Assignment 2 - Claire Thompson

                It’s funny that this was a prompt this week, as just last Friday evening, I asked my friend, “What kind of a person would I even be if I was born several decades earlier?” She shrugged and said, “I think I would be a lot more boring.” And I would say the same would probably be true for me. We had just gotten back from CD Central, where I had just purchased my first vinyl record that was my very own, and not just one that my dad bought 30-40 years ago and kept in the basement. It was a used copy of the soundtrack of the 1980 movie Popeye, starring Shelley Duvall and Robin Williams, and I was so lucky to buy it for only $4.50 (I would put money on saying that that was probably an original pressing from 1980). I had also bought another record, which I had actually gone to CD Central with the intention of buying, called Viva! A Woman, a 1996 trip hop record by the Brooklyn-based Japanese duo Cibo Matto. There is not one single thing in common between two records--they're of completely different genres, origins, and periods of music. It makes me think that if I had grown up 20 years earlier, I would never be able to have that sort of eclecticism in my life. Without access to the internet, I wonder if I would still only be listening to the new wave albums my dad played for me when I was a child; I wonder how I would ever discover new things.  I 100% stand by the notion that variety is the spice of life—and I really have a strong contempt for under-seasoning.

The internet, if I’m being brutally honest, made me the person I am today. The internet is such an incredible vehicle for exploring new things from TV to movies to music to just about anything. In many ways, internet communities that I was a part of as a middle school student brought me out of the terrible cynicism and misanthropy a lot of 13-year-old kids fall into, something that, unfortunately, some never crawl out of. Because of that exposure to such a plethora of different types of media and people from such a young age, I think that now I find it so much easier and more enjoyable to become friends with people who are completely unlike me. Everyone I ever meet has something to offer, in terms of their knowledge and experience and interests. I think that I have made my heart tender, and I hope that that never changes.

I wouldn’t choose to live in any other decade. I mean, no matter where you are in time, the world has more to offer the older it gets. As bad as things can be around the world, I think we live in so much of a better time than in decades past. There are no more plagues that wipe out 1/3 of the world population because every single European threw their feces into the streets; fascism and totalitarianism seem to be at an all-time-low; government-enforced racial segregation is mainly gone from the world; gay marriage is, finally, legal in the US (and in a lot of other countries too); and now you can travel to another state and it doesn’t take an entire month to get there because you no longer have to go in a horse-drawn buggy. I think we’re pretty lucky. Although, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that in a few millennia, there will be people scoffing and shaking their heads in pity at the poor people of the 21^st century who had never even dreamed of being able to visit another planet for a weekend trip. But the future is uncertain—just be glad you’re alive now and not during the witch trials or the smallpox epidemic or the Crusades. Just be thankful that you’re here now; I know I am.