Use your sense/s II-Virtual nonsense

The coming of the video-clip that accompanies songs was an amazing step, no doubt. But it was my favorite group (The Eagles) that objected in doing any, explaining the one drawback that video-clips have, leaving me speechless…
Previous to video-clips a song was remembered according to your own experience, memories and events, which the song was reminding you of. For example I still can recall to this day, where I was and how I felt when I first heard “Hotel California” back in 1976.
About a decade later I must have danced (without any of his grace) Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” just about a million times. But all I can remember from this song is not a specific party or a disco I was in at the time, no matter how hard I try. When I close my eyes all I can see and remember is Jackson’s video-clip… which was great and even more, but somehow it erased… me.
That was the point that The Eagles were trying to make, and I think that they were right in every respect.

“Good old times” is not for me, I usually keep up with things, but from the era of no video-clips at all, to the time where absolutely all songs must have one, there must be something we miss, don’t you agree?  
Today you “see” music, you seldom or never hear a song played as many times as it takes to become a hit all “by itself”. And keep in mind that I consider music video-clips a form of art, as the next man…

For many decades now “images” dominate our lives and they have probably crossed the point of going a step too far. The movies (that I love) the TV (that I love) the computer games (that I love) bring on a virtual reality that is far from the reality of life…
By the way, aren’t reality shows a proof of a spectators total dead-end?!

Seeing something can never substitute or come close as experiencing something, make a note on that!
Many young students joining my Dojo, enter their first lesson with an “I’ve seen this stuff on YouTube, I’ve played the NinjaKiller a thousand times on the net” attitude. Only to exit very-very disappointed and crash landed. Because despite the extra supervision by a senior student on any beginner, the usual outcome is that they fail to perform the simple task of a newcomer’s program, as they find it was hard for them even to tell left from right…and I mean literally left from right.  
This was not the case just a few years back, and I’m not the only one to recall on that. Has “virtual reality” in general, deprived this younger generation of its power to visualize without external aid?
Everyone is exalting today’s youth of being so much faster in learning and so much brighter… I wouldn’t have it any other way (and I will add, so much more beautiful as well…) But still, in Martial training, with the appearance of the first difficulty to overcome, it’s a clear step back… 
Because you “saw it” doesn’t mean that you’re going to make it happen yourself. That takes practice, and being able to project the “image” of your practice from within!...

The proverb “one image is a thousand words” is true, but it does not come without a drawback, that should come under our thinking. What if “a thousand words” are confusing? What if, single a line of well put words in a book do a better job?
Not all of the times, but definitely some times…
Where is the song that will go straight to the top, doing so without the video-clip that will mark your memory with a fake story that is not yours?
Not all of the times, but definitely some times…
All this has been a… reality once, as reality is supposed to be, so why is it lost as if it has never existed?

There is a fight on the street and nobody intervenes to break it up…
Direct insults are met by talking about them later on…
Lawyers and psychotherapists are called to solve many of people’s personal problems, not because it is really needed, but out of incompetence to go and deal with them themselves…

Virtual reality, of any sort, distances us from ourselves and distances us from each other.  
Time well spent, has to do with how active we are as protagonists of our life. Time spent as spectators, of anything, is also okay until little by little being a spectator becomes main role.
Too much observation has made people spectators of their own lives. You can tell that when something out of the ordinary or something urgent happens. It takes far too long (beyond the normal time) for them to re-act, if they re-act at all, they just stand there and stare, watching with big eyes what else will happen (even to them!).
In an emergency you can truly rely on people. In a split second they will dive into the danger zone, and at the same time reach into their pocket and, fast as lightning, draw their… cell-phone and set the camera in order to record the events.
Whenever I see this I hear myself mumble “spectator effect”.
Uh… there is more. Much later on, when it’s all over, they tend to go from not re-acting to over-reaction. Discussing endlessly the “events” and making up scenarios of what they would have done, should have done, if only…
And they simply can’t drop it, get over it, or let it go…
Deep in their hearts they know, they could do better than this.
And I mumble further…

March 28, 2009