Something I've noticed

When my mom or one of my older relatives writes an email, it is very formal. Every sentence starts with a capital letter, every name is capitalized, there is proper punctuation, and just a decidedly formal tone. There are no "cuz" for "because" or "lol"s, there is no "haha" or "jk" for "just kidding." Everything written is written like a formal letter. I know this is because in their day, that is how people wrote to each other. There was no shorthand, a letter was something carefully planned out and executed. Now we just email or im or text people on a whim, and there is no trace of the elegance our parent's communication form had. I sort of wish we did write with a little more form, a little more grammar. I don't know that we can ever get the proper written word back, but I do know that there is a concern that people our age have forgotten how to write! I think that this is sad but it may actually be true. I used to be one of the best spellers in my class all the way through high school, but as my time on the computer grew, I feel like my spelling ability has gone down. We write so many words in shorthand, or in a way that they sound, that our collective generation may have gotten stupider for a lack of a better word. This is something we all have to work on to fix. No more lols! Just say that you found whatever was said stimulating in a fashion that made you laugh.

Escapism

We talked a lot in class about how to escape from the technological. Go walk in the woods, do yoga, attack some ducks - go outside, basically. Get out there and live.

Not for me. I prefer the life inside. The world inside my head seems more interesting. I realize this makes me sounds slightly insane. But this is how I escape the 'real world' - I think up a new one. I think up people who live in this other world and what they do and how they talk and what they look like. If I'm not in that creative a mood I take a world that's already been established ad put new people in it and see what happens. If I'm so inclined I pick people or creatures or whatever already inhabits this world and assume that life. I might take some creative liberties, change some situations, fix a few plot holes or terminate an annoying part or two.

I might be, for that moment, playing God or assuming some sort of identity theft. But it's how I escape.