Sunday, November 1, 2015

A Really Short Tale About the Internet

I've been marveling about the fact that as I read messages from my online friends, they're not there at all.  They're off hiking, golfing, washing dishes, fighting with their significant others, or maybe even at the pool.  

It's the future and the past, at once.  We are living in a virtual reality with different time zones that aren't measured by a clock, but by the lag in online communication.

Even when we're simultaneously on line, we often exist in different time zones.  So.... What time is it on the internet?

What's more, on any given day, when I engage in online conversations, what I'm reacting to are actually just squiggles made of dots on a computer screen... This is another oddity, especially when I find that there's someone on the internet who is just plain WRONG and needs to be corrected.  Perhaps you know the type?   All I've done when that happens, is to interpret the pixels, get all riled up about them, and then spend time crafting more squiggles that I post up on my screen.  I fuss with the juxtaposition of these lines and curves and set them in ways I believe make me seem smarter than they are.

Squiggle wars.

Very strange.

What exactly am I reacting to?

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