I’ve gone off the deep end. I spent several hours today reading the random blogs of strangers – jumping from one to the next. This is new to me. I have a vague memory of an episode of The Twilight Zone where a man flips a coin to a cigarette girl and the coin lands on its’ edge. While the coin is balanced, the man gains the ability to read other people’s minds – the primary thing he does with this power is get to know a woman, and himself, very well. The intimacy of this technology is astounding. When I first started my blog I went to a few other ones outside my little blogging circle and found mostly high school and younger aged people talking about their friends in the usual sort of indecipherable code that children always develop- what’s that called? The euphemistic cycle or something like that. Today I took another look, I went a little deeper, and found all of these minds out there. A twenty something paralegal who confesses to self mutilation as a result of childhood trauma, a health and wellness educator who helped her grandfather through his last illness and at the age of eleven became committed to, “treating her body like a temple”. She was infinitely impressive. A thirty two year old man writing about Bill Murray’s performance in Lost in Translation, a wistful blogger reminiscing about the web before corporations had websites and speculating about what comes after the blog– the evolution of code, a twenty something New Yorker trying to get his first novel published- a very good writer. I’m lost in all of their thoughts and lives and have a vague sense of wonder about this technology – Walter J. Ong was an expert on the movement of humanity from an oral culture/tradition to a textual one, he maintained that in as much as writing is a technological advance we who have learned to write have in a sense become cyborgs, the technology changes the way we think. Writing enables abstraction of category – this is one example from his overall theory – people from an oral culture will group tools by what you use them for – all the things that cut trees go together – textual people make categories linked to kind – all the saws go together while we pile all the axes over here – form and function become more distinct.
I have used a computer to compose text since I was in the sixth grade. I wonder how the cut and paste, the ease of the interface have shaped my consciousness. There is plenty of theory on this – hyper text as a new mode of association with the potential to undermine hierarchies through non-linear structures. The digital divide goes way beyond class structure and economics, it could very well be – or at least rapidly lead to - a divide in consciousness.
And yet our powers remain untapped. I utilize very little of my brain, so too with this machine at which I sit, so many people have these Ferrari like devices that they drive around their little neighborhood in, traveling well below a single mile an hour – check your email, format a resume. This device could be so much more than that for the people who integrate with it, and of course freedom always come with bondage so you find yourself in a cost benefit analysis. As regards yesterdays blog about my legs – uber theme is stagnation, art is the answer, not hanging on the wall, but as the embodiment of Zen (sometimes I have to go to shorthand – hope you can unpack that one for yourself). –k-

Linda, I admire your courage and hope that it grows with each passing day – secret St. Louis mystics are sending Reiki guides and energy to help you in this infinite time of need - language is at times an albatross when it comes to energy. While there is life there is hope. Were I in your shoes I would do everything in my power to live as I was able. Romantic visions of a quiet passing are fucked - fight woman. Virgil and Shirley, the admiration that I have for your compassion for the killers parents is unfathomable, you have both lost sons. Mary’s killer, I thank God that I don’t know the anguish you feel at the loss of her life. I hope to never know it. Random person who just read my blog – thank you -k-