© Danise Codekas 2011
“The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”-M.McLuhan
Walking to my car, today, a man parks, in front of me, gets out of his car and yells across the parking lot: “Fuc*in’ Dumbass!!!”.
He looked a little upset, and wasn’t directing it at me, so I asked him what was wrong. Sometimes, it helps diffuse angry, stressed humans. It’s how I communicate my concern about a cosmic tribesmen’s angst.
He calmed, smiled at me (I was looking good in jeans and sandals), and told me that a man was speeding down the one-way driveway, the wrong way. My parking buddy nearly lost his front end.
You’ve encountered idiots like this, I am sure. You may be one of them.
We all screw up sometime, n’est pas?
I told him that I thought he might have encountered, a Washington State driver, that opted out of the Turn Signal Equipment Option Package, at the dealership.
He cracked up, when he figured it out what I meant. We both laughed and his anger abated, immediately.
FYI: If you ever drive in WA. State, be aware that there are a lot of drivers, who are stoned, drunk or brain dead, who DO NOT use turn signals, ever.
Vans that have the, BABY ON BOARD stickers are usually the main culprits, in my driving experience, here. I think a lot of people here just do not take any driver education classes.
Which reminds me about McLuhan’s statement that, anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either.
If you want a good laugh on a freeway, come on up here, and let me take you for a drive some Saturday evening on I-5, between Olympia and Seattle.
Hence, please be prepared to laugh and shake your head when you see our driving screw ups. McLuhan’s brilliant sociological theories about communications and technology is what made me decide to switch degree programs from anthropology to mass communications.
When I read McLuhan’s comment that, art is anything you can get away with, a light was illuminated in my consciousness, and I had to decided to head to UC Berkeley, to study the sociology of communications, and, who better to study under but someone who used to be a leader in the SDS at San Francisco State?
Todd Gitlin, Chair of the PH.D Communications Program, Columbia U. and NY Times Author. Todd’s latest book is: UNDYING
http://www.toddgitlin.net/?page_id=10
He laughed, nodded his head, and then asked me how my day was going. I find my curiosity grows daily, as to why people are angry in the streets, since it appears more people are expressing their frustrations, openly.
Maybe there are more people, however, I think the internet has something to do with the diminishing embarrassment we all feel to express ourselves openly, whether it is a parking lot or on our blogs. We do express without fear in our Facebook or Twitter pages.
The ability to sound off across the globe has grown exponentially in the past 10 years, since the US attacks in September 2001. There was no Twitter, then. If there had been I am sure the servers would have crashed, a lot, all around the globe.
The “medium is the message” seems to be more true today, for me because of the spike in technological advancements, than when Marshall McLuhan's sociological analysis of mass communication ideas, hit the world, in the 60’s.
“The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium / that is, of any extension of ourselves / result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”-Marshal McLuhan
Marshal’s publisher’s failure to spell check McLuhan's original book title, The Medium is the Message, proved his theory perfectly, when the cover for the 1st printing fell off the press, as The Medium is the Massage.
[Wikipedia: The Medium is the Massage demonstrates how modern media are extensions of human senses; they ground us in physicality, but expand our ability to perceive our world to an extent that would be impossible without the media. These extensions of perception contribute to McLuhan’s theory of the Global Village, which would bring humanity full circle to an industrial analogue of tribal mentality.]
Once I understood what it was all about, thanks to Todd Gitlin, who was my advisor, and the head of the mass comm dept. at Berkeley, McLuhan’s idea, that we become what we behold and we shape our tools and then our tools shape us, complemented with my studies of Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu Vedic texts, Cosmology, and indigenous tribal spirituality.
Quantum physics theories provide scientific proof of ancient Vedic texts, that explain, in explicit details, that the observer affects the observed reality, and both change during the experience, at subtle energy levels. Anything that happens in the universe affects everything in the universe at a subtle energy level.
Well, I have no idea where this blog came from today. It may have something to do with some hesitation about starting a new book, this week. Yes, I am working on a new book, or, rather working up to begin a new manuscript which I created an outline for about 7 or 8 years ago.
What is it about? God only knows. I know it has to do with cosmology, technology and relationships. So, the hardest part could be figuring out a title.
You know we are all trying to create a new way in our lives. We are trying to change, let go, clear out, start again, and do things we love doing which enable us to live a fulfilling life.
If there is anything in your life which is not going the way you want it to go, or you are consistently unhappy because you cannot find, cannot be, or cannot see, then know you are banging your head on the past, or a future based on a reality which is an illusion. The heart, the dream, the desire is where you need to find your breath and your direction.
If you are feeling guilty because you have ended bits and parts of your life that did not serve your soul, and are thinking about going back there, walking back in that door because it is the only door you can find safety behind, after being out in the cold, for so long, you may want to re-think your return.
Stop. Do not go back to the old, the familiar, the thing that makes you feel safe, the person that you think is the only one who understand you now.
You will know you made a mistake when you walk through that door and you worry it will be the same, you feel guilty that you walked away, you are made to feel ashamed for your leaving.
Those feelings should not be present when you walk in the door that is full of possibility, generosity, grace, and you are in a new paradigm, which people from the past cannot destroy, crush, or make you question.
There should be no question in your mind or heart about the next step, the next relationship, the next mission. You just know. Fear dissolves, your life’s mission draws your tribe to you, empowers your creativity.Spiritual quests become the norm, rather than a life’s, last moment regret.Relationships arise before you, that are unlike anything from the past: unimaginable, peaceful, unquestioned, inspiring.
“As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.”-Marshall McLuhan
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