Missed the starting gun

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”

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The quote above is from the Pink Floyd song “Time.” I can hear all you “cultured” writers/bloggers/hipsters scoffing already because I didn’t choose a Nietzsche or Mark Twain quote. I have a blog post here. So the quicker we get through this… The quicker you can get back to playing vinyl’s and shopping for clothes with triangles and random words like “OBEY” printed on them. Or for that matter… whatever it is you kids do for kicks these days .

The first time I heard this song, it really struck a chord with me. It’s one of them pieces of music were the lyrical content just jumps straight out at you. Gilmour’s soothing but powerful vocals, combined with such eloquently thought out lyrics, really help you understand what the artist is trying to convey on a much deeper level. I found the particular lines above the most relatable and moving. I think this is because, well… I personally, have missed the starting gun.

When you are young its seems like life is long and you have all the time in the world. There is time to kill today so you put your dreams on hold. You put your dreams on hold and end up in this sort of purgatory. Just on the borderlines waiting to get older so you can go and show the world what you’ve got. Throughout childhood and being a teenager, for me at least. It always felt as if we were building up to something. almost like we were in training to become human. The moment we reach adulthood is when the race starts; we put our skills to the test. Life suddenly changes. We change and become part of a grander scheme.

The truth is, the race has already started. There’s nothing that dictates were your life begins. The world just happens, and it’s happening right now. It’s so easy to sit there and not do the things you want to do, until certain circumstances change. i.e. Oh, I’ll do that after I get my degree. Do it now. The universe doesn’t wait around for you. 

The fact is. Time passes by at an alarmingly fast rate. If your waiting until you finish university to write that book or waiting to move out until you go on that awesome trip. You’ve missed the starting gun. Do what you can right now, with the resources you have. Otherwise. You may look back one day and find that ten years have got behind you.

No. no one told you when run, but I’m telling now that the race has already started and if you leave it any longer, it may be too late to catch up. And yes, I know you’ve missed the starting gun. If you hadn’t you’d be doing something cooler than reading this blog. Go. Go now…        

–THE LONELY WEST–

Addicted to distraction

The internet is a wonderful thing isn’t it? I mean seriously. It is a WONDERFUL thing. It’s a lot like many other inventions created in the past few decades. You lived fine without it before, but now it exists you could not possibly imagine a life without. How on earth could you survive without millions of cute kitten pictures at you disposal. How could you EVER think that you could live on oxygen, food and water alone without seeing that fat kid fall over for the 50th time this shift. We are never far away from a virtual world were you can get consumed. Then left wondering were in the hell the night went and why on earth am I watching videos on how to build a greenhouse (“Related” YouTube video binge anyone ?) With all of this new technology available 24/7 and in such a short amount of time, are we really ready for it ? Is it possible that we may just all be obsessed ? Addicted. To distraction.

“How did I get here ?”

I grew up in the age of the internet and the explosion of computers. By the time I was thirteen every room in my school had a computer and internet connection. A mere one year later near enough every household in the UK could access porn. I mean the internet. Well the internet practically IS just a gigantic porn database but lets not get into that. A few more years passed and technology progressed to a point were you could access and endless sea of information simply by pressing a few buttons on a small black box you kept in your pocket. That’s pretty crazy isn’t it ? No. It’s FUCKING INSANE. Near enough every development in human history was a progressive one. Our bodies and mind had time to adjust to the changes happening around us. But I can’t help thinking the smart phone and internet era happened far too rapid. We all jumped in blindly like a pack of wild dogs, draining our last sheds of dopamine in front of an LCD screen.

“A  useful diagram I made to illustrate the ratio of information on the world wide web”

As I have stated I grew up in the internet age. I remember spending hours in front of my parents state of the art COMPUTER (Probably worth about 50 pence now.) Sitting there on Newgrounds, Youtube, getting traumatized by 4chan all from such a young tender age. We don’t know if excessive internet usage is damaging because it is so new and fresh in our minds. There is no control group. All you reading who grew up on the internet. You are the experiment. You are the guinea pigs. For all we know the radiation from computer screens could make gigantic horse penis’s grow out of your armpits. We won’t know if it’s damaging until our generation gets older and becomes some sort of mutated creature who can do nothing but read emails and live on a steady diet of pixels and Facebook likes for sustenance.

