The Last of the Analogs (Original Poetry)
are awakening
to realize the world
is outpacing our
ability to imagine it.
turning back now,
we’re nearly on
the precipice,
almost obsolete.
Until then we should
relish in the final
moments of our
spectacular imperfections.
the last
of the analogs.
games with misfits,
our language
dangerously flawed,
a breeding ground
for misunderstanding
yet it catalogues each
of our unrealistic dreams,
illogical loves,
silly pet peeves, and
every f*cking burden.
meet
the
neuron.
to know what it
feels like to
have private thoughts,
not to have chips
in our brains,
algorithms filtering
out our ticks and our shame,
the last to truly know
what it’s like to feel pain.
WE ARE
the last
of the analogs.
(Gif sourced from Giphy.com)
All for now.
With Gratitude,
Eric Vance Walton
Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
Pick up a copy of Ephemera today on Amazon.
Most of us have experienced a moment of perfect peace at least once in our lives. In these moments we lose ourselves and feel connected to everything. I call these mindful moments. Words can’t describe how complete they make us feel.
These moments are usually fragile, evaporating in seconds. What if there was a way to train your mind to experience more of them? It’s deceptively easy and requires nothing more than a subtle shift in mindset. My new book, Mindful Moments, will teach you to be much more content despite the chaos and imperfect circumstances continuing to unfold around you. Upgrade your life experience today for only $15.99 on Amazon.com.
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Nice poem. Although I have to read a poem at least twice before I relate to it.
I also love the gif.
This is my best part of the poem.
Thank you!
I loved that too!
HIVE!D
Thank you man! Is FranklyMedia your company?
I keep a lot of Strange Company Frankly
But I won't play around in the CORPorate whirled anymore : /
Nice crop!
I kinda felt like this was a meeting point, like an equilibrium point between mundane and sophistication, it felt like a transition from something we once were to something we currently are. There are so many words that showcases this poem as a scientifically incline piece, brings the feeling of evolution and definitely I could relate with the images you've tried to paint. There's this movement, it felt like a hyperlapse. You didn't write it, I imagined it, I could wrong but then, it's precise, concise and straight to the point. Well done Eric.
Wow... It's truly been a long time. How have you been?
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! This is basically about how humanity is close to integrating itself with technology (like Elon Musk's product Neuralink) and how, once this happens, there will be no turning back. There are several companies working on similar products that will hardwire our brains and nervous systems directly into computers.
All is good here! I hope it's the same on your end. I haven't been writing much poetry lately but have been posting and writing off line. What's new with you?
It's inevitable, it'll happen one way or another and eventually we're seeing a significant influence of technology in the direction which humanity is choosing to go. It's believable and infact, I find it difficult to write science based themes when it comes to poetry, I don't know, maybe it's not being acquainted with new words.
I'm Okay, just the regular me... It's been the most busiest year of my life, I'm glad it'll all be over in December. Yeah I've been seeing your posts about your new book, how's it coming?
It sure is, nothing will stop it. There will be pockets of people around the globe who refuse the devices but they'll quickly lag behind the rest in terms of evolution.
I hope it's a "good type of busy". Ephemera is on the market currently and I'm working on the next novel. I've stalled out on the novel recently but hope to put some hours into it on a regular basis very soon.
Good day
I really liked his poem, congratulations. I hope I am not the last brain damaged to capture the beauty of it .. Also very good gif and in general very good post
Thanks so much for the comment! I'm glad you enjoy this.
Is it about Amstel?
But I think he's a very nice and adorable dog.
Thank you! He's semi-famous around our neighborhood. I feel like his assistant sometimes. : ) "Pet peeves" in English means little (and sometimes big) things that annoy us. I guess Amstel can annoy me sometimes too but I wasn't thinking of him when I wrote it. How are you?
It cannot be said that we live in UNinteresting times... this is the flipside of your apocalyptic meditation. Perhaps, it's not too late for us to change course and we need more cautionary art like what you offer, and a reminder that we belong to the natural world and each other...not the machine.
I remain, stubbornly, hopeful and unrealistically idealistic :)
Hope you're having a lovely Sunday, Eric 🙏
Oh, my friend, our times are anything but boring. Like any technology, we're going to gain a lot of things once we become biological/computer hybrids but will lose much as well. Hopefully some of our little quirks and differences (many of which lead to amazing art, poetry, leaps in logic and discovery) wouldn't be completely filtered out of our collective consciousness. I suppose AI may do that better than us. Time will tell. I hope you're having an awesome week so far!
You and Elon Musk (whom I, generally, admire) believe that AI is our greatest existential threat, and you may be right... But, I believe that a backlash has already begun --the way humans oscillate wildly from one extreme to another. Yes, time will tell and, meantime, as Prophet Muhammad says:
Even if the Resurrection were established while one has in his hand a sapling, let him plant it.
Continue planting seeds of hope, brother Eric, even as this world might be ending. Another begins...
Yes, week off to a good start, thank you, and quietly grateful for it, along with this nice exchange.
Stay blessed 😇
I do believe that AI has the potential to tilt toward the dystopian. I think it's wise to take our time unleashing it. AI and Quantum computing have become the new "arms race" and my fear is countries are rushing to develop it without considering all of the consequences. Those are wise words you share my friend! We cannot worry about what is out of our hands, kindness and hope always rule. Glad to hear your week is going well. Take care my friend!
