Joe Hack

On a lighter note, I didn’t think they made classy movies like this any more. Fresh out of New Zealand, where the sheep outnumber the people 4-1, comes this classic in the making. I’m sure it’ll be showing at all major cinemas near you soon so don’t miss it. Tell them Joe Hack sent you.Tags:cinemas Joe Hack movies sheep Zeitgeist Zoocinemas, Joe Hack, movies, sheep, Zeitgeist Zoo

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I look at the daily newspapers. I look at news online. I look in vain for any evidence that they actually contain anything that even remotely resembles news. In case we forget, there are allied forces of occupation in Iraq, civil war edges ever closer, the body-bag count rises every day. Meanwhile over in Afghanistan events spiral out of control, drug traffic to the west is greater than under the taleban, and no-one has anything that resembles an exit plan. And those are just the messes Bush and Blair caused. War, pestilence and famine on a biblical scale stalk the continent of Africa, corrupt dictatorships are propped up by greedy western governments, the planets melting and crooked politicians smile as they steal your trust. Surely in amongst that lot theres something worth reporting that the news media can get its teeth into ? You’d think ! But all I see is wall-to-wall Paris bloody Hilton.

Hell I’ve got nothing against the girl. She’s probably no worse than any other air-head  with too much money what is this international obsession with ‘celebrity‘ thats  turned the news media into trivial gossip magazines for the mentally challenged ? They say its a reflection of the society we live in. The lonely fragmented lives where we have no real friends or sense of neighborhood or social support networks. No more gossip over the garden fence about local folks. We live in a world where characters in soaps and people famous just for being famous have taken the place of real people as our topics of conversation. The young have no real role-models except the air-head ‘celebs‘ they’re supposed to aspire to be like. Well if thats true its so damn sad. Get a life ! The way politics is these days we desperately need the counter-balance of a principled, brave press to hold the liars and wrong-doers to account on our behalf. Is it happening. Hell no !

Anyway, when you’re in the shit the best thing to do is hold your nose and get the hell out of it as quick as you can,. So no more Paris Hilton, right ? This is not about her. Its about you. Read a book. Take a walk. Give someone a hug. Scratch your ass. Anything.  Just throw the worthless, empty celebrity trash in the waste-basket where it belongs and leave it there. Believe me, there is life after Paris Hilton.Tags:Afghanistan Africa allied forces Blair Bush celebrity celebs dictatorships drug traffic evidence famous gossip Hilton Iraq media mentally challenged money news obsession Paris Paris Hilton politicians politics press Scratch your ass society taleban War who gives a shit anyway Zeitgeist ZooAfghanistan, Africa, allied forces, Blair, Bush, celebrity, celebs, dictatorships, drug traffic, evidence, famous, gossip, Hilton, Iraq, media, mentally challenged, money, news, obsession, Paris, Paris Hilton, politicians, politics, press, Scratch your ass, society, taleban, War, who gives a shit anyway, Zeitgeist Zoo

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

“But hell,  its not real” ! At least thats what someone once said to me about the relationships people have online. Which made me stop and think about the nature of reality in relation to this strange developing cyber culture (don’t worry … thinking comes hard and 5 minutes later I was back staring at the wall and drooling mindlessly again). But anyway .. back to to the elusive nature of ‘reality’. In the last decade, and at an increasing pace, people all around the world have formed friendships and fallen in love ‘online’. Sometimes it leads to a physical relationship but often it simply exists in its own right. So is a relationship, be it friendly, romantic or whatever else, only ‘real’ if you can see, smell and physically touch the other person ?

Well … not necessarily. In the non cyber-world what you see isn’t always what you get and many so-called ‘real’ relationships are firmly rooted in delusion and fantasy. They can involve lies, deception, masks and misdirection. Being able to smell someones perfume is absolutely no guarantee that you’ll have a clue whats in their head or what kind of person they really are. In fact most people have at least some experience that reinforces the notion that ‘reality’ isn’t always very real. On the other hand, what about the idea that all exclusively ‘cyber’ relationships are in some way trivial, transient, and instantly disposable ? That they can only ever be a poor, pallid ghost of ‘reality’. Well again, I’ve known people who have physically lived together for years and never known each other at any meaningful level and I have also known others who, separated by circumstance or geography, have spent huge amounts of time together, sometimes over years, learning to know and care for each other at a very deep level without ever having been in the same room together. So I’m not dogmatic. Its the people, not the nature of the relationship, that create success or failure.

In the so-called ‘real’ world, decisions as to who you will or wont bother trying to get to know are very frequently made in seconds, purely on the basis of how the other person looks. Thats a fact, sad but true. Online it can work the other way around, in that you’re often interested by a persons conversation, humour or mind before you even know what they look like. I heard someone once describe a successful cyber relationship as ‘falling in love from the inside out’. As well as being quite a charming phrase, that seemed to me to be describing a different kind of reality. Think about it. If you can make someone smile ‘online’ … if you can make them cry … if you can make them seeth with anger or feel desire, are those not all completely ‘real’ physical responses ? So I would have difficulty in arguing that a cyber relationship somehow can’t be ‘real’. It certainly may not be exactly what you want or it may lack elements that are necessary for you, and thats fine, but its kind of narrow-minded to therefore reject its ‘reality’ in a blanket way.

Having said that, of course a cyber relationship can be just as trivial, deceptive, or unsatisfactory as any in ‘real life’. You can think you know someone well as an online friend, but then suddenly find that they’ve vanished in a puff of cyber-smoke without any explanation, making you realise with surprise that you never really knew them at all. I guess its hardly a blinding insight to observe that weird people are just as weird online as they are everywhere else. How could it be any different ? The basic misconception though is to talk, as some do, about ‘real-life’ relationships and ‘cyber’ relationships as though they were fundamentally different things. Its an artificial distinction. There are just relationships, each one unique in its own right.

And reality ? Well .. it’d take a better man than me to define reality. I try to be open and avoid being too dogmatic. Its not easy. Sometimes its incredibly hard. But I do know that there are all kinds of realities and if you’re wise ( and brave) you won’t close any doors.Tags:cyber culture cyber relationship desire falling in love fantasy real life reality relationship relationships Zeitgeist Zoocyber culture, cyber relationship, desire, falling in love, fantasy, real life, reality, relationship, relationships, Zeitgeist Zoo

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!