The following contains contradictions.

As you already know, if you’ve been here before.

But humor me, if you will. Don’t think of this here as dichotomy. That implies a growing and unavoidable division. Or at least the way I see the word.

Let’s dig it instead as dualities. Halves of a whole. Different, sure. Opposing, perhaps. But these things are complete as a package.

Funny thing about words. They make honest lies and fabled truths.

And in my wonderings in the moments leading to this very now, I found myself again and again distracted by some sort of elegant, or aggressive, or attractive distraction. And though I can easily get lost gazing off into some sort of natural wonder, or even a stain upon an otherwise plain, off white interior wall, I must confess that the ability to keep the human mind away from the pertinent realties has never been more effective or widespread.

That though, you already know.

And maybe it’s just the second Blade Runner still fresh in my mind, but it seems so possible begin replacing our very experience with something designed and fabricated. A synthetic society.

We have all the makings for the start. The courtship habits of the young folk became so heavily enthralled with instantly gratuitous connection, so many seem more alone than ever. Swiping their hearts out.

Something I had sat out for, various reasons cited somewhere in previous posts. Likely too, why I don’t seem to know a damn thing about anything anymore. Still more than yesterday.

But by similar mechanisms, even our memories have the prelude of synthetization.

Pull up a picture. Of yourself. Or another. And just by being able to witness such an image, proves it had never gone on the chopping block of the trashcan icon. So right there, authenticity is lost.

But this picture. You can pull it up at nearly anytime, right? No matter how many years its been. In seconds, with few commands or words typed… boom. There you are. And there is someone else you were with on that day, way back then. And you didn’t have to dig through old photo boxes, or your wallet, or dig through the drawer where you hid those few things from your significant other, or where ever else one might keep such a picture in olden days.

Sounds grand, right?

But what if things didn’t go well for the folks in those pictures. What if they’ve changed and cling to the situations that have since passed. Now they can reflect as much and as obsessively as they want. In plain sight. In an instant. Where it may have taken something so specific to incite such a memory. A sight. A smell. A feeling. Something sensed that unavoidably brings upon a very specific moment, of a very specific time. Not to say the old-fashioned memories are testaments to clarity and accuracy. Because they ain’t.

But where details get lost, a sensation is more divine. And what the sense pulls forth is more genuine.

Not the case with new nostalgia. Less and less, I’d say. The posed pictures can put forth a printed presentation of the highlights of a vacation. They don’t show you the chaos that has occurred. Though it may not be a total fallacy, but an organic emotional trigger shows the more unaltered truth.

So, what does it say for us, that the natural occurrence of nostalgia seems less potent than the synthesized? Is our empathy on the ropes? Are we all becoming strangers as somehow our populations grow?

Though I do think that is very possible, my belief stands that humanity has got a bit more left in it.

And I say all of this upon the very mechanisms I attempted to damn. Though as previously mention, this is a contradiction prone area.

And I say all this we stuff when I only have myself and those few I’ve heard thoughts on the matter. You could be out there with more joy and empathy and wonder than you’ve ever had in all your days. And all of this distraction may mean nothing to you and your goals, ambitions, desires and such.

Or, you could be just fine with all the mindlessness, both potential and already occurring. A life with just a little more comfort than discomfort. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do.

It is likely my paranoia that gets in the way here, on this weekly basis. And in other partitions of my life and mind, as well. But the hope to succeed as a writer creates the fear of not doing so. And that very same fear of failing, I dare confess with regret, has made me wonder whether I’ve got what it takes.

Yet.

I got back some photos today. A disposable camera from a recent trip I took. And going through them, each frozen moment invoked emotion. They are authentic. No filters. None deleted, even if the shot was terrible.

Just, honest.

And I am glad for those pictures. I am better person for having taken the trip. And some day, I may gather enough wisdom to make a moral out of all that.