Windows of the World

Greetings all,

Today I write from a guest computer.  Mine has taken ill, it came on quite suddenly. I am sad to say that the hard drive is with the Lord now.  As I am on a borrowed laptop this posting shall be a bit more brief than usual.

The gut wrenching experience of having my dear sweet laptop fail really brought home a few issues to me.  One, I spend a huge amount of time immersed in the digital landscape.  Now to be sure a lot of this is for work, but a good deal isn't.  Secondly, work tends to blend into leisure.  There is always something fascinating to see and learn online.  I've applied a ton of what I see on Youtube in my artwork.  There are millions of fantastic podcasts, compilation videos, and inane hilarities to be found.  Thirdly, I have been feeling a bit tethered lately to my machine and knew I needed to unplug a bit more.  In steps the hand of fate, voila I am forcibly unplugged.

I sometimes wonder if we have two souls.  An analog one and a digital one.  My generation saw the rise of the online world.  The one that followed it has never known a world that isn't plugged into the informational matrix.  Have a question?  Ask google.  We're so used to the instantaneous availability of data that we feel like a part of ourselves is chopped off when we can't access it.  The pace of life has increased so much that unplugging for a day or more brings up fears that we are missing out or will be left behind by our connections.  This is even more true for those of us who have online businesses.  The IT departments have become the new priesthood, they hold the keys to the combined  uploaded knowledge of the human race.

So now bereft of my work and play companion I am left to ponder my identity.  I am no longer Borg. I am unassimilated into the great collective consciousness of the internet except in small bursts.  I have time now to interact and I have been having more offline conversations and interactions.  So I hope that when my computer has been resurrected by the priests of the technocracy I choose to unplug more and live within my skin rather than a digital avatar.

How about you?  Do you feel deprived of some aspect of yourself when the WIFI goes out?  Is your avatar getting more attention than your analog self?  Are you projecting more of your spirit into the digital reflection of the world?  Well if you are don't despair, most of us do that from time to time.  Sometimes what we need is a hard reboot of our life and priorities.  So set aside some time to unplug.  Maybe don't google something the second it occurs to you, take your time and use the information stored in your internal drives, and as always make sure you are keeping regular backups of your data.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle