by I had the most awful feeling yesterday. A friend was talking about something he’s going to called NewsFoo. A group of journalists are getting together to discuss the future of journalism. I didn’t get the sense that it would be some boring conference, but a group of really interesting people genuinely brainstorming and about something that needs thinking about. This friend is always doing stuff like this.
And I had the same kind of feeling I’ve gotten whenever people talk about new music and I’m the old person who has stood still while others are moving forward in whatever direction music is going.
Except now I feel like I’m stuck in a more overall way, in life. Others are moving into the future and I’ve stopped. I’ve disengaged. The world is moving on, and I’m receding further and further into the past.
It felt terrible. And I’m not even convinced I should be feeling this way. Whenever something new comes along that resonates with my life I adopt it. Maybe it’s because I’m spending my days researching 16th century composers. Or that I used to be more of an innovator. Or that I used to be the first among my friends to try something (I always found new music first).
Ugh. I took this walking up to the Apple Store yesterday. The Beatles pictures all over the place where of them at their cutest junctures. Okay, maybe not that one of John at the right. That was not his best look.
I read a column in the Times a couple days ago, by their technology columnust. The gist of it was that it’s impossible to keep up with the changes in new media and technology, and that beyond that, so many new things come and go and never make an impact that it’s not really worth it to try. The bottom line is that if it’s real and significant, it will catch up to you in due time, and right about the time you’ll need to know about it.
STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP, ALREADY.
The more the new ways of dealing with information progress, the more valuable will be the OLD fashioned ways of doing it, because it will be harder to find people who are really good at it.
I tell you what makes ME feel old: disliking the totally senseless “reality” shows on TV. Won’t name names, but some of those are truly degrading and NOT entertainment — rather humiliation. Whatever happened to good movies and/or sitcoms? Themes, meaning, significant plots? Hello? I guess it’s just plain cheaper to find people who will humilate themselves before millions of viewers (who seem to enjoy it) rather than PAY for creative writers who actually know how to develop meaningful fiction. Sad.
Okay, but So You Think You Can Dance is not in this category, right?
(Thanks, Dan.)
Oh no, the dancing and some of the talent searches (which is how I think of it) are NOT in that category. But the shallow plastic surgery stuff, and eating worms (not as survival, just as a ‘challenge’) a bit too much for me. And S. Palin beating a halibut, sister wives??…um, not going there!
Seriously.