I just realized that Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy contains broning.
I just realized that Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy contains broning.
Can we just observe when he says “communicate their feelings and just enjoy each other’s company” what we see is people just staring on their phones. No one is interacting with another person.
Aren’t we mindless zombies already?
I’m seriously tired of the message ‘technology has made us all zombies and we don’t talk to each other anymore’. Yes, there are serious problems. Yes, there is a large amount of room for improvement.
But you know what I did before technology? You know what I did before I had a phone?
Nothing. When I was in school I brought novels with me every day and I read them. I didn’t talk. I managed to make a few friends and only had fun with them because they forced me to do things that I hated. I don’t like parties and clubs and other stuff, every single bit of that was hell for me, because I like quiet and suck at conversation and places like that were nothing but balls of stress to me.
If not for technology, I would still be a miserable pile of constant anxiety, afraid to break out of a routine for fear I’d do/say something wrong and stupid. I never talked or socialized and when I did muster up the nerve to speak it was always awkward or too blunt. I became known as a cold-hearted bitch who was mean to everyone, even though what I mostly did was go home and cry and call myself stupid.
Computers changed all of that for me, showed me for the first time that there were people like me. The better tech got, the more I opened up. But I still was pretty alone when not around people I knew, because I’m not a talker, not really.
Chatting online - chat rooms, emails, lj comms, fanfiction, all of that taught me how to be social. All of that helped me be braver, made me more willing to talk to people anywhere, everywhere. It’s less overwhelming to me now to have to go into a strange room and talk to people. I don’t go deer in the headlights now when someone randomly starts talking to me.
My phone also helps when I’m being harassed. Back when I didn’t have a phone, if the nutjobs on the bus or in the airport started harassing me, I had no choice but to endure it until it was over or try to say something or just leave and risk whatever the fuck happened next. Now? I always have my phone. I can always call and say ‘talk to me so this person leaves me alone’. I can text someone to come rescue me at the bar. I can fucking call for help at the drop of a dime if I have to. Airports are no longer a terrifying place where I will be stuck for hours with no one to talk to unless I want to risk an uncomfortable, even dangerous, situation.
Technology made me more aware of the problems and challenges that other people face. It showed me a broader world. It’s made me more patient with people, it’s made me more determined to remember that you never know what someone is going through.
If not for technology, I never would have been brave enough to try writing. I doubt I’d be an author right now. I certainly never would have met this crazy chick who was living in Vermont and was just as miserable as me. I never would have emailed her every morning and night and texted all through work and wound up with my best friend and current roommate slash business partner.
So don’t fucking tell me that technology is turning us into zombies that don’t communicate.
And people don’t just enjoy each other? that’s such bullshit. I was at a concert just a couple days ago. The radio was playing while they waited for the show to start, and Gangnam Style came on. The entire fucking building exploded with people dancing and cheering and laughing and having a good time together for no reason more than we were all amused as fuck that song came on the radio.
I see that kind of thing happen all the time. We’ll randomly be talking about something on someone’s phone at a restaurant and the waiter will chip in because he recognizes it. I’ve shot the shit with so many people over something that was happening on someone’s phone. People I may not have talked to otherwise.
Technology is quite literally one of the main reasons I live a brighter, louder, happier life than I would have otherwise. Like goddamn hell am I a zombie.
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
Why exactly must the person we are interacting with be right next to us? I’ve never understood why that interaction is so much better or more important than my communication with others via technology.
THIS. ALL OF THIS.
Currently, my family (when we get together) eat dinner with our laptops at the dining room table.
Before we had laptops we used to ALL READ BOOKS.
Sometimes I fall in love with authors.
People are insane on this product review of a banana slicer
oh my fucking god
OH MY GOD I REBLOGGED THIS BEFORE I READ THE COMMENTS AND
HOLY FUCK
Actual Sexy Lumberjack Rory McCann
“I like the outdoors, and I like my own company, and before I was an actor I was a lumberjack, and I remember at mealtimes, everywhere we were spread in the forest, all the saws would stop, and there was silence, and it was the time to read The Lord of the Rings for an hour, and I did the same thing with George’s books.” (x)
If you didn’t know that I feel bad for you because you didn’t read one of the classic young adult books of the 20th century.
1. Don’t click the read-more if you don’t want to see the spoilers. Apparently read-mores don’t work on the Tumbr app?? Which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Um…feel free to unfollow me until you’ve seen the movie? I’ll try to put something about the Hobbit in the title line so that you can…
Guys, guys, the book came out in 1937.