I need Mr. Rushkoff's guidance!!!!

[MaiGirl]

Hello all,

I post this because I am an 18 year old high school girl who has just recently gotten into everything Rushkoffistic. I devoured Coercion and walked away with a better understanding of the potential that my reality has to...well...become real. Afterwards, I felt like I was only reading half of the story, so I moved onto Media Virus. The book made me feel a bit more hopeful than Coercion, but I realize that it was written back inthe day...

After "Virus", I read Playing the future and it really struck a cord with the type of world I LIVE in. Hell, I'm an urban-bomber-chick who is totally into video games. I walked away with a more comfortable union between my daily technology and where it could take us if we embrace it. I also learned the three phases of the evolution of an idea: literal, metaphorical, and recapitulation.

And this is where I'm stuck. It looks to be that this is the KEY to understanding what the Douglas Rushkoffs of the world have discovered. I feel like if I don't understand this then I basically won't be able to mold my art into something that will PROGRESS myself and my community to the next level.

See, I don't understand the word "recapitulate" at all. just don't get it. I looked it up and see that it means "to sum up." Out of exasperation, I read "Nothing Sacred" at my local library and found the damn word again on page 106 (I took notes hee hee). But I still don't get it! In the example of the book, Jewish people (and yes, the book made me suddenly aware that as a misfit, there exists yet one MORE culture that is just way too exclusive for someone like me, sigh) went through points in their practice where they followed direct commandments, then learned those commandments through metaphor, and finally ...? The book asks that Jewish people go beyond these things and enter into a recapitulatory phase. And Mr. Rushkoff says that this means entering into discussions about the basic tenets. But this DOESN'T help me understand the third phase. It seems that in this example, to recapitulate is to go back to the direct phase, but allow for change.

I beg any and all people here to help me undersand this word! Please! I read Club Zero G and LOVED it, but I found that some of the more fantastical stuff WAS metaphorical in nature! I'm SURE this was intended, and I'm DOUBLY sure that the three phases of evolution APPLY.

I just don't know how. Please anyone, maybe there's a word that us LESSER beings can understand?

Please forgive this naive grafitti-artist girly...I think more in shapes than in words and this is killing me. I WANT to understand this!!!!
Thanks all.
-Mai

[rushkoff]

Take a look at a little book I wrote called Open Source Democracy - which might help. It explains these ideas in different language. I think you do get what I'm saying, even if my words are falling short.

What's the difference between Leave it to Beaver and the Simpsons? What is that moment where the Simpsons run to the TV and sit down and watch, much in the same fashion as you or I or anyone watching the Simpsons is doing the same thing?

Whenever a frame is put around the thing, that's recapitulation. Playing the game while knowing you are playing the game. It's really the shift from being an observer to being a player. A conscious player.

It's not a puzzle or anything to 'get.' It's what gurus call enlightenment, I suppose, but it's really no big deal and most people already have the awareness. It's like when a little symbolic moment seems to say the whole big thing. WHen a little detail in a fractal seems to sum up the whole of existence. It doesn't symbolize it - it really seems to *be* it.

So in Playing the Future I say that Beavis and Butt-head sum-up, epitomize the experience of watching MTV. And they're watching MTV, themselves.

[MaiGirl]

SIGH!

Mr. Rushkoff, you've just helped a switch to flick on. Everything suddenly made sense and as usual, I was fretting over a single word that prevented me from seeing an all-too-obvious bigger picture.

But y'know, welcome to my generation: the Duh generation. Yeah, we see a door, it's right in front of us. DUH. It's rectangular, it flips open, people go through it. *sarcastic glare* Right, see, that's a knob--a part of it. Yeah, a door. No Duh.

We're more lucid, more aware of our surroundings, our climate than previous youth. Hesitant to buy into the propoganda, we're even too good for what should be our slogan: "Yeah, we know." We're so goddamned sure of our quick-witted sharpness that we forget to zoom out.

Ask us what to DO with that door and you'll get the ever-popular *sheepish grin* followed by a "Huh?" ^_^;

Knowledge doesn't necessarily mean knowing. Sometimes it takes some help. Thank you Mr. Rushkoff.
-Mai


ps- "Open Source Democracy" was the clincher for me. It was the both the easiest to understand, but the hardest to find of all your works. Yeah, I saw it on your website, but I glanced right over the word "democracy." I kid you not, but any words that are linked to politics are simply not scanned by my retinas. A weird buzzing-tweet momentarily goes off in my head and I skip those kinds of words--like scrambled cable channels or something I guess. After reading the work, I felt more awake than ever and I think I am closer to finding MY own purpose. I'm sure you already know that if you were to retitle "Democracy" and inject it into the underground, you'd increase awareness and make a small killing in sales. This is the stuff I want to see at Quimby's Bookstore. This is the stuff I want my friends to read. ^_^