Six of One

Seriously? That's the one thing? And intimacy? That's what your ascribing? You need to snap out of it. Snapchat is not intimate. Snapchat is the ADD version of the old "wassup" commercial - nonsense repeated over and over again by the lazy, the self-involved, and the damaged. A little harsh? OK, I'll take that hit. But I'm not entirely wrong, and not entirely sorry to be making that generalization. What I will concede is that Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are no different, no better, no worse, just different forms of the same foolishness, and I use all of these social media platforms, so I'm no purist. But I'm no hypocrite either. I know I'm being vacuous when I use these instruments. The fact is that all the time we spend kidding ourselves into thinking that sending a message via Snapchat is somehow useful, meaningful time we could be doing something actually useful and meaningful. Ask yourself whether you'd prefer to get ten mess...

Whatever, your parades are lame anyways. But about Snapchat. A while back you and I were talking about Snapchat. I had just come back to the social media after a nearly six month hiatus and was talking about how I thought I was probably right to have left. You then, naturally, put me in the awkward position of defending a social media I had decided to leave. You said that Snapchat is an inherently shallow way of communication. Now, while I have my problems with Snapchat, that is not one of them. Snapchat, while often used for shallow communication, was not designed to be used that way. Instead, I think Snapchat was designed, and has the potential to be used, as one of the most intimate forms of electronic communication yet to be developed. I think part of the confusion of Snapchat is its function. I've noticed that older generations 'don't get the point' or 'can't understand why you need to send selfies all day'. Well, I don't think people oug...

Naturally, you’d start by disagreeing. You manage to disagree with yourself, you’re so prone to it. Before I get there, let me say that the rampant use of poorly placed prepositions probably won’t continue to sit well for much longer. I’m saying that to myself as much as I am to you, so now we are both on notice. Carrying on… You think patriotism is silly? Patriotism is the feeling of pride for and loyalty to one’s country. So you believe pride and loyalty are silly? Let’s exclude the long view wherein we are ants, smaller than ants, in the grand scheme of all existence, because at that distance nothing matters and conversation is irrelevant. At closer range, pride and loyalty are not silly, they inspire, motivate, and establish important bumper rails for human comportment.   Surely you know that, so I’ll assume that if you love the idea of patriotism, but you don’t love what it is , you have narrowed your view of what it is to the tiniest sliver on the spectrum of it...

No, (I thought it natural to start by disagreeing with you) let's start somewhere else. Today is the Fourth of July and so, naturally, I am sitting contemplating patriotism, borders, us versus them dynamics, and how fireworks, at least in this context, are used to simulate the experience of war. I think patriotism is a bit silly. I don't understand why I'm supposed to feel nationalistic about my country. My country which is larger than I can fathom, my country which I am inherently disconnected from large swaths of, my country that kills people, my country that kills the world we live in (which, just for the books, I do totally support saving and only leaving if we must), my country which thinks it's entertaining to simulate the act of killing people while simultaneously killing the environment and my focus. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of patriotism, I just don't love what it is. In my eyes, it often leads to foolish acts. People go to war to protect ...