I still go to coffee shops with the primary intention of reading books. I'm still somehow stuck with this romantic notion that coffee shops are meant for book-reading. That's how I always imagine it to be in Europe and in the artsy bohemian corners of New York. But I'm in Araneta Center where I guess hundreds of Ateneans are lining up for tickets for their UAAP basketball game that afternoon, and where some of them are having coffee at tables next to mine, with their heads stooped to their laptops. So I thought to myself: who am I kidding? This is probably how it looks like in Europe and in New York these days.
I've always been of the opinion that this new generation weaned on efficient technology is normal. There is nothing wrong with kids today, contrary to what purists and defenders of the old world order say. I don't get Emo, dance-punk, or "I'm so craving for Red Mango right now" status updates on Facebook; but I seriously believe that this generation is normal. Because every person, more often than not, is a product of his or her generation. So within the context of the zeitgeist, they could only be right.
Having said that, I'm absolutely curious as to what this generation has in store for the world.
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My buddies and I always have fun with the endless possibilities of this question: "What if text messaging and the internet already existed when we were in high school?" Answering the question always led us to fantastic alternate universes, none of which involved academia. But we would always end our fantasizing with the following conclusion: "it wouldn't have been the same."
Had porn been so readily available on the internet, we wouldn't have had those thrilling surreptitious Playboy magazine exchanges during recess and lunch; or had gone through the communal ritual of watching triple X videos in a friend's house while his parents were away. Had there been text messaging, we wouldn't have had to wait for each other on the school grounds after class, horsing around, calling each other names, and laughing about things that absolutely made no sense. Had music been so easily downloadable, we wouldn't have had spent weeks creating the wondrous mythology of how great Pearl Jam's next album was going to be, or felt the ecstatic longing, whispering amongst ourselves in our classrooms to check if any record store already had a copy; and then felt the resulting reward, so tangible and concrete: an actual solild casette tape that you could touch and hold high as if it were a trophy. Had i-Pod already existed, we wouldn't have had spent those lazy after-school hours playing our Sonic Youth or Rollins Band or Napalm Death cassettes loudly through our school boom box, creating a deluge that flooded our entire quadrangle, down to the football field.
Back in 1994, I was 15 years old; the absolute zenith of puberty. My favorite musical artist back then was simultaenously my crush: Tori Amos. When her album "Under the Pink" was released that year, there wasn't isohunt.com or mininova.org yet to provide me an advanced copy of her new songs. There weren't Yahoo articles or reviews in metacritic.com that year, rendering me oblivious to how a lot of music critics thought she was a load of bullshit. I had to wait, like every other teenager of that era, for a copy to land in the shelves of Odyssey Records.
You could say that my experience with popular music then was relatively pure. But that's not what draws me to that memory. What makes me more nostalgic was how unpure everything was.
For the entire summer of 1994 I played my "Under the Pink" CD at least once every day. And I didn't just listen to Tori Amos' music. I went to her house and watched her play on her beloved Bosendorfer. I went to her still non-existent MTV Unplugged performance, staring at her from my front row seat. I went to dinner with her, listening to explanations of her surreal lyrics. I was able to touch her, hug her, and tell her that I was her biggest fan.
Today, you can download literally all of her music videos with one torrent file. You can watch dozens of her live performances on YouTube. You can watch and read everything she actually said and did through the internet. But in 1994 Tori Amos lived in my head. She lived in my world. It was a lie that was far more exhilirating and intense than any reality YouTube could offer.
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I've read an article years ago that said modern video games were actually making kids smarter. With their complex gameplay, they are able to develop kids' logic and troubleshooting skills at a very early age. Maybe the future wouldn't be ruled by spoiled brats after all. It would be a world ruled by people who have highly advanced logic, mathematical know-how, and organizational skills.
But I wonder what that world would feel like then. I wonder what people would long for in an era where things are available at their fingertips. I wonder what "romantic notions" they would have. Of coffee shops, for instance.
Last week, in a coffee shop in Cubao, dozens of future adults were being informed of all their friends' status and activities, were listening to new music, were watching videos on demand, were reading mail WHILE SITTING IN ONE PLACE.
I, on the other hand, was reading a book - "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. It's about a Greek-American family whose story began in Turkey at the turn of the 20th century and is told through the eyes of one of its 3rd-generation progeny, a hermaphrodite struggling to live a normal life. I was being taken to Ellis Island and introduced to European immigrants who fled their war torn motherlands, seeking a new life. I was witnessing the Detroit riots of 1967. I was befriending a girl who discovered painfully that she really was a boy when she reached puberty in the tumultuous 70s. I was experiencing the disappointment of the old generation of Greeks with the new generation of Greek-Americans. I was also experiencing the craving of the new generation of "Americans" for a new identity.
Of course all of these were happening "just" in my head. Those college kids were consuming reality, some in real-time. And as I looked up from my book I couldn't help but think: do they still lie in their beds talking to Lady Gaga instead of watching her from their i-Touch? Do they still make their crushes say non-existent words to them instead of reading their actual thoughts on Facebook? Can they still picture the characters and the places in "New Moon" without watching what movie producers agreed they should look like in the new trailer that was just released, now available on YouTube?
Do they still use their imagination or does technology have that covered too?
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