August 2, 2007

• Internet Island Topic Post #27: Anticipation and Dread

  27.1: Do you get excited about being the “first in line”? Do you anticipate anything with bated breath?

  

  This is an entry for the Internet Island blogring Topic Post #27. Other entries on this topic can be accessed from THIS LINK.

  
  As I age, my main advice to people is not to raise their expectations too high. We are not all like Phillip Pirrip, the character in Dicken’s “Great Expectations”, whose life is made fuller by the appearance of a “benefactor” who sets him up for a life of luxury. Most of us barely eke out a living, especially with the rising costs of almost all goods and services over time, and the more varied choices afforded us in this day and age of endless infotainment.

  If we anticipate great wealth, as my ex girlfriend Pat used to do every Wednesday and Saturday nights after she bought her lottery tickets, then the prospect of great wealth weighs all the more heavier when the numbers are called and they aren’t the ones we picked. We would do better to anticipate less, to expect the worst, and to glory in the cosmic decisions which bring good luck and prosperity our way. The more we anticipate, the less we will be disappointed when whatever we are anticipating doesn’t pan out.

  As children, most of us probably anticipated the end of the schoolday, wating with baited breath for the minute hand to slowly ascend to the top of the clock at 3pm so we could gain permanent recess until 8 the next morning. I liked school, and was praised by my teachers, so I never looked forward that much to the end of the schoolday. In eighth grade, I might have anticipated the end of the day a little more, perhaps, because the last period was in Mr. Warren’s room, and I didn’t really like that particular teacher. He was eventually fired for abusing one of the more rowdy students, and I remember him reading from the teacher’s edition of the textbooks, including the “tell the students….” sections. He was a bombastic, clueless man, and I couldn’t wait to exit his class, but for the most part, I never watched the clock.

  Even now,  the workday seems to go too quickly for me to even pause for a second to wait for it to end. There is always so much unfinished business, that I just go with the flow, and hopefully don’t irritate too many customers waiting for quotes I haven’t had the time to get to them.

  As popular culture moves far too quickly into the “age of information”, benchmarks are set for almost everything which entertains us. There always seems to be a “new season” on television, on at least one of the 500 or so channels available. Weekly we are invited to be the first to see the most anticipated new movie releases, which are lauded and worshipped by internet pundits even before they open. Trade shows such as the recent Comics Con, in San Diego, are attended by thousands of fans, who prepare for sometimes a whole year before an event creating costumes and schtick to perform at these shows, which of course are just excuses for mega companies to sell us more stuff.

  I’ve written that after World War II, the main American “religion” seems to be “advertising”, and American popular culture has permeated a lot of other less “American” societies around the globe. When I read about “box office” in the newspaper, I read about “global box office” now. The movies, which used to be churned out by the studios as product to be shown in their company owned theaters, were varied and cheap in the 30s and 40s. Now they all have to be “blockbusters’ and “awareness” is built up for months, in “anticipation” of a monster opening weekend, when hopefully the millions of dollars spent making the film are made back in the first three days. If this doesn’t happen, then the movie is perceived as a flop. Any money made after the opening weekend is icing on the cake. We are almost “programmed” into anticipating the latest “installment” on the pop cultural landscape. In the 30s and 40s, when the 7 major and minor studios “cranked out” a movie a week, nobody anticipated anything (with the rare exception of a major adaptation like “Gone With the Wind”) and people were pleasantly surprised by the gems which sometimes appeared in the theater. Most of the films made today are filled with lots of digital effects and rousing action, but far too few could be called art.

  The “anticipation factor” is spilling over from “weekend box office” to the book world, as can be witnessed by the release of “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows”. It was a rare blog entry I read during the last couple of weeks which didn’t at least mention this phenomenon. The stakes seemed to be so high that even respected critics who wrote reviews of the book before it was “officially released” were lambasted in the press and the blogosphere for “spoiling” the plot of the book for the fans, even if said reviews didn’t divulge any plot information. The book is still available at my local market (Marked down to 20 bucks) but thousands of people seemed to “wait with anticipation” at numerous midnite bookstore sales right at the first minute the book was available.

  Is it okay to anticipate a release of  a movie, or the end of the workweek? Of course it is. I still say, however, that the less we anticipate, the better we are as a society, because we learn to “roll with the punches” and we will be less disappointed.

  I mentioned Pat, my ex girlfriend, who spread her lottery tickets before her on the bed while watching the little balls pop up on the Lottery show, and then got almost depressed when they didn’t match hers. She would spend so much time talking about what she would do when she won that she tricked herself into an “anticipation” and and “expectation” that she WAS going to win, and this devastated her when she didn’t. That’s negative behavior, as far as I’m concerned.

  I’m a movie buff who used to go see films on the day they opened, on Hollywood Blvd., or in Westwood, at the one theater in which the film would premiere, “back in the day” before the multiplex. Up until about a year or two ago, I would go see movies in my local multiplex, until the prices got too ridiculous to mention, and the clarity of my latest large screen TV almost matches that of the theater anyway. Now I almost always wait for the movie to come out on DVD. I can even wait until it gets to my house from Netflix. It honestly doesn’t matter to me when I see something nowadays. I’ve become “jaded to anticipation”. I rarely wait for anything.

  I could give more examples. Perhaps I do anticipate my one meal a day, because it affords me an hour away from work, when I read the paper, but then again, sometimes I don’t have the time to even anticipate lunch, and it does come at noon every day anyway.  When you fill your life, both workday and personal, with the many tasks which need to be accomplished, then time races by enough as it is. “It’s Thursday already” is a phrase I’ll probably recite more than once during the course of business today.

   Of course some life is younger than mine. I constantly read the phrase “I’m bored” when surfing the blogosphere. There are so many “things to do”, sites to visit, etc., that I can’t understand how anyone could GET bored. We didn’t have this wonderful time waster when I was young. Do you know you  can read all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays online FOR FREE. (at www.bartleby.com)? Art and literature exist on the internet, and I, for one, never tire of either, so I guess I never get bored.

  I do anticipate getting comments on my blog entries. I also admit that this ranks right up there with pipe dreams relating to winning the lottery. Some people will get 948 comments on one entry. (That’s not a typo. Someone I visited actually had 948 comments. I didn’t leave one, I figured it would just get lost.) I’m lucky to get 12. (19 or 20 on a “good day”.) I sometimes deliberately don’t even sign into my Xanga account on a given day, because I know that having “great expectations” about getting recognition for my own “art and literature” on my blog and website is a crutch. I present the material. If it is read and viewed, then I am happy. The “interaction” from comments should be my “icing” and I shouldn’t “expect” them to appear.

  Anticipation isn’t a disease. It isn’t to be shut in a closet behind a locked door. There is “healthy anticipation” and “unhealthy anticipation” as with everything. I’m a fan of “homilies’ and here’s a good one. “Moderation in all things.”

  That said, I understand that one of my favorite cartoon series, “Futurama” is going to be made into a movie. I can hardly wait!

  EDIT: 4:30pm. pdt. I said “It’s Thursday already” twice today at work. Mary, our receptionist replied, “You say that every week.” (insert rimshot) MFN, ppf

  • 10:06 am
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