Lara I. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
exhilaration) wrote2009-10-25 11:54 am
exhilaration) wrote2009-10-25 11:54 am
PoemsAndSorrow Gives The Best What-Ifs!
1. If you had to move to another part of the country and assume a new identity: who would you become? what would her name be? how would you change your personality? your new name?
2. Do you think technology will advance to such a point that-- people will no longer be able to control it? I ask this because earlier I was watching the trailer for the 80's B-movie "Chopping Mall" on YouTube. It's about these teenagers trapped in a mall with robots who are supposed to protect them. But the robots turn evil and try to take them out. It's really cheesy and bad and awesome. And the robots actually bleed :)
3. Would you ever have parts of your memory erased, like in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind?
4. Have you seen the photographs of Vivian Maier yet?
5. If you found out that you were living your own version of "The Truman Show" and that all of the people in your life were really actors what would you do?
1. This is a really interesting question. Cause when I think about doing this, I feel like I already did it. I moved to another state - all by myself - to a small town where everyone knows each other but the only stuff they know about me is what I do and what I say. So, in a less extreme and more realistic sense... I kind of did re-invent my personality. I was never terribly responsible before - not about money, not about keeping my stuff in order, not about showing up to work on time, nothing. Here - I totally am. I just decided that's how I was going to be. I'm also a whole lot quieter and more reserved. In my head I'm still kinda wild and outspoken, and I do have my moments, but I kind of decided I might be better off if I didn't just blurt out everything that popped into my head. Then I'd have less cause to think people must not like me (because of the random and sometimes mean stuff I have a tendency to say)
I'm a big re-inventer anyway... when I started at community college, I dyed my hair, got colored contacts, pierced some body parts, got new clothes, etc... I wanted people not to recognize me. I'm sure they still did - I just didn't want anyone to associate "old me" with "new me." In reality - the people I went to community with were all older than I was and barely knew "old me" to begin with. It was just something I got in my head - I want to change everything!
And when I got a car (not the car I have now, the one my mom gave me before) I used to fantasize about just driving off one day, taking only what I could fit in the car with me, and going and going and going and then just one day stopping, unpacking, and setting up a totally different life for myself.
The possibility of doing this kind of excites me, partly because it sounds like I'd have an opportunity for a great, big, spectacular lie. Who am I? What's my name? How old am I? How much could I really fudge my age? If I said I was twenty two, would people buy that? What if I said I was twenty-eight? Could I say I'm Italian? Could I tell people I was born in Italy? Would they believe that one? I look Italian, I think (I'm not, though) and I speak Italian, although a native speaker would definitely catch me on that one, cause I sound pretty American. I'd lose most of my American accent, I think, if I were in Italy hearing Italian all the time and using it every day. But I'm not, so... I sound very American. To a native speaker.
I could dye my hair blonde (and then it would fall out :P ) and wear beautiful clothes and call myself Linda instead of Lara and tell people I'm twenty-eight years old and that I'm from New Jersey and I'm divorced and I can't walk because I fell off a stage at a concert when I was eighteen.
Or.... I could act adorably confused at the strangest things, and be incredibly mysterious about where I'm from and who I am, and strangely old-fashioned about certain things... and pass myself off as a time-traveler from 1881 who's broken time machine is sitting in her basement collecting dust... how many people would I have to tell such subtle little lies to and drop little hints around before someone decided I was interesting enough to befriend, and how many people would I have to befriend before someone dug deep enough (and they'd have to really dig, because I would be resolutely secretive, which would make me even more mysterious...) to figure out the truth, that I am from another time period (and also a complete genius, to make myself a time machine like that...) and then, and then, and then... wtf would I do then? Just keep it up, the whole thing, the whole lie, until I started to half-believe it myself?
This is how people go delusional, I'm telling you. They start out trying to change their lives and then wake up one day and think wtf am I doing?
2. Hmmmmm. I dunno about being attacked by sentient technology. Sentient tech, maybe. But the kind that has murderous urges? I have trouble buying that one. What I do worry about, though, is people getting obsessed/falling in love with things, worlds, characters, etc, that aren't real, but can be made to seem very real. Like those Japanese dating simulation games. And I worry that so much technology has become digital, and can be so easily destroyed - (watch this, I'm going all time-travel on you again...) there was a time capsule from 1907 in Paris that was full of gramophone records of the most popular opera singers of the time period. Also in the time capsule was a gramophone, because the builders assumed that technology would have advanced, and they wanted to make sure there would be a way to play back the recordings. Records can be repaired. So can gramophones, if time has damaged them somehow. I'm not sure about CDs and CD players. Or computers, for that matter. Such tiny, delicate stuff seems so easy to lose.
But I'm not terribly concerned about evil robots. "Evil" is a human thing. However intelligent a machine might become, I doubt very much it could be "evil," even if it has an intellectual understanding of morality.
3. I loved that movie so much. I wouldn't, though. I don't think there's been anything in my life that's been so horrific that I'd rather not even know it happened. I can think of little things - really embarrassing stuff I've said or done without thinking, that I felt really shitty about for days, and try really hard just not to think about, but then remember and I'm like, damnit, why did I do that? But I don't think that's worth erasing my memory over! I know in the movie Clementine erases her memory because her relationship went bad... I would never do that. I would never want to forget something good just to keep from thinking about something bad.
4. Now that you mentioned it, yes, I did look them up. I love street photography.
5. Crack. Seriously. If I found out something like that, I, who often feel like everything around me is just a big story anyway, I, who lie so easily and readily - I don't think my brain would even process that fact. I'd think I was clearly delusional, making it up, being paranoid, etc, even if I did have concrete proof. I wouldn't be like Jim Carrey and not stop until I found out the truth. I'd just go about my business rather than overturn my entire world.
