\r\nThis was written December 26th, 2025<\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\nMutable<\/h2>\r\n
\r\nThere he was, following his daily routine, marching onward, newspaper in hand, headed\r\nfor the park bench. Once seated, he couldn’t help but to look up at the giant stone\r\nclock afixed on top of the monument. 8:15 it showed. He then peered down at his own watch,\r\nwhich, without mistake, also showed 8:15.
\r\nJust then, another man approached him to converse.
\r\n“Good morning K, lovely weather we have, isn’t it? I see you’re still looking at The\r\nClock in guarded amazement. How silly. Look at it with pride! It shows how we’ve crushed any and\r\nall limit! I still can’t believe how you keep being so skeptical!”, he started.
\r\n“What do you mean, skeptical? And how do you expect me not to be awed and scared of such\r\nan achievement, brother P?”, K replied.
\r\n“You’re not sure what I mean by skeptical? Seriously? Look at yourself! Still carrying\r\nan actual watch instead of trusting this grandiose reality!”, P exclaimed.
\r\n“What do you expect. This just messes with my brain! Knowing how it works, how could I\r\nnot be wary and skeptical?”
\r\n“And there you are, still holding on to the old traditions and using an old fashioned\r\nnewspaper! Why would you do that? Just be a pragmatic and use some Mutable Ware instead!”
\r\n“Mutable Wear? Oh please, enough of it is already invading my life whether I want it or\r\nnot. And how could I ever trust it, or myself. Let alone keep track of things, of causality?”
\r\n“But don’t you get it?”, P retorted, “That IS<\/i> the beauty of it! Causality? It’s completely\r\nmeaningless now!”
\r\n“Oh please, at least just let me read this first article and have my cup of coffee before\r\ngetting into it.”, K at last answered, sighing.
\r\nHe then unfolded his newspaper before looking up at the giant stone clock. 8:24 it showed,\r\nas always. He looked down at his watch, 8:24 as always. So unsettling.
\r\n“What page are you on? Check out p.5, that’s an interesting one!”, P suggested.
\r\n“Not this again, please, it got old really fast.”
\r\nStill, P closed his eyes and started to recite: “Last night, astronomers found a new\r\n unidentified object headed right for Earth. A Retroactive Committee to be created to\r\n tackle this before it becomes problematic. Expected cost should…”
\r\n“Yes, yes, well done, word for word, congratulations. You not only spoiled this moment\r\nto relax and take it in, but you’ll also spoil my memories of this.”
\r\n“Spoil your memories? What do you even mean, K?”, P asked, actually confused.
\r\n“You Mutable Wear users…you never think about the consequences of such inconsistencies,\r\ndo you?”
\r\n“What consequences could you be talking about?”
\r\n“Well, you’re reading this, right now, and this matches one-to-one. So far so good?”
\r\n“Oh! You mean what happens after the next update?”
\r\n“Obviously! How annoying and confusing do you expect it to me when tomorrow, I try to\r\nremember today, where I have confusing memories, where what you read, and what I saw\r\nare completely different, yet I remember us discussing how they matched one-to-one? I\r\nunderstand it rationally, but my sanity still takes a hit!”, K exclaimed, frustrated, “It’s\r\njust so frustrating to recall!”
\r\n“Then don’t! Stop worrying about these things, why are you so against modernity and its\r\npragmatism? Why do you hold on to the past? Let it be wiped away, removed altogether. Who\r\ncares, the present is what matters, and Mutable Wear is so practical!”
\r\n“Sure, but then, what if I’m wanting to keep track of history, of what happened to me, of\r\nhow I became who I am? What if I when to understand the why and when? What if I want to\r\nbe able to correctly understand why<\/i> I did things? And what if I don’t trust how the\r\ninformation gets edited?”
\r\n“Then you might just be a fossil from the past.”, P laughed, “What better convenience is\r\nthere than to be able to close your eyes, picture this big clock, and know that right now\r\nit’s 8:40.”
