The title of this article isn’t that creative on purpose; it helps drive home the point I wanted to make. That everything we think, know, talk about… it’s no more than a rehash of everything we already know. Here’s a little example I whipped up (but really didn’t, because it’s nothing new, it’s just something that already exists); If  I were to ask you to think of a completely new colour, and then describe it to me, you could only ever tell me that it’s kind of brown, but more rhubarb, and it sounds like cheese falling on a tin roof and it’s kind of that, but it’s also mixed with cornflakes. You could even try to tell me that it’s ‘quijamastatlakka’, but you would have only chose those words or sounds because they are a subset of everything you already know.

So, she asks… what was there before the whole universe existed… what was in that big empty nothing? Well.. the answer isn’t in a science book hidden at the back of the library, or hidden within the ancient teachings of some religion that was made up because they were shit-scared of not having any answers. It’s a trick, it’s not the answer which we need to figure out, it’s the question. It’s why we try to explain things in the same way that we experience life. It’s why we’re so focussed on asking why.

There are things in this universe that we don’t know, like colours that we’ve never seen, or  some concept that I can’t explain to you, because I don’t know what it is. I believe that whatever there is/was/to before the universe is out of our understanding simply because we ask this question in terms of things we know; before, during, after, exist, not-exist.

I’m not saying that we’ll never understand, but I feel like we’re not doing ourselves any favours by asking these questions. Instead, I suggest we just observe more; increase the number of tools we have to relate to things. Once we know Everything (seeing = knowing??), we’ll be able to explain Everything. Until then we’re still going to be wastefully treading water, when we could be just sitting on the edge of the rapidly expanding universe watching the beautiful stars unfold a billion years in the past before our very eyes.

Even though there is a 100% chance that I am wrong, I won’t tell my niece any of this, even though there is also a 100% chance that I am right. Perhaps she’ll figure out something completely new and different and won’t need those decaying jetpack blueprints after all. We can only hope.

Something that I’ve been fascinated with ever since being involved in the creation of one of the first social networking websites, was how the medium of the internet could enrich people’s lives. The idea of the internet used to be alien, and many people that I spoke to had this idea that the fairly anonymous person on the other end of your computer terminal was either a spotty faced social-retard or a lecherous old dude pretending to be a chick. I knew this wasn’t always the case, as none of my friends who used the internet fit these stereotypes.The motivation for creating this networking site was to allow people to communicate, with the intention of meeting up ‘out there’ in the physical world. Increase the number of people you come into contact with, and you up the chance of developing rich relationships. That was the idea at least and for a while, it seemed to work; people would report back telling us that they met their new spouse on our site, but the site eventually evolved into something that was more akin to a porn site, dating websites became popular, more serious social networking sites emerged and the ‘party’ site we had built over was left drifting somewhere in the middle, staying afloat on it’s last planks of identity.

It had been 2 years, 7 months and 14 days since I first signed my privacy to Facebook’s data-hungry servers. Then yesterday I decided to vacate the site altogether. Although I had acquired hundreds of new contacts, and at the few clicks of a mouse I could stalk any one of them…  I felt that it was diluting the quality of my relationship with people in general. The information that people choose to present to you in real life, is a fraction of what they are capable of showing you. Through all the different aspects of their personality, they limit it down to the kind of person they want you to see them as. But online, through a social networking site, this quality of communication is a minute slither of that fraction. You don’t get to study body language, there’s no chance to touch, no smells, no awkward silences, no brief glimpse of eyes darting to the side that hopefully went unnoticed when you were telling a lie. And all the time, I kept telling myself that by using this site I was strengthening the bonds of my relationships with people.

By writing this blog post online, I’m a hypocrite. Perhaps I should broadcast this conversation as a movie in smell-o-vision instead of just creating and then re-editing my words into a muted text version of my own thoughts. Or maybe we should meet up sometime soon and have a lengthy conversation about it in some overcrowded English pub with a log fire crackling in the next room, pieces of burnt ash drifting their way into the fibres of our clothes.

