Current Events Don't Provide the Excitement and Drama of Prophecy

Today has come somewhat as a disappointing day of not accomplishing much and feeling unaffected by entertainment that once gripped me.

Needing money for laundry, I ended up taking two trips to the bank because I didn't know how to withdraw money from my checking account. Doing so took up some time, but it shouldn't have caused too much of an inconvenience except that I spent a good amount the morning

+ Eating food and

+ Catching up on THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT

so that by the time I got back from the bank, the final place I need to call for an address change had closed for the day. I will need to call them tomorrow.

On top of all that, my Internet has acted unreliable again. I can fortunately power cycle the modem to correct the problem, but I really don't want to have to power cycle my modem multiple times during the day for Internet access. Having to do so prevented me from turning temp agency applications and applying for jobs listed online.

And if you have been keeping up with my blog, you have an idea of how much I appreciate the Internet in my life.

Then again, I was probably in for an annoying day after a fun weekend. A friend that I met through the fiancee visited. We all walked around a lot, ate a bit, had some good drinks (but nothing excessive enough to give me a flow blown hangover), laughed a lot from our own dialogue and by going to Second City (both myself and the friend got called on to provide spontaneous material). Unfortunately, the weekend had to end and everyday life had to continue.

THE ALIAS SERIES FINALE

At the end of my day, the Alias series finale underwhelmed me. It didn't have enough of a "affecting the whole world" feeling to it. The show implied all these races against time and everything, but it just didn't grab me. I guess I really didn't feel that anything was at stake. . .or I didn't feel that the conclusion was significant enough to wow me or anything. The characters fixed everything too easily, even the characters about to die or who became immortal.

Maybe I have a feeling that either which way that the Rimbaldi prophecy concluded, it should have a world-changing conclusion. After reading the Rimbaldi Wikipedia page and reminded about part of the prophecy, however, I can see that part of prophecy was prevented. This reminder leads me to believe that the final episode could have had much more impact if this aspect of the prophecy received emphasis along with the development of the Sydney Bristow character.

I can't totally blame the writers too much, however. From what I've heard, they didn't have all the time in the world to properly resolve the show. The network cancelled the show halfway through the season, which probably comes at a better time than when the Farscape writers, cast and crew learned of their cancellation, after the filming of the last episode of the season. Thankfully, they received the opportunity to put together The Peacekeeper War, whence they resolved the loose ends.

In a similar vein, though, the unresolved season finale to Angel provided even more satisfaction. Having it end with the beginning of a big battle and not knowing how it will affect the world and character somehow feels much more satisfactory. We don't receive closure, but at least us members of the viewing public don't have to just accept something of an artificial, undeveloped ending that somewhat makes everything feel small and inconsequential, after having getting sucked into the milieu and drama to such a degree that I/you have invested a good amount of time into it.

At least the story can continue, either again on TV or in a movie or comic book. Some other show or story could even reference the characters or something. No matter how the people/topics/events could crop up again, I'll have to now switch my opinion about the last episode of Farscape before The Peacekeeper War if the The Peacekeeper War never got made. In that case, at least, an unsatisfying artificial ending didn't get made in attempt to resolve loose ends.

GETTING CAUGHT UP IN CURRENT EVENTS AGAIN

I feel attached to keeping abreast to current events. Similar to no access to the Internet gives me a feeling of disconnectedness, not keeping up with current events has a similar effect.

The friend who visited over the weekend finds keeping up with pop culture an important thing to do. For one, his job somewhat requires him doing so. He works with all types of clients with whom he needs to make connections and have conversation. I have the feeling that he probably likes to use pop culture to have conversations with other people, not as a way to make money or keep his job, but simply as a way to fulfill the basic human need to connect with other people.

Unfortunately, for many reasons (one the main ones possibly ADHD), I don't necessarily keep updated on pop culture all that well. Part of it may also come from my disinteredness in "empty" culture, something that doesn't do a good job at reflecting upon the human condition but rather acts as a way to distract from the human condition. Yeah, I need diversion from thoughts about the human condition now and then, too, but "empty" culture simply doesn't do the best job at keeping my attention all the time.

Current events is the human condition. Our discussion, commentary, criticism, dialogue, etc. etc. on this condition is our reflection on that condition. I love getting into this stuff and exploring it with people. In a way, probably, keeping attentive to these current events helps me tap into something bigger than myself, helps me in my search for meaning and value.

I probably just need to stay conscious that I don't get "addicted" to keeping up with these events, as a way to distract me from the human condition.

But this weekend, at The Second City show, I experienced a desire to up to date again with the current events. The show had a political edge.

Over the last couple months, year or so, the fiancee and I had been focusing a lot on our move to Chicago and the direction our lives would take afterward. It reached a point where I had to stop reading the news feeds that I got through e-mail. It took up a lot of time, especially since it all interested me, I tried reading most of it and sent what I read to e-mail lists I had set up (subscribe to the main news list by sending an e-mail to newstothe_lex-subscribe@topica.com. . .but I feel like it fulfilled some kind of innate urge of mine.

I haven't fallen behind in current events. The big national news is still the NSA wiretapping scandal, the low opinion of Bush in our country, whether the Democrats want to impeach, censure or investigate the Bush administration, the new head of the CIA being the old NSA guy, the Jack Abramoff scandal, the partisanship of the Democrats and the Republicans, bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran with their nuclear development, India wanting nukes, global warming and so on and so forth. Even in the past, I knew that the attention of the media and its audience really doesn't change all that fast, except for in the entertainment.

Not necessarily even for the entertainment world, either, though. Over the weekend, The Soup continued to crack jokes about the whole Britney Spears driving with her baby in her lap incident. I still laugh at the jokes made (after all, I haven't been paying attention to this stuff for at least a month), but I would have thought that the rest of the viewership would've gotten sick of it. I guess this also goes to show you, things really don't change all that quickly, in the entertainment world or in current events.

Nonetheless, if I don't keep abreast of all this stuff, I don't feel connected. And I don't even really get into conversations about this stuff with other people. I guess I somehow feel involved in the world, even though I really don't do too much to affect the overall world.

Just give me a little time, though. Once I finish this college project and start my writing career, I think things will be a little different.

IN UPCOMING ENTRIES

As something of a preview of future entries and also as a way to remind myself of topics, I think I may start listing off topics at the end of entries. For today's preview:

+ The difficulty of updating someone from the past on ourselves, or creating an identity in small bite sized, digestible pieces

+ The importance of having an objective when embarking on a quest.

FOR NOW, THOUGH, GOODNIGHT