Ehlana and Ethan:
Our adventures with Cassie and Michael were awesome! They went with our gang of friends for the bike ride; we went with an easy-meal that included Sophia and Aaron after Michael invited them to join us for the night while on the bike ride; and then our evening included ‘live’ music, video gaming, and an action movie before we eventually moved on to co-ed nap time that was on sofas or a floor-nest for the teens and tweens in the house. That hardly covers all of the details for last night, but it was being together that mattered for us; so I’ll only add that Cassie did a group Magi lesson with us too because she could – and because Mom had suggested it to her for a change for us.
Tai Chi was by the river this morning and for eight; the guys cooked up a hot breakfast for us; and then we all pitched in on the clean-up before eventually heading for school. Thanks to another nice-weather day with a high in the low-sixties, we had a good day at school with bonus outdoor time and then we’ve had another play afternoon with our friends that included biking and some football at the park that the girls did not get in on and we opted for the girl chat time instead while watching our favorite boys play for a while. Ethan and I had a quick visit with Mom after school before the biking, but caught up on her travel news while sharing dinner with her. WE took care of the clean-up; and then we’ve had a quiet evening since then with a Magi lesson and some office work before it was bath or Jacuzzi time for all of us.
Now that we’re clean and comfortable, the bedtime computing and twin chat has kept us busy, and while there is always a lot of news to keep up with; I am not going to offer any commentary or rants on those world events stories. Instead of going there tonight, we’re going to go with a lighter topic to write about tonight, and Ethan loves this too; since it is all about books! ;^)
You might be preparing for the boredom just from the mention of books – especially if you have a lot of experience with reading from the archives, but that isn’t where we’re going tonight. Yes, we do a lot of serious reading, but Ethan and I also read a lot of fiction too. In his case, thanks to his special gift for reading, that can mean a ‘fun-reading’ book a day that he can do in minutes instead of hours. We read books in pretty much any genre, but for tonight, what we want to comment on is comparatively-recent fiction and how funny we find story details that relate to technology at the time, current events viewed in hindsight, and impressions of what the future would be like in our time.
You, reading this in our future, might soon be laughing at us for potentially doing the exact same thing with our own journals, since we do occasionally mention current tech and events that might be amusing in the future, but we won’t let that stop us from writing about this tonight. When it comes to tech, we can’t help but laugh when story details mention ‘high tech’ devices such as VHS players, car phones, or any of the hundreds of devices from past decades that most kids our age couldn’t even name let alone know what they are if seen. Taking that into the future, we also rarely read any books that make future-tech predictions that come very close to our reality – whether that is from underestimating progress or overstating it. That’s especially-true for fiction written in the years during and after the ‘space race’ when everyone seemed to believe that we’d leap from the moon to the stars as-quickly as we went from being planet-bound to the moon. Most current Magi do have fun when it comes to future predictions of humans developing superpowers, but then that’s likely always been true for Magi; since that would be true for every story along those lines that have ever been written or told.
Current events and life-descriptions in these stories can be funny in a lot of different ways. That’s true for serious issues too, but we aren’t going there tonight. On the entertaining side, though, Ethan and I love reading descriptions about pop culture that our parents and grandparents lived through and sometimes remember fondly, but it is fun to note trends that come back around again too. We love music references, and thanks to our current tech, Ethan and I will usually look up those artists and songs to listen to them and add context to the stories we’re reading. Ditto that for movie references – though we don’t necessarily watch entire movies, since we can’t really speed that up or take the time to enjoy. I really don’t want to get into anything serious tonight, but will at least need to mention that some current event descriptions or character thoughts about what is happening in the story have different context for us due to major historical events like 9/11, wars, or other historical moments. On the other hand, there are also some similarities regardless of when the books were written, and for an easy example, we find it amazing that most authors see their current time as being bad or even the worst-ever. The economy is usually bad, crime is out of control, the world is a mess, and survival is an everyday struggle – whether fighting off zombies or on the journey toward your happily-ever-after!
There is a good chance that you are laughing at us now, since I frequently write about all of the bad we see in the world, but in defense, don’t forget that we also write about how amazing our personal lives are; we have an amazing home town; and we hope for the same kind of love and joy for everyone in the world. We also expect that we will succeed in helping to make that happen in the coming years and decades. There is some validity to the other side of that, though, and while we’ve never suggested that our ‘now’ is worse than other times in history; we probably should write more about positive stories from around the world. There are, after all, billions of people that enjoy lifestyles and prosperity better than most generations in history could ever even imagine.
Let’s take that thought and bring it back around to what we’re writing about – fictional stories; since perception and imagination are what we’re commenting on for this long-winded ramble. For our personal contribution to the archives and current events writing, we’ll try our best to do that accurately and hope that our future Magi readers won’t find our stories too-funny for the wrong reasons. As for predictions of the future, we are sometimes tempted to have some fun with that, since we do have some advantages thanks to our talents in that area, but we won’t go there. The next Ascension is going to be ‘of the Light’ not ‘to the stars’!
That is also a great place to end this update, and we’re ready to get some sleep now – so we will! ;^)
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
