Wednesday, February 16, 2005

They think I'm crazy

Maybe I am. Maybe it's the Neil Stephenson books I'm reading. I don't know. But things seem to be accelerating. This whole blogsphere thing. the photoblog thing. the other information sharing things. I'm kinda swimming in it. It's not that I love it particularly, because the learning curve is a bit steep and it requires time (too much) and concentration, and signing up for things, which always sets off my big brother alarms. But there is something happening that is new. The way people are communicating. You can call it cold and distant, if you want to be that way, but I don't think that's got it right.

Idea: There are these ways for people to share all sorts of notions, emotions, ideas, etc, and for those things to then be parlayed into ... other things. I don't know what to call them. It's like instant zeitgeist. Imagine if you didn't know Radio (upper case) existed, and you didn't have a radio (lower case). You'd think the air was silent. But in fact, it's full to the brim of information, ideas, music, (ads), flying around invisibly.

This blogsphere thing is like that, too. I'm just in awe of it. And like I said, I'm not exactly enraptured by it, but it is a new and powerful way of communicating and collaborating, of sharing and fermenting ideas and dialogs.

And in the same way that people my parents' age struggle with "learning computers" (a hilariously overbroad concept, to anybody who "knows computers."), many of my friends will struggle with the blogsphere. As an idea. Because you can't see it. You can see blogs, but I'm still trying to get my head around how people and ideas zing back and forth, bouncing around among blogs, web sites, etc., etc., etc., etc.! That's what I'm struggling with. Trying to understand what it's capable of. And trying to use that capability to enrich my daily life. Also, I'm trying meditation. Just 15 minutes is a long time!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Right on Bro! My (older) professor said something about "dialing in" to a website and I laughed out loud, thinking it was a joke...oops! I'm psyched on the possibilities, imagination is the mother of invention, not necessity!