Upcoming Events

To be human is to be Damaged

To Be Human Is To be Damaged

To Be Human Is To be Damaged 5120 2880 Jason Stadtlander

When I write a story and create a protagonist, it’s easy to create a hero. Someone flawless that comes sweeping in to save the day with superpowers or a methodical detective that can solve any case. But, readers don’t fall in love with the flawless. We can’t relate to that. It wasn’t the fact that superman could fly across the world in a minute or pick up an entire building that made him alluring. It was his vulnerabilities. The fact that kryptonite could damage him or his heart could be broken by Louis Lane. There isn’t a superhero (or a super villain) out there who didn’t have a flaw.

We need those flaws. We have those flaws. Every single one of us. True, small children likely have fewer flaws, but it is part of human growth – part of growing up to accumulate these flaws. The older I get, the more I realize that we are all damaged, all of us. It is how we choose to embrace our damage, understand what is under our own skin and use it to better ourselves rather than allow it to rot us – that truly defines who we are and how we connect with others.

Those who claim they are not damaged have simply not come face to face with their own damage and have not come to understand what that damage is.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the damage is necessarily something catastrophic. It could be something as small as a bullying incident early in your life that causes an unknown level of anxiety or a fall when you were a child that you forgot about that causes a fear of heights. Damage is damage. Coming to terms with our own damage (in public or in private) is extremely important, and it really is the only way to move forward in life. There are some people I know that wear their damage on their face but have never come to terms with it and may live their entire life without ever understanding it themselves. Yet, others I know finally came to terms with their damage when they were in their 80s and 90s. We all live life on our terms, and we all live through our damage on our own terms.

The most important element to gain from this is that our damage is key. It makes us interesting, unique, often relatable, and sometimes holds us back. When you walk down the street and look at that person in the crowd that seems so well put together and overconfident. Just know, it’s only a face they are wearing, and they may just be better at hiding their damage. Show a little love and help where you can.

humanity-and-the-singular-existence

The Future Evolution of Humanity and Our Singular Existence

The Future Evolution of Humanity and Our Singular Existence 1080 608 Jason Stadtlander

For tens of thousands of years, we have struggled as a species, to exist, to progress and to evolve. Yet, we seem to be tied to one single limitation, the shortness of our existence.

We may not like to think about it, but a human life is so short. It may last, at most eighty, maybe a hundred years if you’re lucky. There are so many factors against us in terms of survival; disease, condition of our body and mind, genetics, environment, etc. The list is endless.

In our singular existence, we have a single mind. One which interacts with everything around it through the use of the five senses; sound, smell, touch, sight, and taste. If you really think about it, it is an extremely limited method of input. We can vaguely perceive time, or rather the results of the passage of time (objects aging, hair greying, etc.) however, we really only have those five senses to interpret our world around us. We spend our time in this life from the time we are born, taking in everything around us and in turn teaching what we have learned to others. Our growth as a species and society is something that is incredibly slow because of this process. Only with the advent of technology that allows us to share information instantly, has it become easier to learn, absorb and reach a higher potential than ever before in our history.

That being said, there was something unique about the way that we learned for millennia. We were born, we grew up and taught others what we knew through talking and direct interaction as well as writing. Now, more and more we are allowing technology to overcome person to person interactions. Our ability to transmit information to each other still remains sight, sound, and touch (so far I don’t know of a technology that lets us transmit via smell or taste). So we are still limited to learning things through our eyeballs, ears and communicating back through our fingertips (keyboard).

I pose a few questions in this advancing time. What if we could take things a step further? What if we had the ability to communicate, teach and relay information with each other instantly with our minds, rather than the limited inputs of our eyes, ears, and nose? Would it advance society more rapidly? Would we gain the ability to interact with each other yet retain that instant need to relay information?

A show recently came out on Amazon Prime called The Feed, which I hope to watch soon. It sort of follows the premise – in the future all of our minds are connected in a sort of ‘mental internet’. How would something like this change humanity?

There are many questions that can be raised with this concept, perhaps the most important being; Would we have privacy? Would we be able to (or need to) lie?

My biggest question of all of this is: Would our singular existence no longer be, or would our consciousness continue to live on after we die through the minds of the connected world?

heaven-hell-and-the-pursuit-of-memory

Heaven, Hell and the Pursuit of Memory

Heaven, Hell and the Pursuit of Memory 2368 1374 Jason Stadtlander

Wars have been fought, countries have been conquered and dreams have been shattered over the beliefs in religion, dogma and the truth of our existence. Why are we here? What is our purpose on Earth or in this Universe?

The one thing all of our arguing and thousands-year long discussions and triumphs and failures has taught us is, we do not know what really lies beyond our own mortal lives.

Strange as it sounds, I’m not going to discuss religion, God, Buddha, Allah or anything of the sort. Not in this article. We all have our beliefs and the one truth to those beliefs is, it helps us to have something that guides us, even if that belief is to believe in nothing at all.

The very nature of humanity is that we need a purpose. Regardless of whether you’re the president of a country or a hermit living in the wilderness, without a purpose your life is meaningless. Even if that purpose is nothing more than coming up with food for tomorrow. I have talked with people who are deeply influential or wealthy people and I have talked to those who have lived in the slums of Mumbai, India. It’s amazing how alike the two classes are in terms of humanity. Both seek love, compassion and a better life for themselves and their families. Reality is… it is all relative. Our lives are so interconnected and related that we simply cannot perceive it.