“Don’t  check your Facebook too much kids !”

These topics nether would have crossed my mind until the unspeakable happened last week. A pain no man should ever undergo. My smart-phone broke. It had become so natural for me; The second I get in to rush upstairs, load up my dopamine receptors and mindlessly browse for a few hours. I was unusually distraught by the fact it had broken. I had a perfectly good laptop to use and the Ipod had seen its days. However, it was more the fact that I could access the internet QUICKER on my Phone than the laptop which resulted in INSTANT gratification. This is the issue I think. There is no need for working toward or achieving anything now as we can swiftly satisfy ourselves with something digital. Google truly is turning us into idiots. Can’t remember something ? Google it. FUCK LEARNING. Don’t have a partner ? Watch some of the sickest pornography you can find and overload you mind with happy chemicals until there’s no need for anybody else other than you. Just you and your FUCKING CANDY CRUSH (Sorry I just don’t get the hype.) Don’t get me wrong. The internet is a beautiful and great part of our society. It is completely decentralised so anyone in the world can read other people’s opinions away from censorship and the mind warping machine that is the media. You can connect with people around the globe simultaneously. Isn’t that what we want ? To be connected too every other human on the planet. Maybe so. At the end of the day, There is no getting away from this digital revolution. Whether you like it or not the internet is hear to stay. Thanks for reading and remember. Browse responsibly. –THE LONELY WEST–

Prepare for the future or be left behind

Still being of a young age, I grew up in the glorious era that the internet rose to power. When I was a kid, many had home computers but it wasn’t uncommon not to own one. Nowadays, if you tell someone you don’t own a computer or use the internet, they’ll look at you as if you just walked out of a burning orphanage bearing a swastika across your face. It wasn’t until I got to year six that things started to really kick off and computers became a normal part of every school in the country. We learnt all the basics. Which, let’s be honest… is just Microsoft office and bypassing the schools pathetic firewalls so you can play flash games.

“Come on we all did it”

I absolutely loved toying around with computers and tried to learn everything from Flash to Dreamweaver. Being so young, it was incredibly difficult to do without any guidance and I ended up giving up on my endeavours. Year 9 of secondary school came and I chose I.T as a subject in the hope of learning something a little more in-depth. Boy was I wrong. I had whole Thursday of I.C.T every week. Or as I used to call it back then… “Sitting on Microsoft Powerpoint baked out of my mind for six hours, while the obviously hungover teacher murmurs at you too get some work done every now and again.” Don’t get me wrong it was damn fun. All of my best friends took that course. I passed with flying colours. Not because I am a computer whizz. But because I know how to use Google. I had an acquired skill of wording together nonsensical ramblings until they look remotely like something in the curriculum. The cold truth is guys. I.C.T sucks. You don’t learn anything of value or in-depth. You’d be better of choosing art. Either that or just eating your own shit. At least with that, you might actually learn something (like not to eat your own shit.)

“More productive than any I.C.T lesson”

Technology is briskly moving at such a rapid rate that we can’t keep up with it. Times are changing and employers don’t care how well you can use Microsoft office anymore. Everyone and their mother can shit out a Powerpoint presentation. This constant changing technology may sound bad. It may sound like it’s leaving huge gaping holes in an already bleak looking job market. Don’t threat though. A whole new world has opened up. You just need the right skills.

C++. JavaScript. Java. Python HTML and CSS. Just to name a few of the many programming languages that now make up the majority of the world we live in. From the car you drove to work in, to the machine you got your coffee from in the afternoon. Coding is everywhere. In this day in age, whether you like it or not… Coding makes up the very framework of our society, and it’s here to stay. Employers won’t want word jockeys anymore. Stuff like that these days is just an expected standard in the average human being. It’s a basic requirement like reading and writing. Soon, it will be the same with coding and if you don’t get learning it now you could be left behind.

