OH, I have the, “Internet”.
Why it’s difficult to look past the best and become better.
We're all struggling to build identity capital in a globalized information based society. What’s holding us back?
Digitalism has left a world far too complex for a lofty but simple dream to come true. Instead we're left with a world of complex lofty goals with hardly a chance to begin a single path. We’re all way too distracted to be anything better, aren’t we?
At this point it’s not the fault of society or the entrepreneurial minds that made it(the web) possible; it’s in fact our inability to move beyond a basic undertaking of building a skill (instructions to do so) in the face of exact but dislocated instruction garnished by comparatively excellent execution (highly rated videos) done intimidatingly well enough to discourage a simple attempt. We’re not in Kansas anymore. (and why would we try.)
My I Illustrate with an anecdotal story. If you already get it, go read something else. If you already get it, yet wish to understand where this concept came from, read on.
Let’s start simple. Here we are in a town of about 15000. Our kid, Jon, an outcast on the neighborhood block, wants to become a skateboarder. It’s a perfectly hilly neighborhood sure to teach him about gravity, gradients, and proprioception. This might be a situation in which he becomes an outlier of skateboarding excellence, but he’s got some non-physical barriers to deal with.
It’s not that just his parents are afraid for his well being… so are the neighbors. Neighbor Dave gets home, tired from work and after the traffic crawl has to deal with kids on skateboards in the way as he pulls into the driveway. This isn’t about Dave though, it’s about the neighborhood kid.
His parents tell him about the skeptical neighbors and how it affects their lives; how it makes them nervous. For now, this acts as a perfectly sound example of why Jon shouldn’t be making other people worry about his life. He is getting older and he understands that if other people have to worry about him, it compounds on the idea that his parents must do so. Perhaps he doesn’t have the words for it, but he gets it. Add this to the fact that in the ideal world of most of the older people around him, he’s supposed to be into football and reach certain milestones such as, “wins” and, “upwardly equivalent girlfriends” along the way.
So Jon gets a little less into skateboarding for the moment, but then Jon gets the internet. He doesn’t know about weird things to search for and he’s just learning about girls so for the time being he decides that he’ll look for, “Skateboarding”.
Instantly his world is transformed. He has a worldview entirely expanded when he sees Tony Hawk pull of something that seems gravitationally impossible, but he’s intrigued. It takes a while to load each video since it’s still 1997 but he can’t wait until the next one is downloaded. Tony flys around a halfpipe with a certain style board and it seems he’s had the wrong type of skateboard for a while to pull these ideas off. If he wants to do tricks he’ll save up money as he watches other performances of excellence and he’ll drip into the internet where he can see them.
A few months later, Jon can afford a regular trick board as opposed to the lanky and flimsy board he’d been using. All he knew now was to cruise down the street without scaring himself or the neighbors about his safety. Now he’s felt like it was perhaps time to try and take that jump off the weird concrete structure over the neighbors pipe.
The structure had been put up last week to ensure no cars ran into it, but in his mind, to a seeker, it might let a young kid get his first taste of air, with the right velocity. Jon’s dad never taught him how to make a plywood ramp, but to be curious or exploratory was in his nature. Jon assumed his dad had much more important things to do like, “Work” where apparently all things which kept the world running at a regular pace happened. If Jon didn't have his dad to look up to he'd consider this the equivalent of a dance with death. That seemed sexy though.
So Jon gets a few of his friends ready for the attempt and shows of his new board, paid for by a few weeks of allowance and cutting lawns. To think the company who built the board still hadn’t understood the full physics of the idea was unheard of. Anyways, Jon was starting to create a reputation for himself in his small town of 15,000 people and if anyone could do it, he was the man for the job. It wasn't like he was a show off, it was him and the 8 or 10 kids who promised to show up biking over after dinner to see it all happen.
Everything was going to go down according to some sort of … plan.. If it couldn't be explained in a matter of topics and basic ideas, who were you to say? A geek or a nerd without the balls to do it otherwise?
So here comes Jon down the hill; past the hemlocks down the big curve, approaching the big obstacle with an audience of 12 and he’s determined, because after this, he'll be known, he’ll be heard of.