Let’s look at two perspectives. One is how we look at life and the other is what remains after we have gone.

The Eye of the Beholder

I spoke with a woman in London once. She was on a once in a lifetime trip to visit her sister who had moved there from Mumbai, India. The woman, Nilima was worn and weathered, wearing sixty years of age upon her thirty-year body. She told me that she lived in a cinder block room with tin roofs. They had a rug to sleep on with two old pillows. She and her three children and her husband all slept in this single room no bigger ten feet wide. Living on dirt floors and in an area where the water alone can kill you, she says that she is happy.  She is happy because she has a purpose. To create the best life she knows how for her children and to hopefully lead them to move out of the area that she now lives.

I have a client that I have done some computer work for. They live in a home that overlooks the ocean on the North Shore of Boston. Their sprawling ten thousand square foot home is, by all means, a beautiful home to die for. However, speaking with the woman who lives there she finds that she often has a difficult time. Her children moved to California and her grandchildren are all there. It leaves her often ‘without purpose’. She wants to be a good grandmother and finds it difficult not being close to them to serve that purpose. All her life she was a stay at home mother, not needing to work because of her husband’s lucrative income. So, now she looks for things to keep her occupied, bridge games, golf games or other activities with other ladies of similar lifestyles but finds them unfulfilling when the family is all she wants.

To be Remembered

My son asked me the other day, “Daddy, why do they put stones on people’s graves with their names?” – My instant response to which was “So we know where to find their bodies if we want to visit their graves.”

He thought about this and finally said “Why would we want to do that? They aren’t doing anything anymore. They lived their life.” It was at this point that the simplicity of a child’s thought came through to me as well. The only point of a grave or of a memorial is for the living. It serves no purpose for the dead.

Finally I said to him, “The truth is, I think those of us left, do not want to be forgotten. Perhaps, remembering those that have died, gives meaning to the life we live. That it makes sure we are not forgotten. Whether it’s a stone with our name on it, painting with our name on it or children that we have left behind. Does that make sense?”

“Yes. I think so. Is that why you write? So that you leave something behind?” he asked

I said, “Partly. I want at least a little bit of who I am to hopefully teach others of my own mistakes and also entertain them long after I’m gone.”

This whole discussion led me to think about our mortality. It is important, at least for some of us, that all of this – our existence be worth something.

We are born, we live a life, we touch people and eventually we pass on. Sometimes all too soon. The question is, what do we leave behind? For Nilima, she leaves behind three children who know her well and have seen how everything she does is for their own good. For my client, she leaves behind children who care about her but grandchildren that may never know their grandmother.

“The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live.” ~ Norman Cousins

When we die, all that we have left is the memories of us in the living. Be it mental, photographic, video or something we have created that we left behind. Personally, I want to be remembered, not in name – but in that this life I have lived served a purpose.

So, my ultimate question is; Is it what we do in this life from start to finish that truly explains what our existence is about? Or is there a reality that is just out of phase with this one where we continue?

Your Call is So Important to Us, We’d Rather a Computer Answer

Your Call is So Important to Us, We’d Rather a Computer Answer 150 150 Jason Stadtlander

Please Enjoy Our Human Touch… After the beep

I called Amazon.com yesterday, got a nice enough woman in the Philippines who did her best to help but she ended up transferring me to an automated system where I had to leave a message into the black hole of technology.

Furthermore, I had to send an email to Amazon to ask them a question about my seller account, I had forgotten which email address was associated with it. The trick is, you need to send it from the email that the account is under. The email automaton transmits an email back that says “For security reasons you must send your inquiry from the registered email address. If you need help changing your address, please login to your account using your registered email address and change it.”

I stared in disbelief – that someone somewhere actually typed up that automated response and thought it made sense. Seriously?

Welcome to the world of IVR which stands for Interactive Voice Response system. Anytime you are listening to a computer talk to you and have to press buttons or speak back to it, you are talking to an IVR system.

Later That Afternoon

I’m having problems with my Verizon FIOS service, so I call Verizon. To which I get an automated system that asks me what my problem is in ‘simple words’. I respond by barking with frustration “This stupid piece of shit won’t work!”

I hate IVRThe automated woman on the other end states “I think you said your having problems with your service, is that correct?”

With a surprised smile on my face I say, “Yes”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that response. I think you said your having problems with your service, is that correct?”

Getting more frustrated at having to talk to a computer I bleat out “Yes! Yes! You stupid moron!”

“Thank you, let me get someone that can help you with that.” She replies pleasantly.

I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it.

Outweighing the Pros with tAutomaton IVRhe Cons

It’s something we are all facing more and more, the migration to the mechanical. It has to raise the question, does it really help?

Pros
1. Service is consistent from call to call (even if it stinks, it is consistent)
2. Call data and demographics can be analyzed a lot more effectively.
3. Customers can access information 24 hours a day through database IVR system.

Cons
1. People get frustrated talking to machines. Especially when they don’t understand you.
2. It loses the personal touch.
3. People lose jobs due to the implementation of these systems.
4. Sometimes all it does is raise your blood pressure before you do talk to someone, so that by the time you reach a live person, you are already so angry you want to reach through the phone and strangle them.
5. Most importantly, it loses the personal touch.

All joking aside, I really do think we need to look at the migration to technology for personal interaction. I absolutely think there are places for computers to take the place of humans. However, I am not really convinced that customer service or anything where the image of your business is on the line – is the place for that introduction.

Back to top