God created man. Then man created the drum. We've been pounding the drum ever since.
The drum of mass communication, be it through the jungle's trees or now the planet's atmosphere. In fact, today's everyday pounding by way of today's everywhere-at-once Internet mow means you and I are in a relentless state of inter-personal communication. Whether we know it or not, like it or not.
Recently, some of us have grown to dislike it so much we've birthed a new battle-cry: Privacy.
From on-line bullying to world-wide Wikileaks, people have begun to realize we're traveling one of history's greatest human revolutions. No one, no where, no time, is anyone of us any longer a totally private person. Whatever you buy, whatever you write, whatever your join, even whatever you think, is now and forever accessible to others. And not necessarily just hackers.
Hark the worldwide realm of Facebook and Google....! You may not officially join them, but you are officially in them. Ready and willing or not, you've been vetted, profiled, and pigeon-holded.
Like every other great human revolution, this one's mighty sword has two mighty sides to it. On one side are the users; on the other the doubters. The users are already so embedded into this instant-relationship that even their brain circuitry is beginning to show signs of evolutionary adaptation. As for the doubters, sometimes they're the faces pressed against the candy store window insisting they hate sugar.
Each of humanity's previous communication revolutions got off to an equally rocky start. Printing meant literary trash could now travel faster. Telegraph, telephone, radio and television meant the same, only now right inside our own private home. Yet who among even the doubters would give them up?
For good or for bad, for now or forever, personal privacy has yielded to personal participation. How else would I re-meet long ago school chums? Faraway friends? Once-upon-a-time prom dates? Australian atheists with thundering new ideas? Canadian and Scottish countryside poets with my kinda dreams? A relics collector in the ancient hills of Cyprus, a Muslim writer in my city-of-cites Casablanca, a patriot in Pakistan, a CEO in Brazil, Europeans of all persuasions, oh and neighbors in town who we've never taken time to really talk before?
Take it from a former doubter to any doubter still left behind. This drum won't stop. So it's worth listening to. What's more, its beat is worth the beat of our own heart, because from now on we and the drum are one...
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When I read this Jack it brought back a line I had read in William Manchesters book "Goodbye Darkness" ... a personal memoir of combat and a line spoken by a brilliant friend of his who died young on Okinawa ... "We are Living very Fast" ... I have a haunting feeling that the treadmill is moving at an exponentially faster rate .. is this just my years speaking to me .. or is it my unease that this 'digital deluge' is a genuinely portentous 'Wafting of Words' coming just before a much more serious 'Social Storm' overtakes civilized society.
ReplyDeleteGeezer ~ I would stoutly defend your fears here. Good stuff is happening, yes, but the good stuff is usually like a tiger who we've got just by the tip of its tail. The ride is exciting, furious, but usually out of our control. Frankly, I think it's easier to be old than to be young these days.
ReplyDeleteBut then I'm biased and tired...