The Pictures of Life

 There is a vividness and color, a pace and a graininess to those pictures from my past. The comforting roll of an 8mm film, and the Wagoneer station wagon. A.M. radio over a mono speaker, and the sound of Paul Harvey wishing us all a Good Day. The look of things completely different, and I realize now it was largely because I was always looking up at things, at people.
  The years pile up and the pictures of life include the sounds and words and emotions of life. The first painting you fell in love with, or rock band you made yourself a fan of. It may have been inspired by someone else, or your first real reach at individuality. The pictures get more vivid, their colors a little sharper, and more numerous. They are not always filled with "The Wonder Years" perfection, or the "Little House on the Prairie" wholesomeness. There are times that are grand and joyful sure, but there are times of monsters and demons that many still carry to this day.
 Paint a picture, take a snapshot, point it out, make a map. Humans are infatuated with the visual medium, the snazzier the better. A picture is worth a thousand words is the motto of this digital age, in a race for space, that snagging of a piece of the retina. It is eye candy and dopamine, testosterone and pheromones. The only cure for this visual ADD is more, addictive behavior at it's finest.
 I have always been keen to this aspect of us humans, communications I guess you'd call it. A large family and my genetics allowed me see it a little differently. This love of the visual is nothing new, but the mediums have changed in this internet age. I am seeing an effect on us as humans, maybe you can too.
  Us humans are changing fundamentally our purposes are shifting. Our scopes are greater as is our needs and appeasements. The Great Roman Coliseum of our age at our fingertips and eyes, the Mall of Humanity just waiting for a stroll. Some come to learn, some come to buy, some come to sell, some are comforted and some are shamed. The stroll is sometimes a run to excite the mind or a sit amongst the flowers and stars for a peaceful surrender. We have found our purposes here for a while now, many of the outside pictures, just mixed with the pixels.
  It is not our business anymore to visit the neighbors, to smile at strangers or say good day. It is our business to visit the sites and buy from people we don't even know and will never meet. We care more about the voice of a guy in Ireland than we care about the voice of a child on the corner in need. We humans are and have changed fundamentally. Some do meet, some do care, and some good comes from it all. Yet the fact remains that we have changed, is it for the better?
  We humans derive a great deal more purpose to our lives through this great big portal. The strolls we have taken have shaped our recent pasts and our ambitions. Goals and dreams have been altered as the landscape of a society blends in with another. The Dream Machine awakens and humanity is assailed with itself, good intentions aside.
 We are now isolated demographically diverse communities, living in isolated ideological communities online. We have found our Gods and our demons, our pleasures and our pains, our heartstrings and passions. We have also found ourselves accepting or disapproving, complaining and whining, raving and joyous. Instead of flipping the bird and yelling up yours, it is our purpose now to snap a picture and post it online. It is our purpose now to upload the birth pictures before the mother awakes.
  I am a writer, I have always been one, I have no idea why. It amazes me and frustrates me and I cannot believe anyone enjoys it. My esteem issues, not yours. I use this form of communication the best it seems, my messages and feelings come out best in any form of written medium. Lyrics, Poetry, short stories and bad puns, little diddy's to bring a smile to someones face. I can speak don't get me wrong and I like pictures too, but like anyone else I have my pictures of life that I would like not to see again. We are seeing the dark side of us humans more and more, from the campaign trail to the Walking Dead. Yes, this world of ours is not pretty, and some have seen more than their fair share of this part or us this ugly side. The graphic and grotesque, the tragedies of history are all there for anyone to see if they wish, the pictures of life. To some who have seen their fair share or more they are painful and visceral reminders of pictures still running in super HiDef.
  The extreme forms of communicating have become mainstream. The comments on the campaign trail enough for many to take pause or cause with alone. That extreme is not the only one being smoothed out, being made alright with us humans. Desensitized to much of the visual content we search for eye candy to make our points and our points aren't pretty! We throw up photo's and content to shock and upset, to cause visceral reactions. We post piles of Holocaust victims to rub it in, and lynchings to make our point seem righteous. Who can get the first shot of the body is a favorite mantra in the news circles. We take our self-righteousness to many lows to make pretty high and mighty accusations, whines, and lies. Those pictures of life coming up to the surface, to many who don't search for them. The effect on them visceral as well, but in a whole different manner.
  I use the written word to communicate and I can do visceral damage I am sure. No, I am positive because I am doing it right now. I paint my pictures and take my photo's with little funny bent and curved lines and dots. It is your choice to continue to read on, and find out what this picture is going to look like to find what emotional development that you will receive from it. When the medium of graphic pictures of aborted fetuses, people hanging, corpses, and all forms of this extreme communication is used. It leaves some with no choice, it is a thousand words shoved down their throats, a visceral reaction unwarranted, no discussion involved. It's emotions shoved at you, a scream, a yell and all too common in this world that is supposed to be communicating. I choose the written word to get my point across, my disdain through, my whines, and my joys. We have changed the pictures of life us humans, the extreme now as commonplace as the cat pictures. Communication is about a common ground, a meet in the middle. Discussions about anything are not benefited by the suffocating one thousand words of a picture of an aborted fetus. We have become desensitized to it, we are eerily getting closer to a Zombie Apocalypse of visual stimulation's. What is to become of those pictures of life when we look back on them as we do others? I know that the 2000's look a lot like the Nam days in a way when I look back. All that gunfire and explosions.
We have changed and are changing. Our core principles are seemingly the same, or are they? We are discovering a new form of communication and we have yet to fully know what the Alphabet of the future will look like. Visual-Visceral information is overtaking every corner or our little light boxes and we are just growing fish in a shrinking tank. We are mostly unaware, it's just us humans being humans. To paraphrase Red Green, We are humans,We can change, If we have to, We guess...

  There is a reason I used no pictures in this piece, I wanted to make a point. In communicating any concept or argument a picture is worth a thousand words, this is true. But in any honest communicating sometimes the one thousand words makes the best picture.