Human Bodies

This post contains what some might see as spoilers, even though The Matrix is nearly 20 years old, and Jupiter Ascending is going on three years pretty soon.

My mother had me thinking about the Wachowsk(i/a)s/Wachowscy with an assignment she has to do.

Part of what I've liked about their worlds they've built is how they'd trivialized the human body. They've made them into nothing more than disposable robot batteries and grind-up fodder for a youth serum. They've shown that you can just shoot one dead and, while it hurts some people, they move on. They've shown that we're, in the grand scheme, not very unique because the genome is finite and eventually, as I've remarked on before, someone else will come out exactly like us genetically long after we've died.

They've show being cavalier with modifying the human body, augmenting it, pushing it, warping it.

I can't speak for their other creations because I haven't given them shots (or a care, really), but I'm sure they have those themes somewhat too. In the back of my mind, I've had the thought that it probably relates to their eventual transgender identities.

What really makes humanity so special, though, eh? Because God created us? Because we're somewhat modifying this planet to suit our needs at the expense of all the other life it has? Because we're the "only beings of merit/consequence" in the universe?

People need to remember this planet can, and has, squish/ed us flat.

Recommended Reading

I've, for quite a bit of my life, described myself as an information vampire. Whenever news apps like Flipboard and Apple News, as well as the Google Search app, have asked for my opinion on keywords and/or topics I'd like to see more of, I'd found myself tapping on many of them. I'd wanted to know about a lot of them (especially with countries/states that I don't hear about often, as I'd talked about somewhat before), even though there were limits to what I could read, or that the app would allow me to read in the case of Apple News.

There's only so much information I can take in because of biological need to sleep, limitations of my mind, and lack of desire to read certain stories (usually reality TV- or sports-related). Still, sometimes because something is "trending", it may still appear on my dashboard, which is a little annoying.

I'm generally not inclined to read sports just about as much as I tend to not watch certain videos. I don't want to outright say, or put into their minds, that I don't want to see those types of recommendations, but I don't really care to see them either.

That rationale sounds rather familiar ("I'm not racist, but I don't date Black/Asian/Latin@/White/whatever else people."). I guess this mindset comes in all kinds of forms, except some people just block people rather than have to possibly deal ("all the time") with having to reject someone because they don't fit your definition of "ideal".

We're hurtful creatures, humans.

Ultimately Why We Work

Yes, this is not scholarly. I have no sources, and have done no research. It's not even original. It's just what I've been thinking about on the way home... from work.

We work, though, because we, somewhat, fear what idleness can do. I'm certain when we all didn't work, when we meandered and thought, socialized and did whatever else idle humans do, we got into trouble. We see sometimes how children behave when they can do whatever they want, and I suppose even adults may do the same. We'd found we could do things, construct things, put things together, and went with that.

Someone worked, and then eventually more worked. Then we'd started deciding things had relative worth, and that we could trade one thing for another. We got the idea of fairness, because this person shouldn't have to work harder than someone else and not get more out of it than that someone else.

We began having an ethos of gaining things, wealth. Our populations expanded, meaning we had to make sure resources lasted, even though people with more wealth could buy as many resources as they wanted, leaving others without. Or they would sell those resources to gain more wealth. We created governments as we'd learnt about power and resource apportioning, including that governments could raise funds from land just as individuals found they could.

People who don't want anything to do with the regular scheme of things -- working for pay, having a mortgage, living in a proper house, creating more humans -- don't propagate the system humanity has created. Other human beings sometimes look at those who would take what they have and go out on their own with some amazement and some jealousy. "Why does he get to not work? I don't want to work." The person striking out on his own would have a time trying to do that, though, because the system wants everyone to pay for land.

The system has budgeted that so many people who make money will put a certain amount of that towards the system to keep it going. Having less people doing so undoes the system. People can't have tiny tracts of land for tiny houses because the system wouldn't make enough to sustain itself, so they'd set rather large minimum plot sizes.

Minimalism in a culture that treasures having more is a sin, something awkward and unseemly.

We work to keep ourselves busy and because it keeps the system that developed out of keeping ourselves out of idleness going.

The World

The world is the United States president saying one thing, then another, then another thing. It makes only some people ridiculously happy because they get to speak about it incessantly.

The world is vehicles that become murder weapons throughout Europe… because why not?

The world is political figures constantly trying to one-up each other just to say they're better, even though when they die they'll all become dust.

The world is businesses that try to innovate even when they've reached maximum saturation. It's only because they feel they must always expand.

