Small Steps Shape Grand Schemes

Please read Infinite Butterflies first, for this blog post builds upon what I discussed there.

I always feel somewhat silly discussing theories regarding the building blocks of the universe, given that I’m a twenty year old student writing on a laptop in his bedroom in 2015. But hey, the mind is a universe in and of itself. Think outside the planetary box.

One thing that always bugs me is when people decide to harp on about how “small and insignificant” we are. This is usually preceded by some reminder as to the grand scale of the universe, our planet’s size versus the sun, the sun versus larger stars, galaxies, so on and so forth. People like to look up at the stars and think, “Damn, I am nothing compared to this.” And it’s always fanciful, too. Is it just a way of rationalising your own mistakes or previous wrongdoings? Is it a genuine statement of sorrow and existentialism? I don’t know.

But I know that I don’t agree.

Look at ants. They’re tiny. They’re not as intelligent. To us, they’re nothing. Step on an ant and you’re not going to hold a little funeral with its little ant friends, weeping and discussing its little ant life. And perhaps this isn’t the most sensible comparison to make, since ants aren’t sentient beings. But they live their lives on their own scale. To them, we’re giants, but so long as they can avoid us they go on with their own ant lives. Maybe they even hold little ant funerals, heck I don’t know, I’m not an expert.

Look at mayflies. They typically live for less than a day. Many of us may look at them (or squint in their general direction) and think, what’s the point? Why live for a day? But maybe they perceive time differently to us. What is a day for us is a lifetime for them, and maybe they perceive it for as long as we perceive our seventy our eighty years (should we be so lucky).

So why am I rambling about ants and mayflies? Because if you look a little closer, there’s a lot more to them. Like I said, I’m no expert, but they have intricacies that many people will say can’t be random chance and have to be design. We are just as intricate, just on a different scale. Size means nothing. You may think we mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but maybe that’s simply because we can’t see the influence we exert in our own personal time frames.

Even more importantly, why the heck are you worried about the grand scheme of things anyway? We do not live our lives in the grand scheme of things. We live in a focal point, in social circles, and that is where you matter. You exist in the hearts of others, in their laughter and smiles and hopefully not in their tears. That may be a poetic way of putting it, but it’s damn true. And if you’re worried about the grand scheme of things, hold on to your seats, because there’s a reason I referred back to the Infinite Butterflies post.

Everyone you know knows somebody you don’t. And that somebody you don’t know knows somebody else your friend doesn’t. We’re all linked in this way, and I’d be shocked if there was a single group of humans on this planet that wasn’t, barring undiscovered tribes in woods or something. But if you make people happy, then they’re likely to make somebody else happy. You can inspire people in ways that change lives. Your presence on Earth is a footprint that cannot be erased by anybody, as every action you make has consequences, no matter how little, that ripple through time. The Butterfly Effect.

That sounds an awful lot like I’m trying to rationalise a reason for life, but I’m honestly trying to think about this logically. What was the process of events that inspired somebody to create that TV show Scrubs? Because, despite it being a comedy, that’s where I first learned about the Butterfly Effect. And that sat in the back of my mind for a few years until it matured into the thought processes you’re reading now. And if you take something away from this blog post, then it’s continuing the chain. If you don’t? It’s still continuing the chain. The time you spent reading this may delay you a few minutes to miss a tragic event, or meet somebody you otherwise wouldn’t, way down the line.

Flattening the Pedestal

This one’s a little more personal.

I often like to make jokes about the value of the university course I’ve chosen and how I’ll ultimately come out of it as the same person. These are, however, jokes, and they’re intended to reflect that foreboding existential crisis that every final year student probably deals with: Your time in education is almost over. What purpose will you have when left to your own devices?

Anyway, that’s a crisis for another blog post. I’d like to discuss how this university course (BA Hons Creative Writing) has shaped part of me as a person. And whilst I’d like to reiterate how I’m against blogging about myself personally, this one actually develops the reasons as to why that is.