\r\n“Because it’s unnatural! Closing my eyes and remembering that this clock has always<\/i> been\r\ndisplaying 8:41! Yet it perfectly aligning with the now? That’s madness, it feels wrong!”
\r\n“Unnatural? Nature sucks! That’s what’s great about humans, managing to do the unthinkable,\r\ncontinuously defying the natural order of things! Ingenuity, and mastery over reality!\r\nAnd this is our latest and most grandiose of stops, mastery over time!”
\r\n“Yet, how perfect is it? It continuously messes with my head. I remember knowing I did\r\nthings in the afternoon….but at 8:42. Yet that makes no sense! It was probably 3 or 4\r\ninstead, yet I remember it as being 8:42!”
\r\n“Just small insignificant details. You get used to it and stop worrying about it. Just\r\nlike with any technologies, you either adapt and get used to it, or it passes you by, and\r\nyou get eaten alive by those who do adapt.”
\r\n“Well, we’ll see about it I guess. I think there are disadvantages to all information\r\ncontinuously and automatically being wiped out of my own memories, and I’m just not quite\r\nready for it. Happy to hear you are though.”, K sarcastically responded.
\r\n“We’ll see about it indeed. Still, you can’t argue that it’s not wonderful and grandiose,\r\nand doesn’t come with plenty of advantages! Do you think we’d actually stand a chance\r\nagainst this object if it weren’t for such technology?”
\r\n“Fair, but most modern technology tends to serve as a double-edged sword. Great benefits\r\naccompanied with severe dangers.”
\r\n“And that’s exactly why it’s under the exclusive use of the government. Think the average\r\nperson would be responsible enough to use this? We sure didn’t allow the average person\r\nto use nuclear weapons back in the old days.”
\r\n“Of course you’d go for the extreme. I’m also talking about every-day use of technology,\r\nand how it molds us!”
\r\n“Well…it’s already out of Pandora’s box, no way to put it back in, might as well adapt\r\nand make the best of it!”
\r\n“Don’t you think it’s weird though? How instead of thinking about the impact of new\r\ndiscoveries on us, how it might affect our health, our sanity, our society, we instead\r\njump on the bandwagon, accept the convenience, close our eyes and just tell ourselves:\r\n‘Well, nothing harmful has been found yet, so it should be fine.’? Instead of, you know,\r\nthoroughly testing things and their long-term impact first? That’s what’s happened with\r\nlead, tobacco, plastics, radioactive materials, PFOA, early fuels, etc… We think about\r\nthe convenience, and potential consequences be damned!”
\r\n“Come over here, everyone! We’ve got a doomsayer! Careful, he might be contagious! Please,\r\ndon’t be so serious and silly. It’s probably fine.”
\r\n“That’s exactly the attitude I just described! Are you serious? You aggravate me so much!\r\nIt’s messing with my brain, the thing I use to think, to be myself, to function!”
\r\n“Then, maybe your brain is just dysfunctional and you’ll be a casualty of Darwin! Anyway,\r\nlooks like it’s 8:50, I’d better head out if I don’t want to be late. Lighten up a bit,\r\nand I’ll see you at the party tomorrow.”, P exclaimed before walking away.
\r\nK sat back down, was about to open his newspaper back to look at today’s news, but instead\r\nput it back under his arm, sighed, got up. He closed his eyes, seemingly remembering\r\nsomething.
\r\n“Mastery over time, huh? We do adapt to almost everything, maybe I should look at\r\nthe positives instead”, K finally admitted, before leaving.\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This was written December 26th, 2025 Mutable There he was, following his daily routine, marching onward, newspaper in hand, headed for the park bench. Once seated, he couldn’t help but to look up at the giant stone clock afixed on top of the monument. 8:15 it showed. He then peered down at his own watch, … Continue reading Writing Challenge 2025 \u2013 29 – Mutable<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2615"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2671,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615\/revisions\/2671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}