Hindsight

     I’ve been trying to figure out what the first post on this blog should be and I couldn’t come up with a good starting subject. I wanted to start this blog to be a place to write thoughts and ideas down, and share them with other people. I was originally going to write a short book filled with my philosophical beliefs, but I realized there was a better alternative for what I wanted to do. See, a book cannot show the development and metamorphosis of ideas and beliefs, unless there is a second edition or sequel written to it. A blog on the other hand, can constantly be edited and changed, and can still reach many people (also, publishing this blog is free, while publishing a book is not, and I don’t have the money for that...).

     So, I wanted the first post I made to be a good representation of the purpose and theme of this blog. I guess explaining it like I did makes a bit of sense…but that also seems bland and doesn’t really give you an idea of what to expect (not that you should expect anything...the way I see things now may not be the way I see things tomorrow). I came up with the idea for this first post while on my way to do some grocery shopping.

     I was on the train with my brother when I noticed one of the stickers displaying an area for people in wheelchairs. I asked him to imagine what it would be like, if thousands of years from now, a race of cat people undergoing an archeological dig found a piece of this train with only that symbol remaining. Would they believe we were primitive, only capable of creating simple symbols, similar to what we believe of prehistoric peoples? Or if they had no idea humans once inhabited the planet, would they think humans had partial circles connecting our backs to our legs? That’s when I began to think about what it would be like to live in the future and find different items from the past…let’s say an mp3 player, or a DVD. If I found newspapers and video recordings of news networks from the largest media corporations, what would I think of us? Media from the right wing and left wing make humanity appear divided, as though we are simply warring adversaries. You choose a side, and stick with it regardless of rationale and disregarding individual analysis of subjects. You declare yourself a republican, and you vote republican, even if the candidate is evil incarnate. Same goes for democrats.

     This is when I finally tied in this train of thought with this blog. What if I found thousands of the many different types of blogs dealing with the same subjects as these other media outlets such as newspapers and televised news? For those experiencing paranoia, let’s say they were printed out by “big brother” to keep that big old eye of theirs on us. Blogs allow humanity to be as it should be: filled with varying beliefs and ideas, allowing people to decide what to read and develop individual ideals. I share opinions with many people who would categorize themselves as left wing, but that doesn’t mean I have to share all of their opinions, or demonize all right wing opinions. The internet (or as I’ve recently been calling it for no reason “the interwebzzz”) allows the spread of opinions and ideas, and for people to expand their horizons. That sounded pretty cliché…but it’s true!

     I admit that you should probably be cautious with blogs, due to the fact that they don’t have to respond to anyone except the owner of the blog, which allows them to spread false information (Canada’s government unleashed 300 grizzly bears on the students protesting tuition hikes), but is mainstream media really that much more trustworthy? Have you watched an episode of The Daily Show or the Colbert Report? Comedians pointing out how news outlets constantly misinform people and deliver biased information is not only funny, but shows just how valuable what your reading or watching could actually be.

     All in all, when future humans are digging for remains of their pasts, or simply looking back on the year 2012, I wouldn’t mind if alongside other findings, they found this blog and said to themselves “It wasn’t all black and white back then.”


- Dennis