A recent article by the BBC stated that they’re going to start the big push towards children learning coding. Soon countless children’s T.V shows will be teaching  and bringing awareness to kids about programming. With a business as huge and influential as the BBC, this is bound to spread like an infection throughout every school in the country. This generation will grow up learning how to create software and machines. Skills that will be needed in the modern digital world. A world which we are slowly beginning to find ourselves living in. All the ones of our generation who never learnt code? They’ll be just as useless as someone who can’t use Microsoft office in 2014.

“Just some generic stock photography for you”

It’s easy to ignore and try to deny this fact, but it will happen. So if you want to prepare for the future and not be left behind I highly recommend you get some coding knowledge under your belt. It is a highly valued skill and you’d be surprised how useful it is. Or… you could just not bother. I mean, eventually we’ll build robots that can program themselves. Then they’ll be no need for humans at all.

–THE LONELY WEST–

 

 

Websites

Code academy – A great little interactive site for learning coding

Code school – Offers courses for coding

Udacity – A website by Stanford University that offers a range of courses

No longer crowded

Just a quick one. I’ve changed my blog from “thelonelycrowdedwest.wordpress.com” to “thelonelywest.wordpress.com” I thought the previous one was too long winded so I decided to be awkward and change that. Of cause, now all my search engine links are a mess and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay the £9 for a site redirect add-on. Jesus WordPress! do you think I’m made of money. I’m also getting paranoid that this menial post is burying the rest of my content. In fact the more I type… the more it get’s buried. I better stop.

Well I guess this is growing up

I can remember the exact point the sobering fact that I had grown up hit me. Post night out blues, wandering through a forest with my friend, both of our brains fried. An odd situation indeed, but the soothing sounds and smells of nature outweighed our aching bodies and sleep deprived minds. We sat by a river; empty beer cans and sealable bags littered on the floor. Obviously, someone… at some point had had a good night. Regardless of the awkward silence and emotional emptiness from last nights events, it felt somewhat tranquil. Zen. Everything just felt… well. right. Hypnotized by the rippling waves, something hit me. It hit me fast because by the time the battered synapses in my brain activated the thought, it was already coming out of my mouth.

“I think I’ve grown up.”

My friend glanced at me curiously.

“Why?”

“Because everything’s starting to seem a lot more shit.”

“Out of all the hangover cures I’ve tried, being in nature has always been the best”

Nothing’s new any more. Everything is just the same but in a different context. You turn on the television and it’s the same mind numbing garbage. Fake superficial bullshit designed to make you feel more miserable about your own life. The aim ultimately being that you buy even more stuff you don’t need. These material items keep you happy temporarily, but eventually they break. Eventually the novelty wears of or they stop fulfilling you. Then it’s back to work. Sitting in an institution working your ass of to make someone else money. Don’t worry though. If you work long enough you might get the privilege of having some free time.

Weekend comes and you drown yourself in alcohol. Drinking yourself to stupidity and stumbling about, talking to all the other automatons, trying to forget the prison you’re living in. Hangover comes. Coffee, cigarettes back to work. Rinse repeat.

Same people. Same situations. Same experiences.

Same shit different year.

Live in a box. Die in a box

When you’re young every experience is new, exciting and exhilarating. The world seems bright and pristine. No responsibilities. No worries. Everything makes sense and seamlessly fits together like a game of Tetris. We are brought up with the idea that we’re different. That we won’t make the same mistakes as our parents. Our generation will clean up the malevolent shit storm that the previous one left for us. Nothing changes though, we just loop back, get old and leave it to our children’s children to deal with. We are surrounded by violence and atrocities happening all around the world. That doesn’t matter, we are young. Leave for the next generation. With this, the self perpetuating cycle of death, misery and corruption continues spinning. The more we feed the cycle the more violent it gets, and before long it will consume us until there is nothing left.

When was the point you realised that you had grown up? Leave a comment below… Well if you actually got this far without killing yourself. Bit of a morbidly depressing one today. But I thought I’d start your week with a bit of misery.

–THE LONELY WEST–