The Tangled Web We Weave

No moments of crushing, beautiful, overwhelming existential awareness last night. Just plain old sleep.

Before I went to bed, I watched a Frontline episode about how the internet has taken over our lives. I watched it on Netflix instant view, while I regularly checked my facebook, blog, and gmail, and while chatting on facebook, gmail, and AIM.

I love the internet. It's so easy to take for granted. Imagine it's 1988. You're sitting at home, wondering exactly how many soldiers died at the battle of Gettysburgh. If you're real lucky, maybe you have an Encyclopedia Britannica at home. That MIGHT have the information. Or maybe you have an old history book sitting around somewhere. Otherwise, you're fucked, until you can get to a library.

Now, let's fast forward to today. Let's see how long it takes to find out this information. It is now 9:30 am exactly. Ready? Go. OK, it's about 50,000 casulties. It's now 9:31. That took me one minute.

So, I admit, the internet is really, really fucking amazing. It enriches my life, and my job, in all kinds of ways every day. Professionally, Google scholar, online classroom management programs, and even regular old wikipedia are incredibly useful (want to know about Poisson probability distributions? Wikipedia ain't a bad start!).

And, in my personal life, it's great for finding dates (yay okcupid!) and for maintaining friendships. I LOOOOVe chatting. I love it as a medium of communication. It allows you to craft what you want to say while at the same time giving you some sense of real connection and spontaneity. And those chat programs kinda have a sense that we're all hanging out in some room or building somewhere, and if I want to walk over and say hi, I can! I just...I just straight up love it. I have at least two..maybe 3.. good friendships that have primarily developed through chatting. I mean, I had met each of these folks in real life first, but the friendships have continued to grow and deepen because of online chats. And you get to do all this while still, you know, doing your taxes! That's what makes it really nice compared to the phone. It's hard to do anything else while you're on the phone, cause if somebody on the other side is quiet for 10 minutes cause they're doing the dishes or whatever, it would be really weird. Not so with chat! It's perfectly fine for a 10 line conversation to take place over a 2 hour period!

And, of course, let's not forget this groundbreaking blog, which is blowing the fuck out of your mind as we speak...every last one of you three people.

All that being said...I agree with one of the commentators on the show...something about this modern plugged-in life just feels.. a little..bit...off. Here are a few scenarios that kinda give me pause.

1. With the universe of accumulated human knowledge at their fingertips, somebody instead plays World of Warcraft or Second Life for 20 hours straight.

2. It's a beautiful spring day in Indiana, and here's Joe, staring at his gmail homepage, waiting for somebody to reply to a chat. (sidenote: while writing that sentence, my friend just sent me a gchat that said "I love the way coffee makes me poop.")

3. Here's Joe, who instead of writing a song, or reading Dostoevsky, or learning to paint, is watching a BBC crime show on netflix.

I don't know...it just takes over. Like, imagine I'm an alcoholic janitor, but I'm forced to use bourbon to clean the bathroom. That's what the internet is like. You're using the same machine for productivity that you use for leisure, and what's more, this machine can do both simultaneously! The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!

Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to him by whom they come. It would be better for him had he never been born. (Some Bible book, some bible chapter, some bible verse). Actually, let me google that! Luke 17:1. That took about 20 seconds.

***Another casualty of the internet and computers: my spelling. I think I made about 200 mistakes in this post.*****