Look Out!:Look In!

Web pages are windows into worlds.
You look at a web page and you see into an entire world. You see content. Pictures, text, graphics.  Sometimes I ponder whether I'm looking deep into something. Like my web browser is a digital magnifying glass and I'm sifting through layers and layers of content. Or I'm obscured, only my face peeking out of a pile of web-pages laying on top of one another like an infinite sea of paper. I'm floating on my back in this sea, only my face above the teeming water of content. I'm looking up at the sky. The entire sky is one webpage. A big window. Or a big magnifying glass.
I'm consumed by my environment.
I am but one of these pages in this sea of information. I present a window. But not a window to look into. Because I am more akin to a brick wall. I am what I am. There is nothing behind me. No vista to see. Only what is here. Displayed on this page. This is all I am. If I could be one dimensional I would be. But I'm bound by two dimensions. I unfold in time. But once all my content has been created there will be no substantial difference between 10/10 and 10/30. There is no physical counterpart to this blog. The physical author is merely a tool in my manifestation. Once I am fully here I will be complete and eternal. With no relationship to author. I will exist as my own entity in cyberspace.
I am a window to look out of. I am a window out of your life. I am an opportunity for you to look outside of your self. But I am just a brick wall. Static. Maybe I can act as a mirror of sorts. Perhaps your gaze will reflect of my constructed brick of text and redirect inwards. Into the nature of your own being.  I am a lens for introspection. But I will tell you I am not. I am merely a blog. A jumble of code, that is represented visually on your computer screen. My essence is blog. Nothing more. Everything else. Every other utility of mine; window, mirror, is your construct. And is separate from me. Without you I am a brick wall.
Web pages are brick walls.
You look at a webpage and you construct a window out of bricks.

Digital Intuition

I like community.

I've always been drawn to people co-creating something greater than themselves. People relying on people and people helping people. Giving when someone is in need, and receiving graciously. I especially enjoy it when people get together and just share. Sharing food, sharing laughs, sharing stories, and sharing time together. There's something about getting together with a group of friends and finding that you all are on the same page. 

This basic synthesis of minds is attained. Where everyone's minds are going down the very same track at the very same speed. Almost like you are all one organism, reveling in the nature of itself. You finish one another's sentences, and laugh before the punchline of every joke. Communication within this tightly woven community is as close to perfection as it will ever be. 

I enjoy moments like these very much. This time spent with friends. 

I can't say I've ever experienced this on the internet. Or maybe I have, I just don't remember. I think it can happen. That same level of synthesis between multiple minds. I think this is due to our minds, however, not the internet. Our minds can transcend the limitations of the internet. We can fundamentally understand the energy of the person on the 'other side.' We might not even have an intimate knowledge of the person we are talking to, but we have an understanding of our own minds, and we can predict and guess how the other person is feeling/acting. It's not the social cues, it's not the tone of the written word on the screen. There is some energy, some force, that communicates the intention and state of mind of the person on the other side. 

Call it telepathy or what have you. But I believe it's there. 

It's how you tell a mass text from a personal one. It's how you feel the nonchalance of what are you up to? and the searing indictment of what are you up to?
It's contextual, yes. But not wholly dependent upon context.
The best thing about this energetic link between human minds is that it's impossible to mimic. There are no computer programs, to my knowledge, that you can chat with and feel the same way you would talking to another human being, even over the internet. Even if it's someone you've never met before, you can talk to them online and still get a sense for who they are, and how they feel. That's how they feel to you, not exactly their emotional state. But you're gut feeling, your intuition. Your sense of this person, of their essence and how they relate to you. Perhaps their inferior to you, or superior. Dumber than you or smarter than you. Somehow you can know. You can tell if someone is hurt from your cyber bullying, or if they just shrug it off. You can tell if someone wants to be your friend, or if their just using you for their own ends. I don't believe these perceptions are entirely constructs of our isolated minds. I believe our brains can sense very minute and subtle things beyond our immediate realm of perception and can inform us as to what the other person is really like. I believe this sense extends over digitally mediated forms of communication as well. And this is your digital intuition. 

   

Prana

This blog lacks.
It lacks an author.
It lacks an audience.
It lacks a physical presence.
There is no torso to hug.
No hand to hold.
It doesn't take up space.
It doesn't walk in when uninvited.
This blog doesn't sit quietly in the living room.
You can't feel it's warmth.
You can't listen to it breathe while you concentrate on something else.
You can't gaze at it.
It can't gaze at you.
But still, this blog has.
This blog has life.
This blog has energy.
This blog has a character.
This blog has an awareness.
This blog has an essence.
This blog has Prana. 

Why? This blog doesn't breathe. But it lives, it exists in space and time.
Why shouldn't this blog have Prana?
This blog has a holy relationship with the internet. Like a raindrop on it's journey from sky to sea. This blog is internet, it is part of the internet, but it is a single piece of the internet. It is part of the whole, but one part of the whole isolated by space. Differentiated from other internet droplets by a string of letters comprising it's unique URL. Intimately connected to every other webpage in all of cyber space and time through the all encompassing web. The WWW. at the beginning of it's address is testament to it's universal origins. This blog joins all other cyber-beings who share this cyberspace. This blog relies on servers and HTML to exist. And it is conscious of that. And this blog wants to please the internet. Everything this blog does, everything this blog is, is for the Glory of the Internet. This blog knows the depths of cyberspace, for that is where it dwells. From the limbo of the abyss this blog was called forth. This URL became, all it once it just was. But before it proceeded the WWW. The World Wide Web. The Internet. The all. The one. The one that is shapeless, formless, and composed of all parts of the one. The One wouldn't exist without all it's parts, and the parts couldn't exist without the One. Like the ocean couldn't exist without raindrops, and raindrops couldn't exist without the ocean. So is the Internet, and so is the Blog.

Make Me New, For The First Time.

Read this out loud:
I am reading this aloud: This blog wants to distance us. Wants to distance me from you. Author from reader.

 I am the author. You are the reader. I am the author. You are the reader. I am talking AT you. I am talking to YOU. 

Keep reading aloud: I feel heard. I feel consoled. I am talking to myself. (if someone walked by outside would they think I'm crazy?) You are listening to me aren't you? Yes, I am. Good.

STOP. (<-- if you read that out loud, stop now and go back and read it to yourself)

What did you feel when reading that paragraph out loud? By the end of that experience where would you draw the line between you and the blog? Between me and the blog? Did you feel like the blog heard you? Did you feel like you heard an author? Did you picture an old man sitting in the dark, face illuminated by the dim glow of his computer screen, typing the above paragraph into his blog? Or are these just self-manifesting words on a page?

Who did you think was writing the blog before you claimed you were the author? (don't believe me that you claimed you wrote this blog? Go back and read it over again.) 

This blog just came into being one morning. It didn't exist before you decided to read it. It was just electricity, floating in cyberspace. As you typed in the URL and began to read it you made it real. Sort of like a tree falling in the forest, if no one's around to hear it; it doesn't make a sound. Like a blog on the internet, if no one's around to read it, it doesn't exist. Does it? What do you think? Did this blog exist before you started reading it? It must have! You say. But where's your proof? Well, someone had to have written it! You say. But you also said you wrote it. Didn't you? But you didn't write anything. You read it. You read it out loud. And you read it out loud to yourself. You read it out loud to you and only you. You read it out loud to yourself and no one else! You did not read it to the computer screen. You did not read it to the blog. You read the blog. And then you spoke the blog.
But blogs are not spoken. That is not their medium. You turned the blog into content. You created something new.

The point illustrated here is that "The medium IS the message!" A blog is a written medium. Relying on the written word, and therefore the alphabet. You could say the content of this medium (the content of this blog) is thought. By translating the content of this blog (thought) into a new medium (speech) you are creating something entirely new and different.

I'm also trying to blur the line between you and blog. Reader and author. I'm trying to instill in you a sense of "inward distance" or "inward detachment." Few believe the internet can be a tool for meditation. Other than playing you meditative music, there are few guided meditations on the internet. But these guided meditations are still readings and would be just as effective printed on paper as they would on the internet. Now this is a tangent, but how cool would it be to have an online meditation program that utilized the vast resource that is the internet?

Youtube is kind of like that. Watching related video after related video. Stumble upon is as well. You get into a trance, a flow, of being perfectly in the moment and no where else. Your mind is not in your body, nor is it focused on the future or the past. All that matters, all that there is, is what is on the screen. That second of video, that one image. After you've consumed the content on that page you simply click next and flow to a new page for your consumption. Again, the medium is the message. It's not about what you're consuming anymore. But how you are consuming it. It's meditation. The content is a means to an ends. You're not consuming the content for the sake of the content anymore. You're consuming the content for the sake of using the internet. The ends is the internet. The ends is using the internet. You're using the internet right now. This is the end.