Michio Kaku, a famous Japanese physicist breaks down civilisations into three types (type 0,1,2 and 3). He describes a type 2 civilisation as one that is stellar, and therefore immortal. A type 1 civilisation is planetary, which means that it can manipulate anything that has to do with the planet. Kaku believes that we are currently transiting between a type 0 and type 1 civilisation.
He argues that the internet is what we can call a “planetary” telephone system. Through other examples such as the English language, music culture such as youth music, and even economies such as the european union, the physicist explains that all of these things know no boundaries around the earth, and are therefore classified as type 1 technologies and ideologies. The internet knows no boundaries, it is not a caged like MySpace, it is bound to thrive and survive.
I think I’ve already mentioned this brilliant man before, his name is David Foster Wallace, he is a university professor of English and creative writing, and an American novelist.
I quoted him in a graduation speech he made in my post The Pages, Not the Book; basically in his speech, he was trying to impart his philosophies on work life and the conscious mind. Wallace used the analogy of a fish who meets another school of fish and says “Careful folks, the water’s a bit unsteady back there.”, and one of the fish responds with “What the hell is water?”. Water I’m assuming is a reference to life itself; as i understand it, the metaphor is trying to show us that moving forward aimlessly is never a good idea, we need to keep reminding ourselves that “Yes, this is water”, so that we don’t miss out on all the gems life offers us daily.
The best part of the speech is when he discusses our conscious decision to always assume everything happens to us, and not to everyone. He explains that we always have the choice to realise that yes, sometimes it sucks, and it’s hard, and unfair, and boring but that doesn’t mean that everyone else is any better off than you, that they don’t understand what you’re going through; and that’s why we should always choose to see any situation, whether stuck in line at a supermarket, or repeating the same tasks every single day at work, as a cynical reminder of how awesome it is to be human. We’re all in the same boat on this journey, we’re born, we live our lives, then we die; so instead of complaining about the fat old lady at the register, let’s revel in the moment and admire the beauty of being human.
Not that any of that is necessarily true, but it’s always a nice thought to keep in the back of your head when you feel like life is taking you nowhere.
And now for another lesson on life, by Jim Carrey this time!
The other day i was watching How I Met Your Mother, and it was the episode where Ted thinks he was rivalling with another guy for a girl’s attention without realising that he was actually gay. Toward the end of the episode, they were saying how they’d never seen most of the people from that day ever again, even though they were all really good friends at the time.
I’ve obviously already graduated from high school and therefore had to leave a lot of people who i can call my friends, many of which I will most likely only ever see once or twice again in my life. But my closest friends I still see on a weekly basis, but that makes me think, ten, twenty years from now, are they all going to be a distant memory of irresponsible, ‘invincible’, teenage banter? One of my closest friends is leaving for the army in New South Wales in 20 days, we can always drive up to see him when he’s free, but will that last very long? And how long before my other friends move to Thailand, and run off with rich men or become male escorts who travel around the world? How long before I’m gone?
Sorry for the deep post, there’s too much intellectual insight on network media in here!