The world is taking advantage of debt, reselling it, gouging on interest, passing it around, and forgetting about it via bankruptcy.

People wonder when I hesitate to acknowledge others' thoughts that human beings are the pinnacle of creation.

Sales and Marketing

I have friends whose career it is to get people to buy things, entice people into liking something, or make something look its best. I respect and love these people. I don't their trades, though.

I've never been one to tell people about something they didn't ask for unless it comes up as directly relate-able to the conversation, and I'm certainly not going to weave a conversation just so we can talk about something (as a recent employer had goaded us again and again to do). I really dislike that.

Yes, life is easier without having to barter. This obsession that especially this country has with amassing material wealth is insane, though. It's not this country though. You have Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe that have these witch doctors who entice people to believe other human beings' body parts will get them the wealth they seek.

They've conned people into believing bald men's heads have a trove of gold within them. And people are killing for that "gold".

People think that because I want to hear people's stories that I want to use that information to sell them something because I "know them". No! I want to know people's stories because they're unique and because it's the story itself that's valuable.

I can't buy a meal or pay rent with those stories, though there probably are illicit or illegal markets for certain stories, but they're valuable to me.

I just wish people did things because it's nice rather than because you might make money off it.

Humanity

We're such interesting, pesky creatures.

We have cultures that we call our own, fight over, and die for, mostly because it's just something to make ourselves feel better. We wish to define ourselves and sometimes put ourselves into corners just so we can say we have some sense of individuality (even though these corners might completely usurp that individuality).

We create foods and cook them, and then create entirely new things out of foods that have gone bad just to extend their consumability while not killing ourselves or making ourselves or others gravely or intensely ill. We have cheese, savory pies, alcohol... We've even made an art of the controlled spoiling of things to use for our own purposes: wine, certain cheeses, anti-microbials...

We have music of all sorts, and instruments of every possible type that make use of pretty much any part of the human body that can make music. Then the types of music might relate to our construction of culture, some cultures embracing certain types of music or being fiercely protective of the fact the specific culture "created" that type of music.

We carve up this planet and use it however we wish, with some of us giving a care how we use it while others say we'll make new things to take care of the problems we create (because business). We fight wars and blow up bits of the planet just to show one side the other has dominance. We create weapons to one-up each other, and sometimes hold onto these weapons fiercely in "what-if" mindsets.

We're... interesting.

The Midtown Atlanta/Buckhead I-85 Collapse "Disaster"

I've had a couple days to think about this "bridgepocalypse", as one of my co-workers had said he'd heard someone call it.

I'd already been home at around 5:45pm and then an hour later the news alerts started flooding in. Then the large slab of the highway fell through and that made it all the more awe-striking with all the fire videos and the clips of cars driving slowly through choking smoke.

I understand it's very inconvenient for a lot of people (and will be for at least several weeks while people work out exactly what to do) because vehicles oversaturate this area and things are really widespread (partly) because people have had an attachment to their vehicles and the relative independence they provide.

Because of the way it suddenly affected people's lives, it could be a one-star affair.

Simultaneously, this disaster/tragedy/descriptor-first-world-people-use-to-term-something-that-affects-lives-though-no-one-has-lost-a-life/relative somewhat-large-scale inconvenience deserves another star just because it's now forcing people out of their comfort zones.

What partly sets human beings apart among the other things in creation is we are intensely creative. We rise above our inconveniences (most of the time). I'm certain this "opportunity" is making people re-evaluate constant dependence on their vehicles when it's probably partly everyone's dependence on their vehicles why there's congestion, traffic, and (coincidentally that same day, only a couple hours earlier on a completely different stretch of often-congested roadway, but with only tacit relativity) road rage murders.

This is making people (re-)consider MARTA, making alternative routes,carpooling,  and/or actually leaving at times that would actually not force them to break speed limits or drive like they're in The Fast and The Furious to get to where they need to go (and ,*gasp*, show up on time or early!). The fact they're investigating, now (however unlikely), how the possibility that really-long-term and relatively reckless storage of construction materials in these places might be a bad thing is yet another possible silver lining.

I give this relative inconvenience a two: it's paving the way for something better.

Coming to the Rescue

I was brushing my teeth and I heard one of my neighbors calling out to another one in a way that sounded almost panicked.

It got me thinking: if one of my neighbors were to come pounding on my door in a panic, begging me to open up, I might actually think about it. I might not open the door, because who knows what might be chasing the neighbor. Whatever it might be wold then know there's more than what it's chasing within.

It might divert additional energy to get in to kill us both.

Self-preservation or selfishness? Hard-heartedness?