A friend of mine in Lit class and I were discussing our Lit final today. We were told by our teacher (Tarz!) that the final essay would be on the "Human Condition". This was a term that we were familiar with, but had never properly learned the meaning of. In fact, Ethan (the friend) and I began to doubt that even the teacher knew what she was talking about when she referred to it. In a flash of oddball connection, I equated the ambiguity of "Human Condition" with the buzzword appeal of "Web 2.0". And it makes sense. What is Web 2.0? Nobody knows. Not even Tim O'Reilly, who started the damn thing. Everyone uses it, though. "Web 2.0 this, Web 2.0 that, and did I mention Web 2.0?" You use that magic word and it's like BAM! -- instant credibility. It's exactly the same with "Human Condition". What is it? No one knows. Not even Wikipedia. I mean, look it up! I quote:

"The human condition encompasses all of the experience of being human. As mortal entities, there are a series of biologically determined events that are common to most human lives, and some that are inevitable for all. The ongoing way in which humans react to or cope with these events is the human condition. However, understanding the precise nature and scope of what is meant by the human condition is itself a philosophical problem."

What's that supposed to mean? Correctly translated, that whole paragraph is distilled down to its essence: "What?" And yet people use it. And that's the interesting thing. Everyone pretends that everyone else knows what it means, so they too use it in ridiculously vague context ("Dude, that play totally explored the Human condition.") in order to appear as though they know exactly what everyone else is talking about. It's a vicious cycle, see. The more people don't know what it means, the more they use it. Thus the innumerable reviews of random cultural elements that name-drop in the form of the words "Human condition". I mean, if Human condition is really as much of a buzzword as Web 2.0, then it's basically the same thing, because buzzwords intentionally mean nothing. So why not title my final essay "Julius Caesar and its effect on Web 2.0"? And who's for a Human Condition Conference to rival O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Conference? It makes sense, the way I see it. Funny, really, how these little meaningless verbal trends find their way into mass media and education and all.

In other news, Weezer is releasing their new album this month. It's called Weezer. Big surprise. For fans, this one's the Red Album, as if you already didn't know. Anyway, I hear that the single with "pork" in the title is really good, so snag that if you can. Also, I'm done with my Lit project, which makes me worry free for a whole week. That was totally blogworthy.