Back to reality

I recently spent a couple great months in the virtual world called summer vacation. It was an amazingly realistic environment - the people, the places, the parties - all of it seemed to happen to me as if I was really there. Furthermore, the world was rendered in a way that kept me from feeling any stress or anxiety. Visit some friends here, go sight-seeing and museum hopping there, relax and watch movies anywhere - it was as if I was free of all worldly responsibilities.

BOOM!! I was transported out of that virtual world, dropped into the cold bathtub of reality, still wearing my tennis shorts and a goofy this-can't-be-happening smile.

Anyway, I haven't posted in awhile because, as you can guess, there were few opportunities in my blissful virtual world to enter the lesser, responsibility-ridden digital virtual worlds. The simple purpose of this post is to bring back a souvenir from the former - an artifact I came across during one of my leisurely moments, enjoying a science fiction podcast (on Escapepod - my favorite SciFi source) - my newest near-favorite quote:

"We love television because television brings us a world in which television does not exist." Barbara Ehrenreich

We, of course, is our society, not me. I don't need TV to live in a world without TV *I profess unabashedly*. TV is a virtual world that I do not find to be so enriching, for various reasons. In my lovely summer world there was no TV. Actually, even in my reality there is no TV. That's not the point, though. The irony is that, according to Ehrenreich, all of us - the TV haters and lovers - in a way feel the same about TV.

I do, however, love SciFi podcasts. I feel like the short-story form complements the genre very well. There is enough space to get the new sciency idea out, but not too much room that it becomes muddled in a complicated plot. Further, consuming SciFi is kind of like research for me. It gives me ideas about technology and psychological approaches to media. And most of all, listening to podcasts is a great way to pass the time on a long drive. So, thanks EscapePod! You were a wonderful complement to my virtual summer world and you've given me something to keep me smiling through reality.

If anyone is interested in the particular story I was listening to, it was called Eight Episodes and it's a very well written tale about the power of virtual worlds. Stephen Eley, the podcast's daddy, reads the Ehrenreich quote at the end.