A Polemic

2:36 am? Can't sleep? No problem - just start writing. Random events to pass the time, read as follows:

Quietdrive's cover of Time After Time is currently on repeat. While it doesn't beat the original, it compensates with plenty of teen-ish angst on the vocals. I've always appreciated a well pitched emotive voice (think Geoff Rickley from Thursday).

Standard tabbing for the Cyndi Lauper original runs on F's and C's on the verses. I don't dig that because it sounds awkward, particularly from the bridge onwards. Revert to the Matchbox 20 cover version instead, which goes Cadd9, G for verse and Cadd9, G/E, Dsus for the bridges/choruses.

See what i meant earlier? I'd have been feigning understanding and nodding my head a year back. It kinda puts a bemused smirk on my face, reminiscing.

I got a new tee a couple days back. I love it, love it the way I love all things old school and nostalgic. I used to think my Green Lantern tee topped the Junk Food selection; I proudly declare that I'm now wrong:


That's right - Cobra Commander! Like I said, I fucking love it.

One wonders how an entire generation grows up without the joys of G.I. Joe... Saturday morning Transformers cartoons... proper Christmas lighting along Orchard Road. Perhaps I'm pondering the exact same issues my parents did when they saw their children forsake marbles in favor of mouseballs. Charting the demise of values isn't hard - towering waves eroded by the ocean's body of time and space, reduced to lapping gently at feet on the shoreline.

And so with each passing generation that ekes out its existence, we face the same problems guised in newer forms: detachment, irresponsibility, decadence, the death of heroes, what have you. The real question is, did we ever resolve the previous issues? Or have we allowed the increasingly rapid (and vapid) speed of life to lull us into a false comfort?

Confused? It's 3:10am now, so just hang with me a little longer as I think this out.

What I'm performing is a relatively simple thought exercise on an issue which ought to hit pretty close to home, not just for me but for everyone too: the issue of society. I think I've written about this before - I just can't be bothered to search for it. See, the thing is: everyone nods sagely when we discuss societal decline - kids becoming increasingly delinquent, families of an increasingly fractured nature, and so on. We're quick to blame the increasing pace of life, the unstoppable progression of technology and divorced nature of reality: the very fact that at times you have to step back and reevaluate your circumstances, now that's already indicative of how immersive the pace can be.

Small talk aside. While it's easy to blame things which are general, which cannot be pinpointed, which are agreeable... I've always sought to go 2 steps ahead and delve into specifics. So here's a question: if we could blame a set of events for the increasing societal devolution, what would they be?

Not that the blame game helps any. It's just a thought exercise, after all.

I'm curious: when or how did this actually begin? Technology? Innate flaws with human nature? Inescapable sicknesses embedded within the concepts of group and society?

Continue this another time. It's 3:22am, and I ought to be sleeping. See, writing does help - it makes me think, and that eventually knocks me out when I'm low on gas.

Guten nache.