In another life...

...I would be a writer. Once I wanted to write a Quixotesque screenplay about a guy who spends all his time watching reality TV until he becomes crazy and thinks he's in a reality TV show. It would be to raise awareness of how dumb that stuff really is.*

Today I want to write a George Orwell type novel. I don't think I really like Orwell's writing, but the idea I have would definitely be something he would have done. Here's what would happen: twenty years or so in the future a company will invent something called an iBrain. You can carry it in your hand and it remembers everything for you. Faces, names, conversations, pictures, everything. Within a matter of years everyone has one, from small kids to adults. Over the next hundred years or so people forget how to remember things. They only know how to find them on their devices. There would have to be a main character who either becomes aware and chooses or is forced into the strenuous process of reversing his/her mental atrophy. I'm not sure yet if I would let this person actually achieve mental independence or if he/she would die trying. The purpose of this one would be to get everyone to stop letting their tech gear to get in the way of living their lives. At the football game yesterday there were tons of people texting during the entire game. It wasn't the most interesting game ever, but still. I think it's healthy to turn off the phone every now and again. Does this make me a hippie? Or was I just born ten years too late? I think I would have loved Van Halen in their heyday.

* Turns out that the original "Don Quixote" was written to make fun of the "novelas cabellerescas" (knight novels) that were as ridiculous as they were popular in Spain during the 17th century. Cervantes wanted everyone to see how dumb the current trend was, so he wrote a novel to make fun of novels. Thanks to some modern playwrights, we've taken the story and made it about idealism and free thinking.