Thank you, internet ☀
marco wrote:
In the “real world” outside of my closest friends, I don’t fit in at all — in far too many ways to list right now when I should be going to sleep. I do a decent job of faking it when necessary, but I really don’t understand most people, and they really don’t understand me. I feel like I’m an outsider. An observer. I’m always completely puzzled (and often saddened) about why people are the way they are and why they do the things they do. The real America, away from young people living in trendy coastal cities, is a place where I absolutely don’t fit in at all — and I marvel that anyone actually does.
I’ve only ever found a handful of people through typical real-world situations who I can really associate with. But the internet is an incredibly efficient matchmaker. The same power that enables odd fetish groups to exist also enables me to find other people remarkably similar to me. I always thought I was the only one, and I was somehow incredibly weird (in a bad way) for that. But there are plenty of people like me out there. I follow 226 of them on Tumblr alone. And when I meet them in real life, I’m blown away by how easily we connect — especially compared to how poorly I usually connect with strangers. I feel like we’ve been friends for years, even for people whose tumblelogs I’ve only been following for a few months and who I’ve only met in person for a few minutes.
The internet shows me that my thoughts aren’t that strange after all. And that’s a great thing: I find acceptance, and I’m challenged to define, refine, and defend what were previously only vague notions. I’m not just some lone weirdo thinking these odd things about the world. I can’t look around and think “nobody gets it” because I know that all of you do.
I can relate. I’ve tried to bring my family and friends online but outside of a little multiplayer RTS gaming with one of my brothers, it just didn’t happen. The “I really don’t understand most people, and they really don’t understand me” I’ve experienced too, as long as I can remember.
I am still bewildered at how most don’t see how incredible the internet is and have no sense of the vast earth smashing consequences in store for future generations. Instant dissemination of knowledge — the ability to share mind output instantaneously instead of reading a printed form a year (or more) later, assuming that one would even attain access to the printed material — is going to radically alter the pace of technology advancement. If we don’t burn the planet up first.
Initially, before AOL even opened up the its internet pipe in 1994, and even on GEnie and Prodigy prior (I first dialed in to GEnie and Prodigy both back in 1990), I always felt this amazement, that writers and readers were empowered to touch eachother, with geography serving no obstacle. And back then, even amongst fellow programmers, this activity was a generally considered freakish behavior. That might seem odd in 2008, but most of my colleagues then would chide me for engaging in “work” during non-office hours.
Once on GEnie, I had a message exchange with a fellow I copied some scripts from and discovered he was a paraplegic who communicated with his machine via Morse code inhaling/exhaling through a connected straw. At least that’s what he wrote, and I had no reason to doubt him though he could have been just a shameful prankster. He answered my queries about how all the function keys were represented and announced he was a highly motivated learner, as it was wonderous that technology enabled him to create and contribute whereas otherwise he’d be relegated to mindless television viewing. I was astonished at how prolific his efforts were given his handicap.
Everybody can have their own printing press. And have immediate access to the publishing of everyone else. Or art, music, software, video, etc.…
Still, the online sphere continues to evolve. And increasingly, I’m drawn to a comment made about 6 or 7 years ago on a now defunct site I oversaw — a remark on how the internet really needed less “creators” and more “librarians” to categorize and classify the mushrooming avalanche of written words. Beacons to shine upon the noteworthy and alerts to avoiding the sewage.
If a new interest is sparked, we Google the pertinent keywords, look for existing experts to steer us to online resource centers, peruse and subscribe to relevant groups for the topic, view demonstrative screencasts and videos, etc.… To those who spend inordinate chunks of time online, I believe our thought patterns begin to differ from those who shun the internet or view it as strictly a compulsory work task to be endured. We conjure of creating, constructing, engaging, sharing, discovering, learning, etc.… while they delight in entertainment of a more mindless or passive form. Like watching television or opting for inebriation or drug induced stupors (not that a little dabbling in the spirits is an unhealthy act, but to dwell in it…).
I would not like to go back to a pre-internet world. It’s OK for a couple of days or a respite for a week or so, but I would feel deep depression and deprivation. Would have to plant myself in a library…
