"Cyberspace: The tablet become a page become a screen become a world, a virtual world. Everywhere and nowhere, a place where nothing is forgotten and yet everything changes.

Cyberspace: A common mental geography, built, in turn, by consensus and revolution, canon and experiment; a territory swarming with data and lies, with mind stuff and memories of nature, with a million voices and two million eyes in a silent, invisible concert of enquiry, deal-making, dream sharing, and simple beholding.

Cyberspace: Its corridors form wherever electricity runs with intelligence. Its chambers bloom wherever data gathers and is stored. Its depths increase with every image or word or number, with every addition, every contribution, of fact or thought. Its horizons recede in every direction; it breathes larger, it complexifies, it embraces and involves. Billowing, glittering, humming, coursing, a Borgesian library, a city; intimate, immense, firm, liquid, recognizable and unrecognizable at once.

Cyberspace: Through its myriad, unblinking video eyes, distant places and faces, real or unreal, actual or long gone, can be summoned to presence. From vast databases that constitute the culture's deposited wealth, every document is available, every recording is playable, and every picture is viewable. Around every participant, this: a laboratory, an instrumented bridge; taking no space, a home presiding over a world . . . and a dog under the table.

Cyberspace: Beneath their plaster shells on the city streets, behind their potted plants and easy smiles, organizations are seen as the organisms they are—or as they would have us believe them be: money flowing in rivers and capillaries; obligations, contracts, accumulating (and the shadow of the IRS passes over). On the surface, small meetings are held in rooms, but they proceed in virtual rooms, larger, face to electronic face. On the surface, the building knows where you are. And who.

Cyberspace: From simple economic survival through the establishment of security and legitimacy, from trade in tokens of approval and confidence and liberty to the pursuit of influence, knowledge, and entertainment for their own sakes, everything informational and important to the life of individuals—and organizations—will be found for sale, or for the taking, in cyberspace.

Cyberspace: The realm of pure information, filling like a lake, siphoning the jangle of messages transfiguring the physical world, decontaminating the natural and urban landscapes, redeeming them, saving them from the chain-dragging bulldozers of the paper industry, from the diesel smoke of courier and post office trucks, from jet fuel fumes and clogged airports, from billboards, trashy and pretentious architecture, hour-long freeway commutes, ticket lines, and choked subways... from all the inefficiencies, pollutions (chemical and informational), and corruptions attendant to the process of moving information attached to things —from paper to brains—across, over, and under the vast and bumpy surface of the earth rather than letting it fly free in the soft hail of electrons that is cyberspace.

Cyberspace as just described — does not exist."

- Michael Benedikt, "Introduction" to "Cyberspace, First Steps" (1991)

It might be just my feeble attempt, but I find social media way too constricting to have freedom of expression and comfort knowing my data isn't being harvested and sold off to data brokers and advertisers; or having my phone covertly listening to my every conversation and then showing me things I was talking about in advertisements later on. I don't like being a product. Some of you might call me paranoid. But I like having my own niche in cyber-space. It gives me room to unfold my digital arms around inside a full computer display instead of squishing myself down to fit into the precepts of a smartphone, or "distraction rectangle" as I like to call them.

But I'm a writer and musician at heart, so I like being descriptive and dramatic with my writings and myself. I feel deeply and intensely with my heart and mind. The way I experience my surroundings and express how I think and feel about the world around me. Even though I am paranoid about the future and the Internet (well, what it has become), I do find important the notion of information freedom and sharing; Ideas, thoughts. 

I am in many ways accustomed resiliently to the "older styles" of technology. Typewriters, audio-cassettes, books and physical media. I want to fiercely assert myself in a world that continues to become more isolated and computer/internet reliant. However, a computer can be a creative outlet if pondered significantly. The different ways for furthering communication, expression and freedom, and individuality through - not just "basic text and words" -  but with multimedia and hyperlinks - changing the implications of what the computer can actually do for us, and provide to us as extensions of learning and understanding each other and thus, insights into ourselves and the world around us.

The often cartoonized image of the modern television set contrasted against that of a magical crystal ball - or how some joke that to the mediaeval folk, a calculator would be thought of as Witchcraft! (don't burn me please) are typical ideas in the popular early imagination of how this new and exciting technology will usher in a truly fantastic, futuristic age. I read "When Old Technologies Were New" by Carolyn Marvin (pub. 1988) (read the PDF here) and gained some insight into the positive benefits (pun intended) of electricity and what technology can offer to humanity. Instant communication. I think of it as thought-transfer. You're reading my blog posts so I can only presume you are interested in what I have to say! Or curious at best.. I feel boring! But through this medium (and hopefully broadening my skills with others) I can share my thoughts with you.

Anyway. I'm really hoping this blog will allow me to ramble freely and as un-paranoid as I can be of all those "big corporons" and having my attention span shortened by short-form content and social media. There is so much life to live, people! And I feel like I want to experience it undisturbed from technology as much as I can - even if it tries its best to creep into every aspect of our modern lives. I will resist! (ohm).