Although I interact and play with my son all day the computer or his movies will sometimes interject for a while, separating us from one another for an hour some days. Now as my son takes his nap after a full morning together only a small, small quadrant of my brain is egging me on to go ahead and turn on the magic box. You see, I wrote a new story over the weekend about Gratitude Week, which started Monday. Instead of posting it straight away to my blog this time, I wait and wait. I re-write and re-write hoping I can get the story to someone else who may publish it and commence my true publishing track record. I fear by the time a few editors check it out the story is dead and Gratitude Week long gone. I’ll probably post what I’m writing right now before the gratitude story sees the light of day.
As I get comfortable sitting next to the fireplace with my re-heated coffee I continue to read through the current Adbusters magazine. I daydream often about finally being published in this magazine. I think about the day I’ll walk into their offices just doors down from our place and buy a pair of BlackSpot shoes, sign up for a year subscription and hand them one of my stories. For now I look at this new issue that is split into two, The Virtual World and the Natural World. The cover of the Natural World is a photo of a ‘man-tree’ growing out from the ground. The Virtual World cover is a young couple embracing while completely wrapped in saran wrap and attempting to exchange a plastic kiss. The first page of the virtual side simply states, “I’m only popular on the internet.” It makes me think about my own twitter account and how I can’t break 200 followers, not that I’m trying but some days it feels like I am.
I think it was the immediacy that really had me first hooked on to computers. As a hack guitar player I was now able to compose other music and beats, faster than it took me to try to master three chords. Dabbling in Photoshop and CorelDraw had me dreaming and creating like a designer, an artist. As the constant writer my full notebooks were now turning into books with designed covers and pages and pages to print. Once the Internet really took off, then I was immersed in being the distribution channel of it all through website design, blogging, forums. It seemed that all the creativity that eluded me most of my life now was fully surrounding me. No art teacher or musician could continue to say, “You just don’t have the skills.”
Today I sit here as I did when I was much younger with paper, pen and magazines by my side with no music, ipods, Internet or TV. Instead of drowning myself in more creativity with no paycheque I sit back instead to think, meditate and clear my nodes of any cyber chaos. The article I just finished reading in Adbusters hits a few chords with me as I play between virtual and natural worlds today. The article talks about the ‘false sense of belonging’ that Internet communities can pose as they are “largely so fleeting and fundamentally insubstantial.” It goes on to discuss the different levels of commitment as ‘some people are very committed to the net while others are simply casual visitors to the site.”
I feel that way too as I try to build my readership for my blog or increase the followers on Twitter to get them to read the blog. Some days I feel great as a few people comment or retweet your words yet in the same moment I’m often asking myself “what am I doing? Why am I writing today and needing to share it? In some ways I think that the old models of creating, communicating and sharing have changed. While only the elite could walk through the corridors of specialized institutions or programs and of the thousands only a handful would make it through the tight closed gates and be ushered in, as the new next, now there are millions of us. Although the gates are now wide open inviting us all in they already know that our chances are slim for success.
Maybe the ease of immediacy has chipped away at true commitment.
“Granted, it’s often hard to make things happen in real life. Committing to a relationship or the achievement of an ambition is usually a lot more challenging than creating a sudden buzz on the internet, posting a blog entry, tweeting 140 characters or adding new friends on FB. Divorced from the very human responsibility to contact and interact directly with other living beings, we may feel hollowed out, emptied of the sense of an evolving self that can make existence worth its painful bouts of adversity and growth.”
Right now as I stay disconnected I feel full of imagination hope, peace and pure potentiality. My mind is void of any humorous or informative links, witty status updates or spanking new follower names. My mind is only full of this mornings memories, walking with my son through the forest full of bright reds, yellows and orange, the pinecones, acorns, rocks and sticks we collected and the cool air running under our noses. Right here I feel connected.
(Thank you Adbusters Vol 17 #86 & Roland Nozomu Kelts)
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