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Unread 03-11-2003, 22:58
Unsung FIRST Hero
miketwalker miketwalker is offline
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True meaning of FIRST

I know many threads talk about this, but I found this while reading through the Blue Man Group website, and I know this truely shows the mindset that we can often forget... I think everyone should read this (I grabbed it from http://www.blueman.com/journal/more.php?id=172_0_1_0_M in case your curious) It may be long... but trust me, the meaning behind it is worth the read.

"Society of the Spectacle
October 31 | DAVE S. / MUSICIAN (GUITAR)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We played a few nights ago in Dayton, OH and I was lucky enough to have my 7 year old niece, Kayleigh, join me for the day as my lil' buddy. She has seen the NYC Tubes show and loves Blue Man Group. She is a very bright, fearless and charismatic girl and she had a blast seeing all the inner workings of the show backstage. The video, sound and light techs all showed her how they do their jobs, she got to play the big drum and piano smasher, watch us all record a country-polka version of "Happy Birthday" for Shannon's boyfriend during soundcheck, have dinner with Tracy (which impressed her since she wants to be a lady cop singer), etc. The thing that affected me the most about being with her was seeing her in the audience during the show and watching her unbridled enthusiasm and happiness in participating and being one with the whole experience. When prompted with "Please yell if you are paying attention" instead of giving a self-aware, halfhearted little yelp she would stand up and give a full, wide-eyed, gleeful scream with everything her 7-year old vocal cords had in them. It made me think about how as we get older we condition ourselves to be spectators to life instead of fully participating in it. I have a theory about it that I call "The Santa Claus Effect" in which the first (and perhaps biggest) lie that we learn in this culture is the fact that there is no Santa Claus. Upon learning this our image of the world as a truly magical place becomes greatly diminished and with it comes growing cynicism and disillusionment. I know that sounds extreme but it may be the seed of those feelings. I think that after that point we slowly begin to lose our sense of wonder about the world and we develop an ego that protects us from appearing silly or stupid by making us self-conscious and more and more concerned with what others think about us. This culture of capitalism and consumption further separates us from truly experiencing life. Instead of climbing a mountain, we can go to the IMAX theater and watch it. Instead of rebelling against consumer culture, we can play a video game where we shoot shoppers in a mall. The pursuit of happiness has been replaced by the pursuit of comfort.
Guy DeBord and the Situationist movement explored all these themes extensively in the 50's and 60's best defined in DeBord's book and film, "The Society of the Spectacle". The Situationists were a group of artists, writers and intellectuals, descendants of the Dadaists and Surrealists, who sought to fuse art and music into everyday life as opposed to keeping it separate and elite. They also railed against capitalism as a state of mind that stifles creativity and embraces boredom. They said that modern society had become divided into actors and spectators, producers and consumers, with nothing in between. People have become accustomed to preferring the representation to reality, the appearance to the essence, the copy to the original, the illusion to the truth. I think that these ideas have now become entrenched behavior in the current climate. We can see it in modern radio, MTV, Hollywood blockbusters, video games, shopping malls, magazines, TV, etc. We've become obsessed with titillation, obsessed with convenience, obsessed with the mundane and ultimately bored and disconnected. But all of this is just in our heads. We can be free by refusing to participate in the culture of consumption and comfort and instead choose to participate in a culture of experience, truth and creativity. The themes of the Complex obviously explore some of these ideas but it's a fine line that we tread when we celebrate connecting communally through rituals and criticize becoming another sheep in the herd. It's hard not to appear hypocritical espousing these things but these are (pardon the pun) complex issues. Everyone the world over desires to feel connected, yearns for something to believe in. The new culture of voyeurism makes us become armchair procrastinators, immobile in both body and spirit. The more options we are given, the less value they hold. We want MORE. The world is there to be sampled, purchased, observed from afar.

I'm sorry. I'm rambling here. I guess what I'm trying to say is - we should try to find the essence of who we are by staying young in spirit, shedding the fat, losing the pettiness, decreasing the insecure side of the ego and embracing the meaningful and beautiful things that surround us. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "small minds speak of people, good minds speak of places, great minds speak of ideas". I don't mean to be preaching like some pompous $@#$@#$@#, I'm just thinking/writing out loud, wondering about a 7-year old experiencing life without ego or insecurity, just sheer joy. I'll shut the F up now. Please yell!
---- DS "

Just cause the girl screamed for her love, doesn't mean we necessarily need to "scream" for robotics with sound, but instead through our cooperation, our friendships, our teamwork, our happy times, as well as our rough times. I think we all need to go out and "scream" what we care deeply about, and hold it close to our hearts. Don't watch the mountain, hike it, learn new things, and then find an even bigger mountain. When you've hiked Mt. Everest, build your own mountain to climb even higher into the sky. That is why we all are here, we all climb our mountains, and because of that all of us are "one", we laugh together... and we cry together, but in the long run we all grow together, and don't worry about who you need to beat, but more about how you can congratulate them if you lose. I hope that helps show the power that we ALL have... we just need to express it, and I hope that is as motivating to you guys as I found it.
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Last edited by miketwalker : 03-11-2003 at 23:10.
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