"We cannot worry about what is out of our hands, kindness and hope always rule."
Amen, brother 😇
🙏🏼
🙏🏼
Truer words never spoken in poetry, dawn of a new age, no turning back!
I hope the best parts of our humanity remain. It's very scary when you realize how big of a leap we're about to take. Mobile phones were just the first step.
Change has been forced with last encounter, many scrambling to keep some form of livelihood, they have been forced to turn to electronic systems they never considered previously.
Humans adapt, even so the children are the worry since no one knows how this will effect them and hopefully parents instill morals and regional history into the fabric of their little souls that all is not lost.
Yes, we've seen LOTS of change in the past couple of years. It's been amazing watch how people use their creativity to pivot their careers. Some are even better off than before. One thing I do know, there is no shortage of workers only people who woke up to realize what they were doing before wasn't worth it. We have a lot more people working for themselves now vs some dead-end job for $10 an hour.
Everyone has to start realizing this world is changing fast, move with the technology or be left behind is a sad reality!
We are the last
to know what it
feels like to
have private thoughts
As one of the last of the analogs, we don't have private in this digital era now. We share almost all of our every activities...
We still CAN have private thoughts though. It’s still our choice, that may soon not be the case.
This is very deep, and painting a very dark, but very easily possible future.
Yes, but hopefully not towards that very dark future.
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Technological advancement is never totally dystopian or utopian but always, historically, has landed somewhere between the two extremes.
I could see this as an ending gloomy song in a sci fi movie with AI taking over our human capacity to feel.
Yeah, it could be a recorded vlog message from the last pocket of "analogs" left. Oh, I'm getting the idea for s short story here....I just might expound on this idea.
Wonderful, I could see the concept grow
Cool piece.
A bit bleak! Are we the last? Or will we finally be able to acknowledge and exercise our full powers, now that some of us (you apparently) fear we will soon cease to exist?
My imagination says we analogues are about to take over the earth with love and honesty. We'll see.
Thanks! Yeah, I just it depends exactly how things go with this transition. I imagine adoption of these Neuralink-type devices are about 3-5 years from mainstream availability. They'll probably be used for people with medical conditions first before they become more normalized and from that point they'll probably have a similar adoption rate as mobile phones, depending upon their price point.
I'd guess that children of elementary school age today will be the first generation that has the option on a widespread basis. If the reality is even close to what Neuralink is touting, people with the device will have such a distinct advantage over those without them that I don't even know how the two groups would be able to co-exist in any meaningful way. "Analogs" will probably have their own settlements separate from "the enhanced"? I'm not sure but the future sure is going to be interesting!
The ill have been experimented on for at least 100 years now. I am certain they will be among the first to be "offered" these devices. They'll be told that these devices will level the playing field for them. Others will demand the devices, getting one will be like winning the lottery (just as many feel about boosters now), and soon the entire world will be populated by cyborgs (neuralink turns humans to cyborgs - we must call it what it is) and analogs.
At what point do science and medicine go too far? Or are the humans involved in those fields immune to the seven deadly sins? Let's see, we definitely have avarice and hubris, gluttony and lust at play here. The end goal might be sloth, it might all be spurred by envy. What's the seventh?
A massive wave of deadly sins has overcome us, but it will subside, and humans will be left to begin again, just as we have before. These times have me very much in mind of prior apocalypses (Atlantis, Noah's Ark, the Ice Age). I've always thought those events to have been pure imagination, not a shred of truth to them, but now I give imagination much more credence - imagination shapes the world timelessly. We are at the precipice of a sea change that will live as legend. Were those other sea changes also human vs inhuman? And Nature simply did what needed to be done?
So true @owasco. Whether we are ready to admit it or not we already are cyborgs in a sense, only the tech isn't implanted. It happened relatively quickly and with so much cooperation on our part. Internet capable mobile phones have completely reshaped us in almost every way.
I've heard Joe Rogan say that, "humanity is the caterpillar that will turn into the butterfly". That's an extremely optimistic view of what's about to take place. I don't totally agree with that because there are so many unknowns, especially surrounding AI and who will be controlling the tech. Change is inevitable and isn't necessarily bad but my hope is that we'll gain more than we lose.
If something enslaves us, it is bad. If something sets us free in some way, it is good. We will be butterflies if we imagine we will be butterflies. It's up to our imaginings and nothing else. In that, I agree with Rogan.
You are going to laugh, but when I read your recent post that referenced this I thought that the poem was called "The last of the Anglos", so I was expecting a very different meaning than what I ended up getting! That being said, what I ended up reading is really great! It is funny to think that we are the last of a dying breed. Our generation kind of has one foot in both worlds and after us there isn't much left of the analog.
Funny! Until you said that I didn't realize how close the two words actually were! Glad you enjoyed it. We really are nearly cyborgs already. Our phones are extensions of ourselves at this point and add a wearable device and you're that much closer.
I even notice sometimes thoughts I have are formed in "search terms", a fine example of how our brains have already been rewired.
"Our generation kind of has one foot in both worlds....." So, so true. Chilling when you really think about it, isn't it?!
Yeah, it is a little sad. I can understand now why there has been a push to try and continue to pass down some of these analog skills. I often find myself thinking in typed sentences. Like I will actually say comma and period after phrases in my head.
Very interesting! Do you use the "talk to text" feature on your phone often?
Hardly at all. My friend does, but I think mine is more from my writing on here. I think in terms of Hive comments I guess!