Connection Disconnect...

I just placed the following on my Facebook page:

Hey all you guys and goils-- I am online only on Mondays and Thursdays from here on out, so if there's a lag in my replying to you I'm sorry but that's why.

I've made some decisions about my computer usage, and have decided that I want my old life back. After the first three days of cold turkey some Beta waves actually came back to my brain again. The days got longer and I thought in a way I ha

dn't for many, many years.

I thought about FB, too--and for all the promise of "connection", which to some degree it does do, there's also a tremendous "disconnect" as I sit here alone in front of a computer.

I am sure this weird duality has a lot to do with why FB is so successful and popular, it appeals directly to the "Self" and then each self nurtures itself with a little piece of every other "self". It's like a school of Piranhas eating itself.

And as we all sit here alone and connected/disconnected, the Powers That Be make billions selling our information, as you may already know. What are we really getting back, except another freakin' habit?

I also contemplated this: if every online "message" (ad, email or FB posting, etc.) was a knock at the door, how fast would I stop answering it altogether? How about you?

And I asked myself: when was the last time I got an email that I treasured so much that I actually wanted to print out and keep, like a "real" letter? I'm not sure I ever have, so I want to try real letters again. I may send you one!

I really think that if I didn't have to use a PC to run my business I'd toss the thing in the trash. The way it is, twice a week to handle orders and emails is enough. I HOPE it's enough.

It's bold, and it's radical, but I am going back to Paper and long, quiet afternoons. If you care or dare to join me, I'd like to hear about your experience.

We're like astronauts, going where other fear to tread; going full in the face of fashion, trends, technology, against the tide that is sucking away our lives...

Hot Turkey...

I admit my PC is on for most of the day. Because I run a business with it, I am constantly fielding inquiries, filling orders, scanning artwork and doing pre-press production work. I'm not overjoyed about it and feel an acute nostalgia for rubber cement and huge copy cameras with built-in vacuum pumps to hold the artwork flat. I can't even find a picture of one of those online.

Basically, I feel that being wedded to an ancillary brain has robbed me of a good bit of my life, not to mention mental acuity. But many, many people have it a lot worse. They can't even leave the house without maintaining the connection. Plus, being online is habit forming, so don't believe people who say they can walk away at any time. Young people today are aware of the withdrawal symptoms, which is like being thrust into a featureless, motionless void. That void was once Reality.

But you can get all this from Marshall McLuhan, and his axiom that any technological "extension" atrophies the organ it replaces, like driving weakens your legs. That's why I refer to computers as "ancillary brains". They weaken our minds just by supporting their activities.

Al Jazeera English--my main news source.

So, I manage to keep it to an absolute minimum--my work activities, reading the News, selectively watching video on Youtube and lately some FB. The "comments" on Youtube are bad enough, like an infernal toilet-stall that stretches out to infinity for the scrawlings of faceless, unidentified juveniles, all contesting themselves with urinary yearnings.

Face it, there's no real "face" in Facebook, nor any actual "space" in Myspace. You couldn't even call it MyPLACE, even if you could identify the location of your account's hosting server. Even "in the clouds" is a lie when you get right down to it.

Why do these Social Networks grow and thrive so, and what makes users devote so much time and energy to contributing via pictures and postings? I know from my experience that some of my own friends must spend a good part of the day doing it. Probably, they fit the other non-addictive portions of their lives neatly around it. But would they admit it? Do Junkies "admit it"?

An unpopular T-shirt design from Cafepress.com

No, they don't--and immediately you get rationalizations and excuses full in face of the facts. That fact being that using computers is habit-forming, i.e., addictive, but nearly no one is studying this or talking much about it. These Social networks don't deliver what they promise, a real connection to other people, only an excuse to be online--to use a computer.

I'll say it again: These Social networks don't deliver a real connection to other people, only an excuse to use a computer.

When was the last time you heard someone remark about how much they enjoyed Facebook, or how much better this technology has made their lives? I feel sure that on their deathbeds, people won't miss the years spent surfing the Internet, they will in fact realize their lives passed them by.

Art by Martin Fletcher.

I've enjoyed the content of much of Youtube, but I stay mainly with documentaries and interviews and far away from cute pet tricks. As I mentioned before, the typical "comments" there are truly beyond the pale, and I feel the existence of the system itself is one of the darker accomplishments of our age.

But on Facebook I can no longer tolerate being so close to what I call people's "privates". It's well know that at any given time millions--perhaps billions--of people are masturbating in front of their computers, and this activity is not one they'd advertise, right? But all those "private", personal thoughts they'd never say to another person in public all come right out online. And I'm tired not so much of the proximity but the banality.

I want to specify that I don't often partake in what Psychologist Albert Ellis calls "Musterbation", i.e., that if you don't behave as I think you should or "must" then I will be offended. I understand and accept common human faults, in fact, in a real sense I love them.

Kindness makes the World a better place.

Eastern spiritual traditions say that just as the Lotus grows out of mud, or, essentially, shit, so do people develop and grow. I believe that, but nonetheless I try not to step in it.

The last straw was the flurry of "Natalie Wood jokes" on Facebook.