May 16, 2005

Shrinkage

So the trek to boston went well, for a fairly accurate rendition of what happened you can hop over to psichron’s spot. He summed it up pretty well.

this has been my third or fourth attempt to write beyond the intro, I’ve got some things I feel like spilling into the void, but the proper phrasing is escaping me. So I’m just gone forge on ahead, and if it’s non-sense so be it.

this weekend I met Frame, a decent bloke, down in boston. And somehow blogging came up. Now what was odd was that he had read this little corner of the web. It really brought home the fact that the world really is getting smaller. I had always been aware that, theoretically, through friends of friends & what not, that someday I might meet someone who had peered into this. Voyeurs into my world the same way I have voyeured into others. But it was strange, and strange in ways I have no idea how to verbalize (or what ever the writing equivalent is), but of course, i'll attempt.
It was simultaneously exciting & disappointing. Exciting because it proved to me that my words are being perused by people beyond my experience, making the world smaller & more accessible. and disappointing for the exact same reason, by bringing my words to people beyond my experience, the world becomes smaller and more accessible.

And I think that sums up my entire feeling on the entire state of the world today. The most exciting disappointing time to exist in. A world filled with endless possibilities, but they are all there for the taking.
All the exploration is either done through technology, hubble or deep sea robotics.
Or into areas that, though kind of nifty, don’t seem to have a excitement yield proportional to the work involved to get it, deep cave spelunkers for example.

Gone are the days when you could hop on a ship or horse, pick a direction and have a good chance to discover something not known to the collective knowledge. America was pretty much founded by people who had a spirit for exploration.
so as Darwin says, 'like father like son.', so I figure many americans have inherited the desire to explore, but there are no new frontiers, only distractions & entertainments. The world has shrunk to the size of a pinhead, & we’re all dancing upon it.

ah well
I still had a great time this weekend.

-De

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do this thing with my kids called "letterboxing". You can find it on the web--in fact that is where it must live. A vast network of people who may or may not ever meet go on mini-explorations for hidden boxes. The effect is interesting in that you get the clues from the web, reading from the void as it were, yet the consequence is utterly physical and disconnected from the void. The feeling of locating the box, of being forced to wander through unknown trails simulates a hunt, a venture into something new.

point being: existence leaves trails to be explored, whether via a line of text, a hidden box, or a even cockeyed glance. We are always leaving crumbs to be followed, we just don't know who might stumble upon them.

welcome to the post-industrial age.

DeHuman8 said...

the web of interconnectivity is amazing, i guess i never really think that every site i've ever gone to was built by some other human. even when they have pictures, it dosn't really bring the reality home as much as a physical interaction indirectly influenced by 1's & 0's i've spewn onto some box.

but i guess it's similar to when i go into a library i don't really think about the massive ammount of humans involved in the writing of all the books. sort of reminds me of the t-shirt of the galaxy with the arrow pointing to one small portion 'you are here'

(and yes wally, i know h2g2 came up with it, kinda odd, using words to describe a t-shirt that used pictures to describe someone elses words..but i'd blow the quote)