Best Regards

Ok, so I'm back as I've promised. I'm back and honestly...  not really satisfied with the latest episode. Maybe it's my imagination, but Doctor House is losing more and more of his charisma and sense of humor lately. I hope he'll get better, poor sick bastard. 


And now returning to my stuff...

Yesterday I came up with a super crazy idea. Why should I bother with chaotic and thoughtless research for artistic, professional and personal references if I reach the real living source of my inspiration in the first place. I know it is mostly unlikely to get a proper response and  I know that it was probably a waste of my precious time, but today after huge one-person brain storm ( imagine that !) I finally wrote a letter to Douglas Coupland himself...  


... right, I wrote to his publisher, but there's always a chance that he'll get it somehow, so don't You dare laughing at me ! 

I'm not sure if it's completely fair that I'm posting it here, but I'm doing it for two main reasons.

1. I'm sure that Mr. Coupland wouldn't mind if he knew (in my opinion he should be at least flattered, but You know...shhhh I didn't say that !)

2. In this letter I'm trying to define very briefly my general goals. Maybe this material will raise some questions, doubts, comments ? Please talk to me ! There's no need to understand everything. Even most distant association will be an important input to my work.


Here we go then : 

Dear Mr Coupland,

I don’t even know how to begin this letter properly, so firstly let me apologize for my future language mistakes. There is no doubt that I am a great admirer of your work but I do not want to create a fan-letter, whatsoever. Maybe I should at least admit that your books and your attitude towards contemporary cultural changes inspire me and keep me motivated as a emerging researcher, but mostly as a young and completely confused person? Maybe I should write more? Maybe… but instead I would try to be as quick and as concrete as possible, because there is always a slight chance that You would actually get this letter, so in that case I do not want to bore you to death. What a waste would it be ! 

Couple of years ago I was in a middle of my studies when it first hit me. This one though, the one idea, question both exciting and terrifying as hell in the same time - “Eventually I’m gonna finish those studies and then what?” I did everything to avoid this moment. I even spend half a year in France on students exchange program, in the same year I should’ve finish my Master Thesis. During my French experiences as well as during several hitch-hiking adventures in Western Europe I met many young people presenting similar state of confusion and real fear, just like me. However, instead of trying to figure out things for their own, they were actually jumping from one fake identity to another, and they didn’t seem to enjoy it so much after all. It was a really bizarre observation. Even my closest friends started to change thoughtlessly, like some mental shape-shifters – “Look at me! I’m a young manager”, “ Maybe you are, but I’m batter then You cause I’m a social worker right now. Globalization sucks !!!”, “You both suck ! I’m a new member of Generation Y. Cool! Now I can start to pose demands to my boss”… and so on, and so on. There’s of course more, but as I’ve said at the beginning, I don’t want to bore anybody. The fact is that those experiences, together with my own “what-I-want-from-life-confusion” made me wonder about a position of today Generation and even about the topicality of this notion in XXI century realities. So, basically I started to dig deeper and deeper into this subject and that’s how I found You and Your incredibly honest and sincerely funny works. That was especially important for me, because your vision of the post-industrial world and post-industrial lost-in-translation-people happens to be very similar to mine. Evidently mine is much more naïve and much more subjective, so I’ve decided to write to You and ask for Your opinion. We’re living in the very special times when one insignificant person can actually somehow contact with its so-called “idol” (or maybe “a distant role model persona” is a better name), of course if this “idol” is still alive and lucky for both of Us You are alive. How cool is that?

I believe the time has come to introduce myself and to mention some more or less important  facts. My name is Agata. I’m Polish. I’m 25 years old. One year and a half ago I graduated from Psychology thanks to my Master Thesis, inspired also by the notion of Emerging Adulthood  (J.J.Arnett – American Psychologist – still alive and in a good shape apparently!) and by my “inner confusion” regarding generation as an idea, future, career and future  life in general. After graduation I’ve decided to try an independent and responsible living for a while. I even found myself a job and moved from my parent’s home to another city, but it was a big failure from the beginning. Working from 8 am till 4 pm every day, sending stupid formal e-mails and leading ridiculous conversation on a phone with some arrogant businessmen made me so miserable that I left my job after 5 months, only to find that I’m more depressed than ever before. I didn’t want to give up so fast though, so I’ve started different career - I became a journalist writing hypocritical how-to-be-a-great-manager-articles. It is really hard to consciously suffer like that, but it is even harder to quit it and change everything without any help and support. I’d probably stay like this till this day, gradually forgetting about my dreams, desires and maybe even values, but fortunately life is full of strange coincidences and apparent accidents. I always believed that everything happens for a reason, and it is crucial to realize when the right moment for key decision has come (I love banality… Among my friends I even earned this cute nick-name “The Queen of Banality” and I’m proud of it !). It also happens to me from time to time. Like, after years of silence I met my old friend, who lives in Geneva. He told me about this interesting interdisciplinary master program in the Genevian Art School called Critical Cross-Cultural Curatorial Cybermedia (whatever that means). All I needed was a project for semi-artistic, semi-professional research and a small dose of creativity for starters. CRUCIAL MOMENT! I could’ve stayed in Cracow and tried to get on the Jagiellonian University on PHD Program, but instead, in two weeks I made a proposal and send it to Switzerland. They’ve accepted me and here I am now – trying to figure out how to conduct my project and make the best of it. I’m convinced that there’s a simple truth in my ideas, and I’m even more convinced right now, after discovering your most recent book. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t read it yet, I don’t even have it (Amazon costs are far away from my financial possibilities). However, several summaries of “Generation A” seem really close to my original project. Maybe I’m mistaken, but it seems that my “inspirational distant Canadian role-model persona” posses the same feeling about a big coming-back of storytelling, that I do! Probably I have to read your book first to make such strong statements, but what the hell... I don’t have anything to loose, but maybe a chance of getting your response. This is sad, but honestly I can live with that.

  

Ok. I believe this is it. My final question – in the attachment You’ll find this proposal I’ve written for CCC, and my CV (I really want to make myself as reliable as possible), and I’d really, deeply and truly appreciate any sort of feedback. I’d love to be in touch with You, but I understand that this is completely impossible. Well, girl can dream… 

I’m sending this message to Your presumable publisher, hoping that You’ll get it somehow. 

Take Care Mr. Coupland ! 

Agata

 Ah ! One more thing ! As You can see on your right side of the screen there's a new gadget called... I don't know how's it called, but I mean this questionnaire. If you already get the idea, maybe beyond answering You could actually come with more common shallow identities?