Filterd to Autumn, Roxy, Timothy, Spectre, Chiara, Peter, Flynn and Quinn

[this_is_vienna]

I didn't write a column this week as such. But London College did get me to thinking. And I had things I wanted to say without necessarily referencing it at all. Of course, my publisher wouldn't print it, so it's going on tomorrow's opinion page. Which means I can show you it now. I hope it makes sense...

Comments

[bumpmygrind]

God, I wish I could write like that. That's incredible.

[this_is_vienna]

Thank you, Roxy. I hope it reaches someone.

[a_battered_rose]

My screeching is supposed to be repellent when you're hosing me down with ice cold water, you brute.

And Vicky, that's amazing. Well said.

[this_is_vienna]

I'm not a brute, I'm whimsical!

Thank you, Angel. How are you?

[a_battered_rose]

Whimsical Brute. Brutey...Whim? Ahem. You're the writer in the family.

I'm okay, Vicky, thank you. My boys are taking care of me.

[this_is_vienna]

Brutey Whim is funny!

Do you mean your dogs?

[chase_dragons]

I guess by comparison with a lot of people I know, I'm not all that young. I'm older than Spectre for a start, and Deirdre and Flynn. I'm not sure about Joasia... I think we're about the same age, but you know what women are like with that sort of thing. Still, I know what you mean. I remember the eighties, and they seem so innocent by comparison. I know that decade wasn't the epitome of human culture. It wasn't the Renaissance or anything. But it was a coming of age. We just suddenly started getting things right. There was Return of the Jedi, Transformers, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Indiana Jones, Megadeth... Adventure, heroes, exciting music... It was a decade of new things that tapped into age-old powers. I don't think the nineties did that. The things that did then, were just natural off-shoots of the eighties. Dream Theater grew out of that more than any nineties influence. Back then, you couldn't jump on the Internet and download an album. You had to trade tapes with your friends to find new music, especially underground music. The

[this_is_vienna]

Hey, Transformers! I'm suitably distracted now!

I think wonder is important. Something I can see lacking in so many of the young people I know today. They marvel over their mp3 players, and they forget about things like...the pyramids. I've seen the pyramids and the Sphinx. I'll never forget that as long as I live. It's something I wouldn't trade. I'm glad you have wonder, Timothy.

[chase_dragons]

Train of thought transformed and rolled out? ;)

Well hey, even I marvel over an mp3 player... for like, five minutes. But there are things out there that could wow you for the rest of your life. Fuck, who knows, maybe one day I'll get to see the moon. You never know, things are changing so fast. Now that would be flying.

Man, it must have been awesome going to Egypt and seeing that stuff. Did you just do that because, or was it like a Jewish thing? Sorry if I asked that kind of inelegantly, there...

[this_is_vienna]

Pretty much.

I bought a telescope for Autumn when we were younger. She used to stare in that thing for hours. She said she was looking at stars, but I think she was looking for spaceships...

You didn't ask inelegantly! I did it because it was a journalist thing. I went to Jerusalem because it was a Jewish thing. I can't describe what it was like standing at the Wailing Wall.

[in_spectre_mors]

I think the eighties were my salvation. I don't think any decade previously had the strength of spiritual freedom to allow me the escape from my parents that I eventually took. I'm sure people did it, because there were still many great libertarian thinkers in those days, some highly evolved tracts, but I don't feel that I would have had the weight of a decade shaking off the yoke of imperialism the way I did. Of course, by the time I was thinking such things, it was well and truly the nineties, but as Timothy pointed out, all the greatest aspects of the nineties were built on the eighties anyway. And the eighties had a huge influence on my life, particularly the early eighties and the music that grew out of that time. Real punk, the stuff that developed in the late seventies and reached its zenith in the early eighties. Everything from the Sex Pistols to Joy Division, the Buzzocks, the Clash... It was all good. It was all freedom

[this_is_vienna]

Ah, music. Something I use to inspire me every day. No one should underestimate music's ability to free one's soul. I believe you stand for freedom, Spectre, and that your music does the same. I've no time for music with no feeling behind it. No emotion or experience, just empty words set to a beat so some person who's body is 80% false can wow the audience with their dance moves. I want feeling in there. Thank you for being someone who provides it.

[in_spectre_mors]

I love that I can be someone who inspires people, especially when young people write to me here, or on my forums, to tell me how I've helped them. People like young Geordie, who I've been able to help feel better while he recovers from the fire at Digital Anachronism. I'm glad to have created something with feeling behind it, that even after everything, he can still connect to. That so many people connect to. I don't know if any one person has ever managed to speak to everyone in the entire world. Maybe Jesus, but probably post-humously. I think I've found a good way to talk to a lot of them, though.

[this_is_vienna]

I think you've found an excellent way to talk to a lot of them and I think it's incredible that you take the time to really hear them as well. That's hard to do posthumously. So you're one up there.

[voiced_silence]

I'm not sure whether I envy you or not. I don't remember my life ever being simple, but I don't think I ever wanted it to be. If I wanted that, I could have retreated to a little island village, let my beauty find me the most eligible bachelor on the island, and lived my life cultivating vegetables, lounging in the sun, and spawning twelve children and eventually have uncountable grandchildren to dote on me in my queenly old age. Instead, I chose to seek truth. If not a truth higher than myself, then at least one bigger. I suppose whether I'll really make a difference remains to be seen. I've made an impact, ci, but I'm not Suetonius, writing an account of the Caesars that will survive millenia. Now that was journalism. I suppose today, as sad as it is, that sort of tome would be a volume on the American Presidents...

Whatever happens, I think we're lucky. We've chosen a vocation that leaves us without any choice but to engage with the world. We won't miss anything because we can't miss anything. The world itself is our bread and

[this_is_vienna]

It wasn't necessarily about simplicity though, it was about knowing that nothing is immediate. You learned that without simplicity, just as I learned that with it. And I don't see kids these days learning that. They just want. And they want now. So if they're not happy, they think something's wrong. And they end up doing horrible things to themselves or other people because they just don't understand. It's great that I don't miss anything, sure. But I'm not the one I'm worried about.

[voiced_silence]

True. I can't deny that I want too, but I know that I have to get out there and do to get what I want. That's how I ended up coming here. I saw something that intrigued me, and I wasn't willing to take no for an answer. Now I'm involved in something, something that one day may be looked on as revolutionary. Or maybe it will be something only referenced in future versions of the circles we move in now, the intelligentsia. Either way... I think I'm making myself happy. I don't know about others, how to help them. I guess I'm trying to help them open their eyes. But I'm also just trying to see how wide mine can go.

[this_is_vienna]

Well that's always a noble pursuit, Chiara.

Would you like to come over and continue this conversation over drinks?