There’s something in the Wifi…

Looking at my phone and thinking about how upset I would be without wifi, I suddenly found myself thinking – how did I survive high school without Wifi? Did everyone in school have data? Back in my day (couldn’t resist), the wifi was restricted for staff while the students either went without or used their data.

Luckily, it’s not like the Whoniverse, where a superintelligence is hungry for consciousnesses and is pirating them when they connect to specific wireless networks. But that’s not to say that the network is completely safe or that there isn’t something that is targeting individuals at such an influential age.

But what is about wifi that makes is so addicting when you’re first introduced to it? It could be that it connects you to the rest of the world or that it means that you could play those games that require a constant connection. For adolescents, the former (connecting to the rest of the world) would probably be the main reason for really wanting wifi at school, according to all of those child psych classes I took (individuals around those ages tend to be influenced by others and seek somewhere to fit in).

What was the point of this posting? I have no idea, but I know that I found myself looking (rather desperately) for a network while walking around the outskirts of downtown Montreal and Jean Drapeau (I found out that there is barely any cell service and no wifi). Now, excuse while I silently freak out about having lost connection to the cafe’s network.

 

 

(internal scream, hair gets pulled out)

 

To help yourself is to help others

Ever feel good after helping others? Know anyone who is almost always volunteering to help others in need? Ever help a friend in need? 

From Psychology and Anthropology, I learned that humans are social creatures, learning our survival skills from those around us. From experience, I often felt good after helping others, regardless of how small the act is. 

Something I hear a lot is that to help others is to help yourself. However, recently, I’ve started to think otherwise. 

In an environment like that of a university, they always encourage that students focus on helping themselves before helping others, hence why there’s so many resources to help students do well in their classes. 

I’ve started looking at creative alternatives to break my destructive habits. I started writing again, bought a colouring book (Doctor Who, of course), I got a stress ball (like Sherlock’s skull), and… I painted my nails blue (almost TARDIS-like). 

For every alternative that I’ve tried, I was already becoming scared before even starting, which made me hesitate in starting, but I went ahead. 

As a result, I’m not as afraid of not being perfect, I’m better able to manage my stress, I become aware of what I do I’m stress, and I don’t suppress my artistic side as much. 

Just like many of the articles said, the colouring book did help, just as every other method works. I still get stressed, as any other person, but I understand it better. By doing so, I’m better able to help others, which is what I always love to do. When people ask why I chose that method, I tell them that it allows for me to understand myself and, by extension, others around me. 

Creating Alternate Realities

Ever watch a TV show and invent a character that would be in the series? Ever watch a Movie and imagine a sequel or a side-story that fit well in that reality? Ever read a story and imagine “what if”?

Being a bit of an artist and a bit of a nerd in many aspects, I find myself creating an OC – an Original Character – in each series that I watch or read. As the characters are created, I realized that they resemble to each other in terms of their pasts and personality.

It’s almost like creating alternate realities because it’s the same character with little tweaks here and there – one was an amnesiac, one was a pirate, one was a mage, one was a detective and one was affected by a particle accelerator explosion. The best analogy is with Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, where a group find themselves having to travel between worlds, sometimes dimensions to gather a friend’s scattered memories. The only difference is that, on most cases, these OCs would never meet the other and finding them fighting alongside each other.

With the most recent movie being Terminator: Genisys, I find myself writing a story that would take a place between the years of Skynet’s activation and John Connor being converted into a Terminator. A story in which yet another OC would be created in a different time and a different world. A story in which people stopped taking life for granted, making sure that they lived to see another day. A story in which humans no longer lived in a peace of overall peace.

The question now is, why? What’s the point of creating these mirror images of a character? Is there such a strong desire to live in a world so drastically different from here? Is there something so intriguing about living in a world where every day is different, all contributing to something big in the end? Is there something inside that wants to live everyday towards getting close to a certain goal and to have an official ending?

Sherlock once said that to create a disguise is to create a different version of ourselves. Would that imply that every character that is create reveals a different version of our personality? The Doctor often says that we humans are controlling, that we often to seek an understanding in everything  and that we often seek to be to accurately predict the outcome and, therefore, the future. The Doctor also said that we’re all stories in the end, that as time passes, we’ll be remembered by what we leave behind.

Writing the story is long and slow, that’s no surprise. For a few moments in time, the world is different and there’s something to work up to. For a few moments, time is slowed and the surrounding world would come to life. That is, until something or someone brings back me back down to Earth, like my phone that isn’t connected to Genisys.

Well, Genisys is supposedly going to come into existence in 2017. That’s two years from now (and counting). I wonder if the world will change that much by then.

Sooner than Later or Later rather than Sooner?

Have you ever wished that you learned something sooner? or that you could show something that you just learned to your younger version?

Jokingly, I could go on about how much of a paradox it would be if we were to change our timeline – and make a bunch of Doctor Who or Back to the Future references – but there is some truth to such a ridiculous statement. While there is a good chance that things might have been different had we learned this earlier, we can’t go back into the past. Even if we did, our past selves might not be as open to learning it than we would think (either that, or our alteration would result in our present self disappearing because our past selves never got to that point in their lives)

One thing that I’ve learned recently is that dwelling on what should’ve been puts a dark filter on how we see life. Instead, appreciate that you’ve learned it now and move on with this new information, informing and teaching others of what you’ve learned.

Rather than thinking about wanting to learn things sooner rather than later, I’m simply happy to learn them at all, because it’s better late than never

(Wow, that sounds cheesy)