Regarding “Stuff”
This evening I have the pleasure of blogging from the cafeteria, in my noble attempt to spend less time trapped in my room.
I’m a biology student, and for fun the past couple of days I have been reading the vastly interesting SEED. I have always been a fan of the magazine but only recently have I made it my firefox homepage. Most of the articles are targeted at a more science-savvy audience, but the writing is non-jargony enough for even an art history or business or music major to enjoy. In fact, SEED focuses on the fact that science is multi-disciplinary, and they write articles that relate to every field! Recent subjects discussed include Virginia Wolf, Twitter, friendship, publication, and the State of the Union address. It’s really interesting to see how fields overlap and it certainly proves that one of SEED’s mottoes, “Science is culture” is a true statement.
But I did not post this to simply throw praise upon this very worthy publication. I wanted to share a multimedia article “The Age of Impossible Numbers” which really struck me as something important. Maybe it was the text message I received from my father moments after I finished reading, saying “Driving a Hummer to the store should be illegal!” Maybe it is the fact that I don’t really want to take out my trash when I go to my room. But the article really put some things into a visual perceptability (if that’s a word.) It evokes an emotional response, a response of shame, and raises once again the questions we try our hardest to ignore – what are we going to do with all this stuff? What will happen if we continue to do nothing at all?
I really spent some time thinking about how much we use and why we use it – and the answers to these issues are not things that we want to hear.
