Had the wonderful opportunity to go to the circus after many decades of not going. Glad to see it still alive and kicking in the digital age. The numbers were not high enough to remind me of the mindblowing screams from when I was 7. Out of my family, I have to admit, I was the most impressed by it. Watching a man with 6 lions in a cage! The trapeze artists and the elefant acrobatics. These were real people doing things beyond human normal capability, but my kids were not impressesd as much. With YouTube and videogames these death defying tricks pale in comparison. I grew up with a old 13 vacuum tube tv, radio, and books. The Circus was a life changing event, that defined for me the capacity of humans to be able to accomplish the impossible. My dreams and hopes came alive that night. However, and perhaps sadly for my kids it was just a higher quality YouTube video with uncomfortable seats.
Thinking about it today. I came to realize that my inherent ADDness does not only come genetically passed down. Or created due to my repetitive 20 year work as an IT professional, but it is what creative intellectuals do to cope with the inherent lack of creative challenges. There are those who create and those who consume. I fortunately or unfortunately am the creative type and sometimes my work does provide a challenge that requires my creative thinking, but most often than not it only offers repetitive mundane yaks that must be stamped out. So in the meantime the brain creates problems or attention getters that really do not need attention at all, like keeping up with the news or Facebook. These are subconsciously implanted as tasks to be completed to make the brain perceive that it has more to do than what is really present. Over time this becomes the nor and things like this be one the norm at home too. You try to sit patiently and listen through your Childs story and you catch y
Now we can "fake" all those actions so easily on the TV screen. But it's not just that, I think it's just the times and trends. I think sports, space, speed are things that appeal to the masses these days. No longer Man vs Animal and his own limitations, but Man vs Space/Time. But hey, maybe the circus is due for a come back! As we know from so many movies, games, stories that we just rewrite the past for entertainment.
ReplyDeleteI guess you are right E.T. We need to have the people on the space station doing a Circus. :-)
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