Decoupling Cyborg

"Go out and play!"

The target of my mother's ire was my obsessive reading.

I didn't really want to go out and "play"--what would have been the point? 

I didn't much like the neighbors' kids either or, later, the politics of "play", but with books--The Last of the Mohicans, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Panic in Needle Park, the Hardy Boys (younger), Playboy (older)--there was plenty of mindful adventure.

My Bar Mitzvoh took place some 40 years ago, and here I have arrived in the ultimate contemporary communications shack: 850-sq.ft. of an apartment with 75 bookshelves (I don't know how many linear feet) filled with books, a pretty good home theater (about to get an upgrade), and a home on the web that has both an exterior surface (this blog, my web site) and an interior, near cyborg, reality.

Cartoonist Al Cap may have thought labor alone the capitalist's much abused, sought after, and indefatigable "shmoo"--an ever friendly animal that for the mere asking gave up everything for which one might wish--but I think it may well be labor plus the Internet (plus money!) that has produced this post-modern and most friendly genie out of the home office box.

Cybercommunities: plenty!

Cyberrelationships: got 'em.

Cyberresearch: all day.

Cyberpublication: at will.

Cybershopping: no need to ask.

I haven't quite encountered "cybergroceries" but fear the day I do!

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One boss heading up an early ISP (Internet Service Provider) said to me, "No one is going to want to sit at a computer looking at someone else's pet cat."

Had he only said "pussy", his firm might have survived those early years.

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Having migrated every sort of activity to this desktop "platform" (quick: laptop or HDTV--which would you encourage for the next Big Purchase?), I have got a cyberlifestyle so continuous, rich, and exhausting that it has got me looking back into Realspace for rest and recreation.

There's a kitchen around here?

Wow.

I thought it was just a space for stopping in for coffee in the morning.

Oh, and look over there: I know what that is--I used to play it . . . it's, um, I'll think of it, uh . . . oh yeah, yeah, yeah -- it's my guitar!

Hello, old guitar: have you been keeping yourself in tune?

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A man may live a lot inside his own head, but however swelled a head it may be, it will not prove large enough for making salad or making music or making much of anything that makes money.

As full up on audio-visual media as can be, I have found my limit, and I miss the enjoyment of leisure, perhaps work as well, in real space. 

From here on, I will value the print, 13 x 19 inches on a bright, stiff rag paper, as much or more than the "virtual print" that swims in colorful schools online and disappears as rapidly in ephemeral web time.

From here on, when I commit to reading a book, I will commit to it the continuous hours, even days, it may need for my being thoroughly engaged and comprehending with it.

My cameras and I will get outdoors once again, and on return I may take some time in the grocery store too in order to appreciated and take pleasure in cuisine from market to kitchen to table.

From here on, I will enjoy what I may do with a guitar two or three times each day, and out of that time spent I will grow a new repertoire.  There are a few traditional English folk songs I want to learn, and although I don't know what they are yet, I'm sure I will use the Internet to "discover" them, but once they're on the music stand, hasta la vista, baby!

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Sigh.

I know.

I'll be back.

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