A part of my writing that I usually struggle with are my conclusions, especially my final sentence. While not always the clearest part of my written work, I find that these last sentences tend to convey the way I truly feel about the subject, even if I don’t realize it at the time. So for this reflective blog post, I thought I’d take a look at the concluding sentence for each of my eight previous blog posts to see how my views towards these different subjects have changed (or not) over time.
Starting with my first blog, I wrote about the Exorcist Steps in DC, and seeing those steps in a different way now that I know the history behind them. This ending, of taking away and more learning and instructive message with me, was unique to this blog post only. My other concluding sentences, excluding #7, tended to be both pretty negative and pretty anti-technology.
What is clear to me, upon re-reading my posts, is that new technology, especially technology that differs from some classic forms, is something I’m usually initially hesitant about. In #3, I express how new interactive video games that are simulating death in their games seem a problematic way to portray death. In #4, I talk about how gravesites are “immersed in place and time” and should carry more weight than an online memorial site, which I don’t think has the same effect. And in #6 I mention how far the Tesla is away from being a true driving car, and the nervousness I have when using a Tesla.
I also tend to take a pretty grim view of the future of some technologies, as based on some of my other concluding sentences. In #2, I call poison “almost laughable”, compared to demonic posession, a sarcastic view of the final death in A Head Full of Ghosts. Through my #5 post, I reflect on how technology is changing us, expressing a negative view towards on technology’s impact on our society and moral standards, referring to the pictures at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial. And finally, in my recent #8 post, I end with the pessimistic view of quarantine, not that it is protecting the disease from spreading, but that “it’s a death sentence.”
My only bright spot is with blog #7, when I discuss how the Travelling Symphony is a rebellion against the death that they face all around them. Why this is my only bright spot throughout my 8 blogs, I’m not sure. But I can see that these blog posts have shown me that while I am an active and constant user of all sorts of technology, I’m hesitant to incorporate them into my everyday life until I know they work or until they become ingrained into our society. And with that, I’m concluding this conlusion of my conclusions.
Final Blog Sentences:
#8 = It’s a death sentence.
#7 = Even the Georgia Flu couldn’t take this away from them, and this way they are rebelling against the death and despair to be part of a production bigger than themselves.
#6 = As of now, while the car can do some driving of itself, it is still a long way from the true self-driving cars that would take you from point A to point B without you ever touching the steering wheel.
#5 = Regardless, it is unclear if technology simply the vehicle for sharing our actions with the wide world of the internet or if technology is truly changing the way we interact with the sacred and somber places in the world.
#4 = Immersed in place and time, the gravesite, I would argue, has a stronger emotional pull and generates a more powerful connection than a site lost in the endless pages of the internet.
#3 = I think that in these interactive video games where the point is to kill your way to the end, the gaming industry is making it pretty easy for gamers to pull the trigger.
#2 = Compared to a demon possessing you, poison seems almost laughable.
#1 = These places are firmly linked, a blending of physical and fake, and now a set of stairs that will always have two layers of memories for me, all because of my deep connection to Washington, DC.