Wednesday, March 09, 2005

A sudden icy feeling of powerlessness

I was just reading over a friend's blog and thinking what a great receptacle of thoughts this whole internet thing is, a vast unending forum for the exchange of ideas and new concepts. It's strange, though, how much stuff we can put onto the internet, and it just sort of hangs there, like little bits of fruit in a holiday jello mold. I have an online savings account, for example, that I put money into periodically. I've never touched the money, though, and I don't exactly know where it is. But there's a figure there that keeps increasing. If the figure were to disappear or to decrease without me doing anything, I don't even know who to ask about it. Presumeably, I would just go to the web site and hit 'help'. But who does that involve? A series of default scenario explanations? A real person who is waiting to type immediate responses? I feel like the more thoughts and ideas I leave in cyberspace, the more capital I trust to remote digital assurances, the more transparent I become, my hands losing mass and density to the point where I cannot even hold a book, my eyes narrowing until they can only interpret digital images and characters, only able to express my feelings through keystrokes, not voicewords or skintouch. I look at a computer more than I look at my wife. I remember when my bills are due, but I need a couple of phone calls to remind me of a parent's birthday. I can recall a web link better than the name of someone I just met five minutes ago.
If I were monitoring myself in the same way I monitor my accounts and investments, I would probably have done a complete withdrawl a long time ago. Apparently, there exists a greater hope for the survival of humanity. I'm just curious how many science fiction classics will prove frighteningly prophetic in the meantime before its re-emergence.

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