Documentation Generation

This is an "I" post.

I read in Newsweek that I'm a part of the 'Documentation Generation'. The article (see "Here's Looking at You, Kids" by Jennie Yabroff, March 24 2008) really got me thinking, because so much of what Yabroff wrote was true - about me, about the people around me, about my entire way of life.

What's happening now, this is a perfect example. Blogging. What is the purpose of blogging? I call it "a creative outlet", a pixellated snapshot of my thoughts/opinions/feelings of a certain time and place.
Others call it nothing but a display of vanity, to think that what I am documenting is even worth being documented to begin with. The danger of this fixation on documentation, according to Yabroff, is that the youths of this generation "are so busy documenting their experiences, and being documented, that they may end up with postcards from a trip they have no memory of taking".

Maybe this is just a phase. Maybe when I turn twenty, or twenty-one, or twenty-five, or thirty, I will have no more than a bare recollection of posting entries in a weblog. Or maybe it isn't just a phase - maybe this is just the start of what the people of my generation (those born after 1982/3) will adapt as permanent lifestyle.

Who knows? I guess only time will tell.

I don't know if I love or hate that I live in a Me-Me-Me world, where television is dominated by reality TV shows about real people who believe they're worth the airtime. But then, I think to myself, I can't judge them. I can't criticise them, I can't say I would do it any differently - because who's to say I'm not exactly the same? I watch the same TV shows, I listen to the same music, I am indoctrinated by the same common perceptions and stereotypes as the next teenager.

I live in a world where cellphones have an "I" slotted in front of their labels (see: IPhone), where music players are called IPods.

I, I, I, I, I.

I.

It is my greatest fear to admit that if there were one word I use the most in my sentences, in my writing (with the exception of law school essays, where use of the word "I" is strongly discouraged), in my conversations with others - it would definitely be "I".

But anyway. While I am still in this - what I hope is - "phase", I may as well "document" where what's on my mind at this point in my life. This is, after all, still my blog.

Exams are a little over three weeks away. But I hate writing about exams, because I don't like them. Blogging about exams is like delegating me a 300-page assignment paper about cockroaches.

I have changed. I haven't abandoned my entire belief system, no, that doesn't happen overnight. But I've come to realise that I'm a different person than I was, six months ago, ten months ago, a year, two years ago. What's probably changed the most about me is the music I've grown to enjoy.

Gone are the days of Josh Groban's baritone voice, or the operatic choruses of Il Divo. Maybe I'll miss their music again someday and rekindle the fanaticism, but right now, I've discovered the wonderful weirdness of Queen, the curious, itchy songs of The Beatles, and the more obscure songs by the lesser known musicians, because maybe they only sang one good song and never again since.

Movies like Across the Universe (still hating the Bono-in-tent scene) and TV shows like American Idol have definitely opened up new windows of musical appreciation for me. Yeah yeah, I know a lot of you out there think AI's a stupid show, but I love it. As they say - To each his own.

I wish I knew my Land Law textbook as well as I knew Bohemian Rhapsody.

And I feel pretty bummed that I never even knew who Freddie Mercury was until it was too late. Just like Lord Denning.

Catch ya later.

PS: I don't like crocodiles. Wonder how I'll feel about them in a year.