Appreciation

  The appreciation of some things change with time and maturity. For example some books, when read at the age of ten, felt completely incomprehensible and hopelessly dull but when re read at the age of sixteen felt like the most profound as well as the most exhilarating literary excursion ever. Of course that infantile experience of incomprehension and the realization that there is still a whole universe of literature to be explored is important in its self (The educational equivalent of tough love. Like Spartans of literacy casting their young children out into the textual mountains of unfamiliar vocabulary and complicated imagery, left to fend off the hungry subtle thematic nuances armed only with the alphabet and a vague grasp of grammar) but in terms of appreciating the text for its true worth, a later reread is most definitely worthwhile.

 However there are things that don't seem to improve no matter how many years or experiences are accumulated. Events, ideas or objects which seem as worthless at the age of sixteen as they were at the age of six. I admit that there is a certain comfort in knowing that no matter how much time passes and no matter how altered I may become, there are some things which stay stubbornly the same. Nonetheless it is quite problematic and rather irritating when the said ever valueless thing seems to be universally accepted as mesmerizing and moving. This thing, for me, is fireworks.

 A passionate colourful blossom composed of several million brightly burning particles, vividly flourescent for an instant then withering to float away in the cold night wind. An instant artwork painted on the night sky to fade in a moment, leaving nothing but a ghostly shadow of smoke behind. Indeed fireworks are pretty, an extravagantly beautiful spectacle for the retinas. However I also thought that James Cameron's "Avatar" was quite an extravagant and beautiful spectacle but if they had somehow projected Avatar onto the night skies several times a year, every year for the last sixteen years of my existence, I would have stopped going after the second showing.


  In the same way, I would be able to show the extent of profound amazement  expressed by everyone else at the sight of fireworks only if I were a caveman who had magically time traveled from the prehistoric days to see the luminous aerial display for the first time in my life.

 However as a caveman I would probably show the same amount of awed wonder at the sight of a car or a television or just a toilet flushing but nobody claims that the movement of water down the porcelain U-bend is a moving and beautiful sight to be celebrated (even though it probably took about the same amount of scientific and engineering genius as the fireworks to get it to the standards it maintains today). Couples don't hold hands and cuddle while sitting in front of a urinal nor do parents excitedly drag their children off to go see the toilet. Perhaps its the infrequency of the fireworks that makes it special, maybe if we only flushed our toilets once or twice a year we would appreciate it more and hold festivals in celebration of the toilet, which would, noxious fumes and all, still be more enjoyable than the overly hyped irritating fireworks celebrations of today.

 However, no matter how much I might argue or object, in the end the only response I seem to get is "but its so pretty and nice, how can you not like it?" Even my more cynical and depressed associates, with whom I often rant concerning the many ignored petty flaws of the world, seem incapable of being bored of fireworks. Hence, in this matter, I am completely isolated. Somehow, every single person I have ever talked to seems to enjoy fireworks and will go to lengths such as travel just to go see the repetitive unchanging dull light show every year. So what is it? What is wrong with me? Why can I not like fireworks? Somebody help me! Teach me how to like fireworks! Please!

How does everyone else in the world maintain their appreciation of fireworks? Is it biological, am I a genetic mutation? Or is it through nurture?

 Are all babies taken from their cribs at the earliest stage of infancy and placed in a Clockwork Orange style cinema where they are shown endless reels of how fireworks is wonderful and other similar ideas necessary for a human being to function effectively within society? If so, can I enter the cinema as a late comer because I appear to have missed not only the screening of "How Fireworks Is Wonderful" but also "How Not To Be Socially Awkward" and "General Morality"

 Or if it isn't by nurture but by fundamental human nature then what can I do? Is there some sort of operation I can have to implant that all important fireworks appreciation cell which all homo sapiens other than myself seem to share. What if, in the future, we made contact with aliens and the only way to distinguish between human beings and aliens was by that single feature of fireworks appreciation? I'll be mistakenly identified as an illegal alien and deported to some far away planet at the ends of the galaxy, exiled and alone. Somebody, please, teach me how to like fireworks!

Racing Time

I am currently having a race against time, my computer monitor tells me that it is 23:42 at the exact moment of the writing of this sentence and if I am to stick to the one blog post a day system that I have set myself then I must complete something within the next seventeen minutes. The starting pistol has been fired and right now it feels like it's been fired horizontally next to me and I'm desperately racing the bullet. And since I am not of African origin nor am I particularly athletic, the latter perhaps more important than the former which could be perceived as a little bit racist, the likelihood that I win is extremely slim.
 For one thing the very fact I've been managing to stick to the "one post a day system"(there's something not quite nice about the ring of that phrase, it somehow has an institutionalized totalitarian atmosphere similar to the Chinese "One child per family system".) considering I'm extremely easily bored and usually any of the projects which I propose with an air of self deception, knowing in my heart of hearts that it really will be the exact opposite, "will be long running" usually end up faltering to a halt two days in.
 Nonetheless I've managed to soldier on this time and I've maintained some sort of structure and residual wit throughout all of my blog posts despite the fact that I have readership which is constantly on a low hanging surface skimming glide above the sea of zero. However even that glittering legacy may come to an end today as I have nine minutes left to think of a coherent topic, structure and punchline for a vaguely amusing, semi witty post which uses a needless amount of convoluted over stretched metaphors and complicated similes, combined with a lovely sprinkle of obscure analogies that do very little to actually clarify the situation. This must be what James Bond feels like upon faced with a ticking bomb which his enemy has, for reasons unknown, always left on timer, as opposed to say, triggered to explode when he gives the signal or presses a button (which would be a lot more convenient all things considered, all things in this case including a somehow invincible, invulnerable, seductive spy whose face and character changes every once in a while, each new Bond displaying a new and completely different set of features and characteristics apart from the one resoundingly common link that they are all very very white and posh). The ultimate question, the blue wire or the red wire? Should I just give up now and post an incomplete piece or post several seconds after midnight, thereby failing my daily quota.
 For one thing I'm yet to even think of a proper topic for this post let alone a punchline. Hmm... Ah, the punchline is that I have in fact used the idea of not having a topic as a topic? How's that? ...A little weak perhaps?