When I began university, I secretly thought of myself as a sort of… prodigy. Just typing that hurts, but it’s true. I never swaggered about, rubbed it in people’s faces, or made hints to some inner greatness that lay within. (At least, not to my memory.) But I felt special, one of a kind, like I’d been through a unique journey that had shaped me into the prime, writing being that I was. I was Kristian goddamn Richmond, ready to take on the world by storm.

You might be expecting to hear that my first feedback was disastrous, that I’d written terribly and was too full of myself to see past my flaws. In fact, my feedback was basically telling me I was average. My writing had issues, it had merit, and it was a strong base to develop on. I wasn’t disappointed. I just thought, “Wow, if that’s the feedback I get for this hasty scrawling, imagine what I could achieve if I truly put my all behind a piece of writing.” And I went away. And I handed in more work. And I got more fair, average grades. And I continued to lie to myself.

I’m fairly quiet in my class, at least when compared to being in other social circles. But whilst I may not be overly talkative, I do observe and listen and come to understand those around me, and as we shared work and got to know each other I came to realise that I was normal. This special aura that I fancied myself to possess dispersed, mostly without my knowledge. Our lecturers spoke of the lives and loves of the writers we studied, and some come in regularly for us to meet and listen to. And slowly but surely, I stopped believing that I was some undiscovered star. I was a student writer. And I was, and am, very much still learning.

If anybody from this class is reading this, I would like to emphasise one point to my defense: I never looked down on any of you, or saw myself as above. I simply saw myself as outside, removed somehow, not better but developed differently, in a more unique way. And for the record, I realise now that this was utter rubbish. We all have our complexities, our unique traits, and specialties which define us. We all have our stories.

It was not until I’d seen some posts on various social medias from other university students that had begun their courses this year that I stopped to reflect upon my own development thus far. I saw shades of my own past conceit within them, and only then stopped to realise that it was gone. And for the people I’ve met and the hands that have guided me, I cannot thank them enough.

Finally, in relation to blogging, this journey away from self-admiration marked another change for me. I came to realise that nobody would be particularly interested in the thoughts of some random guy who wanted to ramble on about himself in this particular light. Just writing this blog post has been difficult enough; reading back over it, it feels pretentious, self-congratulatory and shaming. But I wanted to write a blog post on the necessities of learning to be humble, the flaws of holding oneself in a spotlight, and the value of any university course (or any path in life) in how it can help you develop as a person. And you know what, screw it, I still can’t write about myself without a lengthy disclaimer at the end!

Echk.

Text as a Medium for Communication

Around the age of eleven or twelve I created an MSN account to talk to my friends. And at the time it was the most wonderful thing, I was able to speak to them outside of school and without the boundaries of the clunkiness and costliness of texting. The IM system simulated conversations in that it truly was instant, something which I really don’t have to explain to anybody reading this as it was then swiftly integrated into Facebook, which subsequently blew up and devoured all of our lives.

The outcome of this has been a society in which many, and in some cases most of the conversations that we hold with friends are within that little chat window. We became such a big fan of instant messaging that we flocked to it (Like sheep? In droves? Take your pick) and adopted it without thinking twice. Emoticons that already existed in text messaging became universally understood, with the traditional smiley faces being automatically replaced by little pictures of what they were meant to represent, and later, of course, emojis. It’s part of our culture now, and without it I’m sure we’d all feel a little less connected.

But there’s a dark side to this. Besides, you know, the glaring one about staying inside and staring at a screen. The downside is that although we’ve become so adept at conveying ourselves through text as effortlessly as we would through speech, it is still not the same. The nuances and pitches that indicate humour or sarcasm or sadness are gone, replaced by a need for particular synonyms or emoticons which we sometimes don’t feel like or think about adding. The recipient of an IM will read it in a subconscious inner voice and if it fails to portray the way in which you meant to say something, it can have lasting effects on that person’s perception of your opinion or intentions. 99% of the time, of course, this does not happen. It seems, however, that in the long run, the worms are starting to come out of the woodwork and miscommunication is showing up more and more.