What's with the Jim Carrey movies anyway?
:P
2. Do you think technology will advance to such a point that-- people will no longer be able to control it? I ask this because earlier I was watching the trailer for the 80's B-movie "Chopping Mall" on YouTube. It's about these teenagers trapped in a mall with robots who are supposed to protect them. But the robots turn evil and try to take them out. It's really cheesy and bad and awesome. And the robots actually bleed :)
3. Would you ever have parts of your memory erased, like in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind?
4. Have you seen the photographs of Vivian Maier yet?
5. If you found out that you were living your own version of "The Truman Show" and that all of the people in your life were really actors what would you do?
1. This is a really interesting question. Cause when I think about doing this, I feel like I already did it. I moved to another state - all by myself - to a small town where everyone knows each other but the only stuff they know about me is what I do and what I say. So, in a less extreme and more realistic sense... I kind of did re-invent my personality. I was never terribly responsible before - not about money, not about keeping my stuff in order, not about showing up to work on time, nothing. Here - I totally am. I just decided that's how I was going to be. I'm also a whole lot quieter and more reserved. In my head I'm still kinda wild and outspoken, and I do have my moments, but I kind of decided I might be better off if I didn't just blurt out everything that popped into my head. Then I'd have less cause to think people must not like me (because of the random and sometimes mean stuff I have a tendency to say)
I'm a big re-inventer anyway... when I started at community college, I dyed my hair, got colored contacts, pierced some body parts, got new clothes, etc... I wanted people not to recognize me. I'm sure they still did - I just didn't want anyone to associate "old me" with "new me." In reality - the people I went to community with were all older than I was and barely knew "old me" to begin with. It was just something I got in my head - I want to change everything!
And when I got a car (not the car I have now, the one my mom gave me before) I used to fantasize about just driving off one day, taking only what I could fit in the car with me, and going and going and going and then just one day stopping, unpacking, and setting up a totally different life for myself.
The possibility of doing this kind of excites me, partly because it sounds like I'd have an opportunity for a great, big, spectacular lie. Who am I? What's my name? How old am I? How much could I really fudge my age? If I said I was twenty two, would people buy that? What if I said I was twenty-eight? Could I say I'm Italian? Could I tell people I was born in Italy? Would they believe that one? I look Italian, I think (I'm not, though) and I speak Italian, although a native speaker would definitely catch me on that one, cause I sound pretty American. I'd lose most of my American accent, I think, if I were in Italy hearing Italian all the time and using it every day. But I'm not, so... I sound very American. To a native speaker.
I could dye my hair blonde (and then it would fall out :P ) and wear beautiful clothes and call myself Linda instead of Lara and tell people I'm twenty-eight years old and that I'm from New Jersey and I'm divorced and I can't walk because I fell off a stage at a concert when I was eighteen.
Or.... I could act adorably confused at the strangest things, and be incredibly mysterious about where I'm from and who I am, and strangely old-fashioned about certain things... and pass myself off as a time-traveler from 1881 who's broken time machine is sitting in her basement collecting dust... how many people would I have to tell such subtle little lies to and drop little hints around before someone decided I was interesting enough to befriend, and how many people would I have to befriend before someone dug deep enough (and they'd have to really dig, because I would be resolutely secretive, which would make me even more mysterious...) to figure out the truth, that I am from another time period (and also a complete genius, to make myself a time machine like that...) and then, and then, and then... wtf would I do then? Just keep it up, the whole thing, the whole lie, until I started to half-believe it myself?
This is how people go delusional, I'm telling you. They start out trying to change their lives and then wake up one day and think wtf am I doing?
2. Hmmmmm. I dunno about being attacked by sentient technology. Sentient tech, maybe. But the kind that has murderous urges? I have trouble buying that one. What I do worry about, though, is people getting obsessed/falling in love with things, worlds, characters, etc, that aren't real, but can be made to seem very real. Like those Japanese dating simulation games. And I worry that so much technology has become digital, and can be so easily destroyed - (watch this, I'm going all time-travel on you again...) there was a time capsule from 1907 in Paris that was full of gramophone records of the most popular opera singers of the time period. Also in the time capsule was a gramophone, because the builders assumed that technology would have advanced, and they wanted to make sure there would be a way to play back the recordings. Records can be repaired. So can gramophones, if time has damaged them somehow. I'm not sure about CDs and CD players. Or computers, for that matter. Such tiny, delicate stuff seems so easy to lose.
But I'm not terribly concerned about evil robots. "Evil" is a human thing. However intelligent a machine might become, I doubt very much it could be "evil," even if it has an intellectual understanding of morality.
3. I loved that movie so much. I wouldn't, though. I don't think there's been anything in my life that's been so horrific that I'd rather not even know it happened. I can think of little things - really embarrassing stuff I've said or done without thinking, that I felt really shitty about for days, and try really hard just not to think about, but then remember and I'm like, damnit, why did I do that? But I don't think that's worth erasing my memory over! I know in the movie Clementine erases her memory because her relationship went bad... I would never do that. I would never want to forget something good just to keep from thinking about something bad.
4. Now that you mentioned it, yes, I did look them up. I love street photography.
5. Crack. Seriously. If I found out something like that, I, who often feel like everything around me is just a big story anyway, I, who lie so easily and readily - I don't think my brain would even process that fact. I'd think I was clearly delusional, making it up, being paranoid, etc, even if I did have concrete proof. I wouldn't be like Jim Carrey and not stop until I found out the truth. I'd just go about my business rather than overturn my entire world.
What's with the Jim Carrey movies anyway?
:P
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