dictation's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet I try to remember the time before personal computers and can barely recall it. In 1993 I got my first computer; that was just over ten years ago. Somehow it feels like decades ago. What did I do all day at home before I had a computer? I read more. Talked on the phone more. Probably cleaned more. I was certainly more active. How did I budget? (Four years ago I turned a rudimentary Excel worksheet into a fancy schmancy workbook that keeps track of savings, RRSPs, credit cards, bill payments, income.) Oh yeah, I remember! I incompetently kept a loose record of expenditures, and more often than not found myself overdrawn or otherwise in deep deep shit with my finances. I probably sound like I'm making excuses when I say that software seemed to solve the hassle of budgeting. Manual figuring can't compete with Excel formulas. And letters. I used to hand write letters. Or type them on a Selectric (though typing was in some ways worse than hand-writing, because correcting mistakes wasn't easy on a typewriter. By the time tools were invented to more easily correct mistakes, computers were invented). I can barely hand-write a post-it note to myself now. Inevitably my thoughts outpace my clumsy unpracticed hand and I make annoying mistakes. Strike-outs in word-processed text are intentional - done to add humour or to emphasize irony. My fingers aren't in sync with my brain anymore. I probably couldn't hand-write a sentence to save my life. My fingers are trained and accustomed to the keyboard. It will be this way until I die. When I think of what I've learned from the Internet. Many many things I would otherwise have no way of knowing. There are things I wish I didn't know (about humans...it's always the humans)! Like poo sex...good God, return the innocence I had! (I didn't go searching for that, believe me. It popped up because someone pasted an ick site in an IRC channel and me being Curious George and all, I had to see it.) But others - like the Elephant Sanctuary, well I discovered it on the Internet in 1995 when only three elephants lived there. Thanks in large part to the Internet, this wonderful facility is now thriving and has fans the world over. The ES is one example out of gazillions. I should make a list. In an age of decreasing democracy the Internet represents the one place where you can learn and find out information that otherwise isn't being covered by the so-called "free" press. When my mother was dying and my sister (then in Bosnia) and my brother (then, and still, in Japan) and I had to co-ordinate the logistics of her care, the Internet became indispensable. My sister found a house in Ottawa to rent via an online site and all the negotiations for leasing took place over the net. Money got transferred via email, and our email accounts enabled us to communicate with each other over time zones that made phone calls almost impossible. What's more, I got to know all of my mother's closest friends over the Internet. I spent many hours at the palliative care hospital writing messages to Mom's friends to keep them up-to-date on how she was doing. My world - it sounds trite and obvious I know - has been completely transformed by the computer. I can't quite remember the person I was prior and can't imagine who I might now be if it had never been created. (I've been on all day without a break. It's time to shut her down and get going. This dog needs her walk!) 7:13 p.m. - 23 June 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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