i no longer live (solely) in this world.

2011 feels odd to write. But exciting to think about. This is the beginning of a decade and even though it’s young ~ 6 days old as I type ~ I’m very ready to start colouring it.

This past week has been hectic. Not in a working sense, or a no-time-to-think sense. In a building sense. For the first time my life has become thoroughly synced with not only this world, but through the various devices I now possess, with the online one. And now I’m speaking as if it were all over with… as if I were satisfied with the state of things… which really is a distortion of the truth: I still have far to go before I’m utterly satisfied with the synchronicity of my thoughts, words, images and, altogether, my persona. These past seven days I’ve been busying myself with new programs, with new devices (a digital camera ~ be prepared for a possibly annoying amount of PHOTOS!) and new outlets (this one, the one you’re reading RIGHT NOW).

And through it all I can’t help but marvel at how easily a new piece of technology, be it a program, device or the promise of such, can utterly consume one’s life.

Yesterday for instance I received said new camera. Then I lost the day. I had plans yesterday (personal plans but plans nonetheless) but instead I spent the time testing out the new device ~ figuring out all its functions, trying to get a feel for which ones I like best and how I can modify its settings to get the most artistic and visually satisfying images (to the best my day-old experience will allow). After, I began toying with imaging software to find which one worked exactly the way I wanted it to ~ which one’s aesthetics were most inline with my own. Miraculously after that I remembered all those other programs I wanted to test out, to upgrade to and to fiddle with. And oh-boy-did-I-ever.

Long after the sun was making its way to Australia, when an exterior force dared communicate with me, did I receive a shock: that shock what only comes when someone else, living a life independent of your own, asks you something. I snapped out of my digital daze, looked at the time and noticed it was nearing 9pm. Good bye Afternoon! (Like I said before: all my self-laid plans just disappeared yesterday!) When “forced” to respond to this external herald-of-the-natural-world I desperately began running to catch the few remaining “productive” hours of night. And the self-inflicted criticism began.


How could I let myself get so completely swept up, selfishly nonetheless, into another world?

An interesting notion itself; that there are other worlds, readily accessible. That we no longer live in just one world. That reality has layers. Very Matrix, I realise.

But tangible.

The acquisition of a new digital device is life-altering. We spend intimate hours exploring it, understanding it and testing its boundaries. I'm amazed to think that a device as simple and lifeless as a digital camera, or an mp3 player, has almost as many unique attributes as the person using it. What’s more, after a time, these objects cease existing as a device at all but become an extension of its owner; just as a pen is an extension of the mind and hand that wields it.


I do not have a camera, I am a camera. I am a blog. I am a netbook. A laptop. An iPod. An external hard-drive. I am a word processor. I exist in all these spaces at once, unconsciously, seamlessly.

I am no longer solely for this world.

   

p.s. Now I’ve meditated on this I find it amusing that every time I get a new, shiny doohickey I dub it as a king would dub his heirs: Andrew II, IV, VI.