Monday, August 22, 2016

The Prattle of the Internet



I'm thinking of reducing my electronic footprint.  Technology is too easy and it is too hard.  I don't want to be a dinosaur, of course, and I don't want to not know what the public mind is like.  But as easy as the internet makes things--well, there is a price for every convenience and every medicine.  For every action, etc.  Mostly, though, I don't like the feeling of being manipulated by giant corporations, governments, hackers, and spy agencies.  It is not a game I want to play.  The old internet was like the wild west, but warlords and gangs and government agencies have taken over, just like old Deadwood.  There is too much money at stake.  I dreamed the last couple of nights of having a simple notebook, some colored pencils and pens, maybe an instant camera or a digital one with one of those Polaroid paper printers, and a book.  A book, not the hundreds I cary on my iPad.  Maybe I don't want access any more.  There are too many ways to get frustrated electronically, too many voices, too many (bad) opinions.  Mine is part of that lot.  A notebook seems appealing once again.

I don't want to "update" things so often.  I don't want to learn to use the new software, download the best malware protections. . . whatever.  A slow walk with a cool bag full of the goodies I need is so much more appealing right now.  The internet just seems like prattle now.  I don't want to sit down to the computer again for a long time.

We'll see.  That was the weekend dream.

I begin another week of workday hell.  I will cloak myself as comfortably as I can so to take joy from what my threads are saying.  I'm going to look for that cool new bag, too.  Online, of course.  It is difficult to make a clean break.

4 comments:

  1. Oh, I have a new friend; an Olivetti Lettera typewriter, that I write my small bits on, these days. It knack-knack-knacks its soft gunfire as I ever so lightly tap my fingers along the keys.

    The feeling of building a pile of papers, instead of hopeless ones and zeros, is somewhat analogous to picking up a fibre paper from the fixer and rinsing it under the sink. There's no cheating involved in that.

    Or so I like to think.

    And it makes me hate my computer even more. It is not a tool, anymore, but something else. A necessary evil, I think, and perhaps not that necessary, when it really counts.

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    Replies
    1. I like your thinking very much. I'm considering going dark.

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    2. Blogging by message-in-the-bottle is so much cooler than the ordinary way.

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