The 70mm wheels rumble as they flug along beyond 3000 rpm and here comes Jon, still V-eyebrowed and focused such to change his world.
Parents were out by then trying to quell the excitement but it was now or never, it was happening now, by Damn! And assuredly no one was going to be in the way, but as Jon made it down the last curve he saw the idea of what he was doing and understood the imminent failure in the idea that he could take a smooth jump up and over the concrete structure. The launch angle looked ok; but there was no place to land unless he were to bail into the grass.
In a split second with people from all over the neighborhood he made a decision to shove off; to tuck and go for speed instead. He might have saved himself and stayed able to enter future competitions but after a series of about 34 minor bruises he understood that he wasn’t expendable. The only videogame he had played was TMT2 and Super Mario 1 after all; and those were a fond memory of fantasy for him.
In all honestly Jon cruised down the hill at more than 35 MPH, faster than anyone had recorded in the small Minnesota suburb; beating the idea of the Californians running the flavor of the sport. Jon’s friend Eric, who had a knack searching out and describing events had found this out after subscribing to and receiving a certain number of off-sports magazines. After a few months sending in a sort of verification story, Eric was told about the fact that his friend had beat the record but he never heard from them again.
The story was never verified and Jon never gained any sort of fame or national idea of success; nor did he expect to at the time. Eric’s recountment however made it’s way right past the local news press and into the fledgling online community of boarders. The idea that Eric submitted the story was practically absurd but the official recognition that came in response was enough to inspire the local community into at least a bit of timely excitement.
The two solidified themselves at the top of the community for what they did; and it wasn't just for their skillset, it was for what they cared about doing. In the small town they came from, they were the best.
It was really hard to do back then, but Jon went on to become one of the top skateboarders of the early 2000's as he made a career in doing what he was confident in. All he did for the local community at the time of his run, which became known as the local example of absurdity and death-wishing danger-seeking madness, was show that life could be done differently. There was no such thing as a status-quo, no such thing as an equation to live by. No expectations by the ghosts of our past to continue on in their ways. The only thing that kept us thinking and striving for stagnant communal acceptance was US.
His was the story of the confident kid who retained the idea of greatness, and the idea stopped there but the idea is without legs; it’s just another episode without video, without further stimulation, without awards and contests and celebrations.
So fast forward to 2013. Imagine a warp of time has happened and now our Jon lives in the now. His small town has Hughes-Net, it’s joined with the other local town and combined governments. The best football players, the smartest erudites and the highest thinking scholars have left town by now. Skateboarding came and went as a pastime of novel or good forbid community excitement. Jon is bored at school; bored of the regular sports; and under-stimuated by what the local lawn-mowing jobs and candy shops can offer. He goes to the internet to find out what else the world has to offer. After playing through all of the video games of his age, the World Wide Web promises endless opportunities of business, success, and self-actualization!
Jon’s a few years older now but out of his younger brothers sake and a sense of nostalgia, he looks up, “skateboarding” on the altavista search engine. He’s intrigued again; after all he’s only 15 years old. It turns out he can buy a board on ebay for 45 bucks and since this is an alternate universe where he’s pretty much the same guy without skateboarding, he decides to use his lawn mowing money to buy it. It’s going to take 3 weeks to get here so Jon decides to spend most of his free time looking at internet information and videos about skateboarding. One forum online is really, really out of touch, but it’s intimidatingly and noxiously addicting, perhaps Jon could be one of the gang. It’s too early for online video to really be anywhere, it’s a sunrise that sits there unfathomed, and as Jon gains knowledge he puts himself entirely into it because he can.
This time it’s the year 2002 and by the time Jon hits the skateboard about 5 kids on the block have been doing it for a few years. His knowledge from the web doesn't really transfer and no one is very willing to be the guy to help him catch up. His little brother Ben still refers to Jon as the best skateboarder in his world (which consists of about 2 square miles when the imaginary weather is clear).
And for the time being, Jon looks about himself, and he’s happy.
He’s not overwhelmed by talent; yet.
