June 10, 2003
Float
Posted by bopuc at June 10, 2003 12:12 AM
I've been online since only 1996 or so, but I have never gotten into IRC (Internet Relay Chat)... until this past week. It is total virtual world immersion/time limbo induction. The week gone by seems like a speck of dust floating in a smokey room.
And I have never made so many new friends in so short a time. The experience, however, also extends into the "real world" (a term I dislike more and more as all is "real" to me now: online, offline, dream and awake... ) where in this past week I have also done more, moved more air, met more people and proactively participated more in my own life than I have in months.
Discussing identity and space in a virtual environment, preparing for a tattoo which will serve as a reminder of my physical form, planning a trip to a place I hope will push the last puzzle piece into place in my understanding of... well... I'll let you know when (if) it does. ;)
As long as you all, both online and off, in my space and in my dreams, are around, I'll know I am not insane, for reality is a discussion & consensus of perceptions, nothing more.
No really, I am fine. ;)
Comments
"...preparing for a tattoo which will serve as a reminder of my physical form"
A reminder of your physical form?
Posted by: Martine at June 13, 2003 11:27 AM
yes.
I forget I have a body... a "node in meatspace".
Between nodes in HTTP, IRC, ICQ, GSM, SMTP, POTS, etc... this physical one gets forgotten sometimes.
Not utterly forgotten of course.. I mean I do jog up Mt-Royal every second day and spend all together too much time socialising on St-Laurent... but sometimes even when I am out and about, in a crowd or alone, I now need to feel something grounding me - a tie that binds me to me, the metadata of my mind to the strucutre of my body...
Side effect of extending one's mind out into (too?) many extrenal [information] spaces.
Posted by: Boris Anthony at June 13, 2003 11:58 AM
Oh, I thought you wanted to mark the time when you were young and in great shape, for your older days ;-) Every time I see a tatto I can't help thinking: what will that huge dragon look like on the lower back of a 65 year-old woman? On the flabby arm of a geezer?
I know how you feel though, about the node in meatspace. For me, it is a strange side effect of 1. lots of reading 2. lots of sitting in front of the computer. And it's even worse now that I don't have to commute to work. A body? Who needs that?
I'm grateful for hunger, as it forces me to remember that I have a body. "Oh look, you're here! And you're hungry!". I don't know that a tattoo would work as well...
Posted by: Martine at June 13, 2003 12:48 PM