Now, this doesn’t sound like a big deal when you think about it initially. So, the odd joke gets taken the wrong way, so what? But it’s actually quite a problem. People (like me) who don’t wish to seek confrontations or who are doubtful or nervous in general, or people who with autism or similar conditions may find offense where none was meant, and simply not say anything. No wrong is meant or harboured by either party, but it can lead to a dampening of someone’s mood or a rift in a friendship.

And the damn “Seen” notification is the worst thing Facebook could have ever added to their messenger system. It adds a new level of social awkwardness when one who is busy, or doesn’t know how to answer something, or simply wishes (not unkindly) to end the conversation is trapped in the knowledge that they’ve made virtual eye contact. If left at this, the sender may become paranoid or think that they’ve caused offense. It adds a whole new layer of possible misunderstanding and paranoia.

Basically what I’m saying is this: Instant messaging is a great form of conversation. Use it as much as you want, talk to whoever you like, it’s great for that. But we’ve taken it for granted as a means of solid communication, and if you ever find something uncharacteristic or unexpected, always take it with a pinch of salt. If you really wish to converse with your friends, meet them in person, or at least talk over Skype. Not only is there less danger to be found in miscommunication but there is more humour in tone, more beauty in facial reception, and more social fulfillment in physical being.

Let’s Talk Music!

I have no musical talent (or really any musical sense at all), but this of course does not make me exempt from appreciating music. With the release of two new albums from favourite bands of mine and the amount I’ve been listening to to select dailies for #Rocktober, I felt that it’d be an appropriate time to put my thoughts about music down on paper. Or, ah, pixel paper.

Let’s start with genre. As far as I’m concerned, the stuff I listen to falls loosely under the genre “metal”. There are subgenres and people who say some stuff isn’t metal it’s rock and some stuff isn’t rock it’s metal and some stuff isn’t either it’s tingtangulatia or flobbercore or what have you. I don’t care, it sounds good. And I can never discern differences in genre. Apparently it’s to do with instruments used but honestly, it doesn’t even matter.

Next we’ll talk about stereotypes. People typically assume that if you listen to a particular kind of music, then you’re a particular kind of person. If you listen to dubstep you’re probably a chav, if you listen to rap you’re probably about to damage somebody’s property. In my case, I listen to bands like Five Finger Death Punch and Bullet For My Valentine, so I’m most definitely an edgy preteen. Fans within the genre might raise their eyebrows at that, but I’m fairly sure that that’s how we’re viewed by other people, guys.

The thing people fail to notice is the ability to recognise the shortcomings of the artists they listen to. I am fully aware that Five Finger Death Punch’s lyrics are cheesier than a wotsit bathed in squeezy cheese and wrapped in a processed slice. (Sorry, FFDP fans.) I bet that a lot of people see the utter bollocks that some rappers rap about (for instance, entire songs dedicated about how good their songs are), but they can still enjoy the music. But people get so passionate about this kind of thing, too. I’m sure that some people reading this blog post are already up in arms for insulting their heroes. It’s just music, mates.

I’ve also realised that I prefer not to know the true meaning behind songs. I enjoy painting a portrait of what the album is about in terms of reflecting the artist’s life. I felt cheated, for example, when I read some behind the scenes stuff for Bring Me The Horizon’s latest album, That’s the Spirit. I’d listened to the album a few times, and through half-heard lyrics and general tone I’d decided that the album was speaking a somewhat happier tone, especially in relation to its predecessors. Now that I know the story behind every song, I can make less out of it regarding my own personal thoughts. Still, it doesn’t lessen the awesomeness of the album, which I very much enjoy despite its departure from heavier roots.

Anyway, before I end this blog post I might as well list my favourite bands / artists for those interested. They are, in no particular order, Avenged Sevenfold, As I Lay Dying, Beartooth, Architects, Bring Me The Horzion, Bullet For My Valentine, Five Finger Death Punch, Thirty Seconds to Mars, and for miscellaneous genres, Pendulum, Chipzel, Eminem, Gorillaz, and The Killers. There are plenty of others, but those would be the main ones, I suppose.

Finally, if anyone’s reading this and thinking, “this guy doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about!” then I heartily invite you to re-read the opening sentence of this blog post.