I feel that the term Social Networking should be renamed to Social Entertainment, and that some day during the evolution of the internet, it may give birth to a tool which enriches the quality of our relationships with other humans. In the meantime, if you’re interested in trading up the hours that you invest in Facebook for a bit more free time to phone a loved one or start a fight with your neighbour, then this might be of interest to you.

The premise of the lecture was that through audience participation, we were to vote on whether this renowned(?) designer was a ‘Genius or Wanker’. At the end, a public ballot was held to determine the outcome, by holding up a piece of paper with the respective word on it. More than half of the people voted for the more positive outcome of Genius, but it didn’t seem to match with how he presented himself during this interview.

One of the topics that was discussed was a recent verbal slaughtering that he had received on an online forum. I kind of agreed with what he was saying; about how people might use such an anonymous form of communication to express themselves in a harsh and judgemental way. But would he be complaining about the conduit if someone praised him highly on the very same website? I doubt it, and it seems silly to dismiss the validity of a comment based on how it affects you on a personal level.

So it seems that it’s frowned upon to make negative comments towards an individual. Even if the negative comments are intended to be honest communication. I’ve seen this censorship occur in the absence of the facebook dislike button; where a website will choose to restrict people’s methods of communication (for whatever reasons, I can only speculate).

Jumping back to the present, in this open well lit lecture hall, where work colleagues sit next to each other discussing their vote at the end of  this semi-contrived social experiment. In light of the presumed social stigma of making a negative comment, how are these people expected to make an unbiased vote on this persons character?

Throughout the lecture, I developed the impression that the person we were scrutinising was no more than a regular guy, with strengths and flaws just like anyone else. The thing that did seem to set him apart though, was his desire to repeatedly contradict himself when trying to satisfy the audiences not-so-well thought out questions. We all live with contradictory aspects of our character, but he didn’t seem like he was able to present that to the audience. Without a shovel in sight, he dug his own hole by trying to appease other people. Instead of acceptance, there seemed to be a big dirt pile of denial. Not the kind of person I would say that I admire in any industry.

My Genius idea would be to stage a recount in a completely unbiased environment. I want to believe that the outcome of the vote would be different. But maybe the part of me that’s saying that is just a complete and utter Wanker.

Despite not being published yet, it cannot and will not change. This is the story of my life, and one which I will perform faithfully, down to the very last act.

Sometimes I find myself staring at the empty space on the shelf, wishing that it was there for reference. I would flip my fingers through it’s unbent pages, find the chapter that I’m on, and take my cue as to what to do next.

Perhaps if this book was real, I would find myself at this point, in a rather unfortunate loop; “He looks up the page number, and discovers that he is reading the book of his own life, in order to discover that the next thing that he will do is look up the page number to discover that he is reading the book of his own life, in order to…”. So perhaps it’s a good thing that this book doesn’t exist yet.

There were a series of books that existed when I was young, where you could choose your own adventure by making decisions throughout the story, flipping back and forth between numbered pages, which somehow always seemed to end unfairly with the demise of my character. I could always trace back my steps to find the turning point which caused me to be beheaded or trapped in a dungeon for eternity. Then, as long as I convinced myself that it was morally ok to do so, make the opposite decision and survive for another few pages until I was eaten by a dragon, and so forth.

Life never seemed to pan out like it did in these books. Not once have I encountered a demon and been given the opportunity to run or fight it, and neither have I ever had the opportunity to just ‘go back a few pages’ and try out a different path.

There is comfort in knowing that the book of your life will never change. No matter how much you struggle against the pull of your own destiny, the choices you make will always be the choices that you make. However, there is one thing that you can do to affect the outcome of your own personal bible; Choose more.

The people who increase the number of choices that they make each day, will have to make a little extra space on their bookshelf to fit their 17 volume lifespan. Those who decide not to decide, may have to arrange theirs neatly in between a Mr Men book and a pizza takeaway leaflet.