Phantom Residual Conciousness

This picture was taken from a random generation of the past 7 days of Flickr photos.

Remember when you were young? When you were really young? I'm talking 16. That was 1995 for me. I was moving on from comics to the internet. I think that may have been a major turning point for me. It wasn't an abandoning by choice. It's just that Marvel, Image, and DC, weren't pumping out anything that spiked my interest and I always felt I'd get lost if dove into the independents. I had very few independants - the one in particular that I miss greatly was a black & white Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles whose content was anything but what you'd see in a weekday afternoon special. The turtles were vicious. They took on enemies with serious martial arts and blood would spill. They were ripped but not cheesy. They had a code and a sensei. They were fuckin' ninja turtles! I'd sit for hours beside my bed taking care not to crease any of the pages because my comics were so cool and valuable that they were under the highest level of security. Still, if anyone finds this comic please contact me and return it for a large reward.

In 1995 a lot of paths began to open. I heard Fugazi for the first time. I was in a mosh pit for the first time. I had sex for the first time. I rebeled against my parents for the 84th time. I was taking my first physics class. I bought a quart of Mickey's from the Citgo on 87th ave for the first time. I'd leave the old man my change for posterity generated from the understanding that he knew I wasn't of age. Poor bastard. Who knows how many bad seeds he'd watered. How many car accident's he instigated.

There was nothing to encourage the deployment of a text message then. There weren't personal GPS's. I may have had a beeper. There was no sense of tracking of anything. No social community status updates. Today there are all kinds of tracking devices. Back then I think moments were better developed and decisions were more carefully executed. I think we would all think more often.

People would chill out and deal with things. They'd have more time to think about the situation. Today a text comes in and the normal response is to reply right away. A status update may be posted and you may be tempted to reply, repost, or make your own commentary. People use the words "link me" in their dialogue. The all-caps abbreviations - like LOL - make it to some people's daily vocabularies. I'm just as guilty.

This note is to tell everyone that its important to invest a little more time, think more, share more, and to communicate more. I want to tell You that you should actually dial and memorize someone's phone number. Talk to your friends and family for a few extra minutes when your'e about to hang up. Give your friends and family the time you think you don't have. Share things, with the internet and with your hands to their physical hands. Shoot them the latest YouTube video. Show them a shell you found on the beach shore. Hand them a photo. Tell them about something you love about them of which they're not aware. Walk with them. Think more about what you did and didn't do.

This post was written under the influence of Andrew Bird's Noble Beast and Angels of Light's Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home.