Stone, Plank, Path


So to restate what I wrote in my previous post, I just found out I've been Explored on flickr. Specifically the photo above. And since mid March too. How fun. It's my first Explored photo on flickr. Okay, well, not that extremely big of a deal, but nevertheless fun.
To learn more about Flickr's Explore excitements click this link:
http://www.flickr.com/explore/
I've always liked the square-type cropping but I've also always thought they're fantastically hard to achieve good results with. There's something about a 1:1 crop that makes composition and planning so much harder. Psychological and neuro-biologically we process things in thirds (talking about our eyes now), or so I've heard, which is probably part of the reason to 4:3 crops on photos being so common. They're aesthetically appealing to the eye.
But the unusual, the awkward, the strange, the weird, the odd, the different is just as appealing to the human creative mind, it just takes a little more to feel comfortable around it. But different is good, normal can be good, but only with the free-thought and realisation of abiding by society's laws of normality.
Only start breaking laws after learning them so you know how to break them, and know that you are breaking them.

I've also discovered something mighty interesting to a sociology student and it goes by the name Simple English Wikipedia.
Go have a look at it:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/
and be amazed.

Now this is modernity and 'google-nation' in its best disguise. On the surface what you find is a simple search engine, an encyclopedia made easy for "the general public". Searching and understanding information has never been easier. But that's exactly where the problem lies. Have you ever stopped and thought over why we're always in such a rush? I mean, you spend ten seconds less to understand what e.g. capitalism is because you went "simple wikipedia"ing instead of regular wikipedia, then you take those ten extra seconds and go slouch on the couch with it. Productive and logical isn't it. Better yet, you've only gotten the very general and basic outline of the concept instead of actually understanding it. But who cares, you've gotten a couple generalisations about the topic, that's all you really need about anything right.....? Who needs real deep understanding when you can have generalisations about a little more topics?

We are demanding information ever quicker, simpler, ever more concise, shorter, easier, as effortlessly as possible. The result? More and more general, shorter and shorter articles where only the mere essential points have been taken out, everything else deemed unnecessary.. by who? By whoever the author is.
It's not a secret that the larger percentage (probably >95%) of the internet contains useless or faulty information. Quality information is still mostly in books. Why you ask? Books are works that have been approved by publishers, written by authors who have sufficient interest and knowledge in their area of study, and if you found it, probably well known (thus contains good information). These works elaborate and explain each concept as they should be told, teaching us something new, giving us insight and knowledge and maybe inspire and discover new things along the way.

Modern society wants us to do things as fast and effectively as possible. Sure all we need to know about capitalism is that it's an economic system where the individuals are the owners. You would probably get by with that knowledge, at least to some extent. But you would never learn that there is a difference in classical, neoclassical, weberian, keynesian capitalism, neither would you know that industrial and post industrial capitalism has changed a great deal. All because you wanted to save five minutes of your time.

I'll be crude; we're dumbing down. This craving for efficiency not only causes stress, has turned us into monotonous auto-drones/workers (ever thought over the social and psychological consequences of specialisation? Not to speak of the consequences to stratification. But that's an entirely other matter), made us devalue the value of existence and relations, perhaps even (arguably) causing a suppression of freedom of thought, it is is also dumbing us down, to what end? A few seconds more in front of a TV where we'll be bombarded with further brief pieces of information that will only fly right over and past our head? Maybe get a second extra to cram that sandwich down your throat while you're running to work?

Open your eyes and give a second thought to the world you are living in. Don't just do because. Do because you know you should and understand why.