I have 8 minutes until my lunch break is over. The internet is not real. It’s information, distorted. I like reading ‘literature’ type things online. They seem kind of real. I look at people I actually hangout with on Facebook and think, “If I wasn’t friends with this person, their facebook page would say they have nothing much in common with me, mostly.” And these are people I have the greatest connection with. 5 minutes left. Sometimes I see photos online of people “living the life” with the perfect outfit, outing, profile shot, but it’s all a front. In person, people smell, their body language comes across–and this speaks more than whatever is presented of themselves online. We’re animals who can communicate in different ways, and I think the internet is great for sharing information, but what of the information is real? Some sites you trust. Some sites you trust just repeated information that isn’t verified. This makes the internet pointless in many ways. Like this post. Opinion is opinion and observations are overflowing in a market with no demand for an opinion or observation. Live in the mountains without wi-fi unless you want to know about a movie time, or want to google a question and be redirected to a yahoo answers discussion board. 1 minute left. No, actually no more time.
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- About
You look out the window and see the sun. Its winter. You grab your warm red-parka jacket. You walk the crest of hill and look down on downtown crossing the street. You stand at a bus stop in the sun and read Lorrie Moore. The bus comes. You go downtown, get starbucks, go to work. You work. Later you leave a comment on your own pointless blog post.
You wonder if anyone even read this? You think about deleting everything you’ve ever posted on the iternet. You see the inherent pointlessness of blogs. See it as an embarassing dairy that can be googled. See it as an exercise in futility. See the last sentence and know it cliche. Understand what it means but don’t understand what it means. Is everything futile? Not things that provide for your survival, like work and relationships. Love is important, non-futile. But you just love typing words, writing words. You keep a journal or two. You write in them. You keep sentimental things like tickets and receipts to taxi rides on New Years. You’re not sure why you’re doing this. You feel slightly embarassed. You may comment on this blog post everyday in the 2nd person. Seems like a plan. Word son.
I think this experiment is one of the most exciting things that’s ever appeared on the blog! I realize it is frustrating to contribute to, as you say, “a market with no demand for an opinion or observation”. But may there not be something worthwhile about the exercise, too? Even having a few anonymous eyes read one’s page has some value, right?
Perhaps not. I agree with you about the by-and-large unreality of the internet. By this I take it we mean that it lacks the reality we love and appreciate in other areas of life. But its reality it really just emerging, and our children’s generation will experience it as real in a different way than we do. Perhaps we are tainted by our having memory of an alternative.
You have almost single-handedly kept Newhandsweepstakes alive these last many months. We’ve had over 12,000 views now. That’s not too bad. Probably more than half of those are not our own :).
I hate being negative (though I do it well!). Mostly I’m trying to explore the idea of “significance” or maybe the delusion of writing, or the delusion of caring. Or the delusion of blogging, or any art. When Don Quixote’s delusion dies so does he! I shit words because all the years of just writing, so just can write and write and write. I think I’m going to keep commenting on this post. Often I just purge bad energy, or vent when I write, and then have paranoia someone will google my name and see my negative shit, or stuff on depression, or worse. That really is my BIGGEST fear. GOOGLE. And the shitting of words. Then googled. Then future Nazis say I’m an undesirable and deny me jobs and food and I suffer and then I die. I thought of you on your trip. It was a great weather. I hope it was a good trip.
Dave, the stats doesn’t count our hits when we’re logged in. So all the views are other people than us. That is a great previous sentence.
You experience a boredom and apathy so severe you yawn and write a 2nd person sentence exaggerating your emotions. You have to google “exaggerating.” You initially write “exaperating.” You think google could be wrong on “exaggerating” but know it couldn’t. You want to write more but fear future Nazis and fear future paranoias. Look at paranoias and think of piranhas. You have to google “piranhas.” The “has” part of the word makes you think it sounds like an icecream. Is ice cream two words, or one? You don’t google it. You feel your brain feeling stupid. You feel like there is a center inside of you but you don’t know how you could find it, currently. Seems like you need a nap. Seems like your body would have to cycle throw this feeling before it could be down. Seems you need to slow down, but your not doing much. Besides goofy off. You don’t have internet at home currently. You may get a new phone with internet. You are nearly broke. You misspell broke, and think of Byork but don’t know how to spell her name. There some thing above the “o”, maybe. Don’t google it. Just fucking don’t. SRSLY. “srsly” is the best way to spell seriously, srsly.
I really hope I have no more free time at work to mindlessly look at the internet. It seriously sucks. Sometimes I read interesting things, but generally it feels like I’m doing some drug out of complete boredom and can’t stop doing it b/c I have to be here, and have nothing else to do. It’s like involuntary crack use. You find something interesting, you read it, think of it, enjoy it and then look at the same 5-6 websites expecting something different, but just feel wired and empty inside. Lunch, yes. Soon. I hate you internet. Except I wish I had it at home to look at things I can’t look at at work. Like boobs. That’s what the internet does best. And to like google shit you want to know but it just directs you to yahoo answers or a comment or some missinformed blog written by elementary school children about the outpost that was robbed near Yosemite national park b/c they were enslaving the Indian population to work in the mines, and the Indians revolted and killed the white man and was chased into Yosemite Valley and that was the first time a white man had been in Yosemite Valley–to kill Native Americans who revolted against slave mining. It was called Maricopa, the trading post, I believe, and whenever I see the word used other places I think of how only white traders had been on the rim of Yosemite Valley but never in the valley, and the whites only went there to kill Indians and the Indians left the valley b/c it was sacred to them and didn’t want to fight there. That’s all true. #whiteguilt. #hashtag_nonsense. twitter is stupid, but entertained me one afternoon.
You decide to take a nap on your lunch break. Feel slightly depressed even though you’re listening to dance music.
You imagine creating a robot that could do your job for you while you write or read, and sometimes ‘fix’ the robot and reboot it so it will continue working. A robot to run a copier. But the copier is like a robot. If you had the capital and the know-how to make a robot you wouldn’t be making copies. Someday you’ll use your brain. Someday… emo
You looked at the stats counter while you scan a document in a windowless room. You see 6 people have ‘hit’ your blog. You think there is no nazis that care what you currently do on the internet.