age where the simple pleasure of reading books and flipping one page after the other would be replaced by electronic books (given a glib title of eBooks) that you would need to scroll down to get through. Oh wait…is that already happening?

Song(s) of the Day: When I Say Go by 1900s; 2080 by Yeasayer; Tane Mahuta by The Ruby Suns; Bodysnatchers by Radiohead