reaction to interview with Tikva
I've been thinking a lot since our interview about the first question you asked, (about the most important people in my life), for me I think this is a rather dynamic question. Sure there are people who are deeply and always will be important to me: my family, my life long friends, my boyfriend etc... however I think the list is always slightly shifting after them.
There is a concept of urban tribalism and how our nuclear families are being replaced with our 'urban tribe' family, as less and less of us urban-ites have children, we have to create our own concepts of home and place. As a result, I see us all traveling in tribes. Example: I have my cycling tribe, I have my ITP tribe, I have my NYC tribe, I have my female-ITP-NYC-tribe, and so on and so fourth. Each is different yet each is totally essential to my way of living.
"Koyaanisqatsi" is a Hopi Indian word. It means "life out of balance."
I think a lot about how life is out of balance in the city, I think a lot about how we deal with living in such an unnatural environment- how many more people use substances to soothe and numb, how many more people are alone- living or literally, how many more people here are successful financially yet miserable emotionally. I think a lot about how we ignore beauty and love and fleeting moments, I think about how much time we loose not being with the people we want to really really be with because we have long hours at the office or classroom.. I don't think it has anything to do with the fact people don't have the capacity to understand those things or do them, but because it was irrelevant to them or they are all too busy to be not busy and just stop to (re)think.
If the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind the most little moments in life-- then what else are we missing?
I think about how often I have my ipod on me, sometimes I keep my headphones on but don't have any music on. I listen to the sounds as I walk down the street.. car, people, birds, trash. I keep my headphones on, it offers me some sort of protection in a way- - from others. Men don't try to talk to me when I have my headphones on, they don't cat call because they assume I can't hear it. I can walk safely.
Although, I wonder if the explosion in technology has extremely limited our exposure to new experiences? Increasingly, we get our news from sources that think as we already do- blogs, friends, listserves. . . and with iPods, we hear what we already know; we program our own play lists- literally. Everything is familiar. We create a sense of familiarity and we control what we hear almost to a fault and how much of life are we losing out on as a result?
There is some sort of tragic emotional disconnect technology as bestowed upon us. .... have you ever heard that song, I think its called "just like heaven" its sort of an emo song about a man has found the woman of his dreams but can't express the depth of his feeling for her until she's gone. It's about failing to see the beauty of what's plainly in front of your eyes and I think technology does exactly that.