Proverbs 27:19 (The Bible)I will confess I hadn't been looking forward to this 'Discovery Exercise' with much enthusiasm, and my journey here has done little to change that feeling. Unlike countless millions, I don't feel an urge to sign up to one of the 'social networking' sites - I prefer to keep my profile somewhat anonymous (or as anonymous as one can be around the NSL community). The world has became voyeuristic enough with mobile phones, YouTube and various other means and modes of technology that we all seem to be hooked in to now, whether we want to be or not. I didn't find myspace very appealing - I tried looking up a few things, mostly of a musical nature, but admit to not being drawn to voyage any deeper in to this space. The peek at Facebook was indeed no more than a peek, as it looks like you have to sign up before you can go anywhere? - a big turnoff for me. To top this off, I was very disconcerted on my dip into Auckland City Libraries bebo page, when I went to follow a lead that looked interesting - and behold, 2/3 of my 'true-life' name was already staring at me from the screen - and I know I had not typed it there. Talk about "Ghost in the machine" - what happened to Privacy here? Needless to say, this promptly halted any further excursions for this exercise, when earlier I'd thought bebo could be the most appealing of these "networks". Maybe it's a generational thing, but my enthusiasm rather too quickly waned. Since embarking on these '23 exercises' I have already felt neglectful of my 'actual reality' social network, small as it is, yet at times I've also experienced the "thrill" of getting caught up in what often seems like a "virtual reality" world. I can see just how easy and totally addictive this can become, without you even realizing it. It all helps to reinforce my thoughts that you can never truly "hide" from the world - "You can run but you can't hide" definitely rings true here. Or should that be "you can click but you can't hide" - add another can of worms to the ever-expanding network of global sharing. Not forgetting the matter of once you are joined - how do you go about "un-joining" - I've heard that is no easy task, if it's even possible at all??
I feel I have woven all manner of threads through the Web, and left many trails over these past weeks, signing up to this and that - all those usernames and passwords - I was truly beginning to wonder who I was. Perhaps the idea of assigning everyone with a barcode at birth isn't such a silly idea after all! I have now got to a point where I need to reconnect with my 'Flesh and Blood' social network - including a recently retraced friend from nearly 20 years ago - tracked down through the rather more conventional online means of the telephone book. Thus, I will take time out to ponder my joining the 'virtual' social space. I'm not ruling out a return to do some more explorations here, but it's not "myspace" right now. One small step for this lupe at a time...
"It's said that Crazy Horse had the power to dream himself into the real world - and leave the illusion behind"
J.D. Blackfoot, from his album "The song of Crazy Horse" (1973)
(You can click the album cover and see a YouTube clip of the long version - 20 minutes, the complete side 1 - of this song. There is also a shorter 10 minute version on YouTube)
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