Discuss: Am I Still Here?

awesome how u figured that out

Building a life in the electronic cloud does both more for us and less than provide confirmation that We Are Here.  Though a commented blog, an @twitter or an email serves as a kind of existential ping, it also lets us clasp at immortality.  When we see our names and likenesses light up steady pixels on screens we feel a little more insulated from the fears of death or extinction that always bubble just beneath the surface.  But still we know deep down that being everywhere really means being nowhere.  Being alive means having a body, vulnerable, precious, fleeting, but most of all situated in the real and not in the virtual.

Ha! This is a great essay—like a fun house of mirrors: I kept seeing myself reflected back to me and saying, “That can’t be me?  Can it?  I look so out of proportion, so wavy and contorted—and what are those wires coming out of my ears, that Qwerty keyboard attached to my fingers?” But—Holy crap, it was me! I didn’t want it to be, but I, too, was Z!  Ugh. Thank you—I think. *smiles wryly*  Beautiful essay that should be disseminated widely (um, via…the web?)  Man, this is a conundrum, for sure.  Your vision of it is so crystal clear.  Now, thanks to you, I’m stepping out of the digital fun house, and going for a walk. OUTSIDE. Thank you.  I needed that!  (But wait: as I finish typing this comment, I see something beckoning me to check a box “Notify me of follow-up comments?”  it asks.  Do I want to know if someone reads my response to your essay?  Do I check the box now?  Do I?  Do I?  Do I?  Arrrgggghhhhhh!)

I spent a year living on a remote coral atoll in the Pacific. Once a week, my field director would deliver an abbreviated bulletin of the world’s news over a short-wave radio. By the time I’d heard of a news-worthy event, it was already three weeks old, buried in the backlogs of blogs and the archives of news sites. At first, this was worrisome. I compulsively read old issues of the Economist and even InTouch Weekly. Later, though, I realized that little of none of it affected me—tucked away on my little island—in the least. It felt useful to read about global ISSUES, such as fuel costs and agricultural problems, but what difference did it make to me, to my life, if the Patriots were knocked out of their playoff spot or the mayor of Chicago was caught in a scandal? The result (or lack thereof) was the same whether I learned about it the moment it occured or two months later… or even, dare I say it, whether I ever learned of it at all. This sounds wrong to say in a society that so values our being in-the-know and up-to-date, but how much of the news we read affects how we live our day to day lives? In certain professions, of course, it’s vital, but for many of us, it’s merely a distraction. Upon my return to the States, I stared blankly at friends when they brought up pop culture references from the year I was away. I felt overwhelmed that there was 20 pages of news to read every morning. But I felt rejuvenated knowing that, were I to use the paper to kindle the day’s fire and not read a word of it, nothing terrible would go awry. The world does not depend on my being knowledgeable about it. Yet that little gleam of truth doesn’t stop me from feeling out of sorts when I’m unable to check my email for a few days, or when I forget my cell phone charger at home…

Ouch! That hit a tender spot with me. After having lusted for a long time for an iphone my hubby got me one for Christmas, I should make him take it back but I love it too much. I work part time and am home full time with my little ones. I love technology, I love that our macs and iphones share calendars and contacts. I love being able to browse my google reader with my morning coffee. And I love having a device with a short kiddy cartoon on it to entertain my kiddies while waiting in the er. And while I love technology there are some tech things I refuse to get on the bandwagon with: the wii, guitar hero (and other games), large flat screen tvs, or a tv in my downstairs living room.

I am glad to have your read your article and taken time out to think about it and how I felt. And I   am glad the internet brought your letter into my house in England-how else would we have ever met as strangers? And I think you already know that you exist and have the best reminders of that-your children –in the world.
When you reflect on your life, you may sometimes wish that you had spent more time with them, but I doubt you will wish you’d had more e-mails. I sometimes think that all of this electronic communication is as illusory as it is transitory, just a dream. And that the most important thing is still the living, breathing heart- filled world. But it is a wonderful thing to be able to share these breaths with receptive strangers. Thank you.

I so enjoyed your musings and see myself in them, as do the many who have commented. There is a line from the movie Shadowlands (about the life of C.S. Lewis) in which a student says to him, more or less, “We read to know we are not alone.” That sentence has become a part of my thinking and my wonderings since hearing it. I find it to be true and from what you have written, it seems you do also.

What concerns me about our technological connections, however, is that for many of us they have replaced our personal and community connections to real flesh and blood people. Perhaps other readers will disagree. I find it much easier to go on-line and read another’s opinion or bit of news than I do to call and check up on a friend or to stop and chat with a neighbor. Reading your essay forcefully reminded me of where I want my priorities to lie and what I want to have matter in my life on a day in and day out basis.  Thank you for writing it in such a way that easily and humorously broke through what defenses my “self” might have erected to keep the truth at bay.  Good luck on your own journey of living and loving life.

Even my cats like to roll around on the keyboard…
Great article - I enjoyed reading it online after I checked my email for the 3rd time today.
I enjoyed reading Four Seasons in Rome the traditional way - the book held lovingly in my hands. I enjoyed it so much that when I finished I googled you and went to your site.
I have this under control.It’s everyone else who has a problem.