Friday, February 02, 2007

NEW 'PUTER

In the process of learning how to wean myself from the debilitating convenience provided by modern western civilization and to distance myself from the pollution of air, water, land and silence among its clamoring mob of purveyors found in the city, I'm glad I grew up somewhat of a loner. There aren’t a lot of people moving away from population centers much further than the latest development level beltway of urban sprawl. Having a computer on the internet appears to be absolutely essential in tempering my love of solitude with an outlet for my love of friends and conversation. Books, occasional visitors, Email and blogging have verbalized an otherwise wordless existence over the past two and a half years.
The silence and lack of need to speak have served to allow my curious mind to drift further and further from the over explained monotony of the judeo-christian, western civilization program upon which my brain is trained with less concern for having it at the ready in the case of a pop quiz.
All this is to ease my conscience for my rare submission to the entire convenience and capitalistic greed of acquisition afforded me by the American Way of Life as a hedonistic splurge of my pent up shopping urge when I just ordered a souped up 17” iMac over the internet two days ago. I’ve been awaiting like a kid before xmas ever since. It’s my fifth mac, yet no less anticipated for the new features, like video chat and faster, bigger versions of the old faster, biggers that I’ve since normalized into the realm of slower, lessers. I have long ago decided the computer is a good thing for human evolution, if we can just learn to get the same thing out of a technology which isn’t so environmentally detrimental.
The personal computer and the internet return human communication to a lateral activity of personal choice, rather than the top down verticality of propaganda so virulently showing its faults through media sycophancy recently. One of the beauties of the internet is that it will return the individual to a life of infinite choice rather than the rigidity of the societal norm. Just as areas of coagulation form around different interests in chat rooms and blogs, so may societies, like tribes, form which themselves are as independent of centrality as the internet itself.
Besides, I have a friend who just got a new imac as well, and I am looking forward to being able to set up video chatting … I have been secretly looking forward to that since Dick Tracy’s wrist video phone back in the ‘50s. Black ops took over the levitating bucket technology.

1 comment:

Erica said...

Yay! That is totally awesome :) Ours is due to arrive in a few days and the household is appropriately excited. Congratulations!

It's true - environmentally, the computer industry is a grotesque disease. However, the value that computers bring to communication in the form of sharing ideas, spreading news, keeping in contact with dear friends far & wide, is immeasurable. There's no escaping a certain degree of evil in this modern age, but at least this particular evil comes with some real, tangible benefits.

Now I'm just waiting for Apple to introduce iTransporter, so I can come chat by the pond any time I want :)