The late great Douglas Adams (who shared my birthday, March 11th — I’m sure that means something, but I have no idea what) created a character that I dearly love. Dirk Gently (also known by a number of other names, including Svlad Cjelli), was the owner/operator of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It operated based on the “fundamental interconnectedness of all things.” I believe in Douglas Adams and Dirk Gently. We all operate, knowingly or not, on the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
More than half the posts I write — including this one — are born while commenting on someone else’s post.
We are intricately and intimately linked. I wonder if we take for granted how bound to others we are in this strange cyber world we have created. I have read and heard much talk about the isolation of each person, alone and lonely with their computer. It has been put out there as a metaphor for the estrangement of people from each other, the symbolic isolation of individuals in the technological world.
I don’t think it’s true. For me, for many of my friends, for my husband, isolation would be life without the Internet. Without computers. For anyone who suffers a chronic illness, for those of us getting on in years who can’t get out as much as we want and whose friends have died or moved far away. For young people whose studies, work, happenstance or life choices have settled them long distances — continents and oceans — distant from old friends and family, electronic communications are a godsend. Skype — and programs like it — make it possible to see the faces we love.
If we cannot share a hug, we can share face time. Electronic communications are fast or instant. Texting, IM, Twitter, Facebook, even YouTube let us share in ways that were science fiction just a few years ago.
Without my computers, I would be truly isolated. The fibromyalgia, arthritis and heart condition make getting around difficult. Without electronic connections, I would be a squirrel up a tree without fellow squirrels to hang with.
This post was inspired by Dawn Hoskings on whose post I was commenting when I realized — again — how lucky I am to be living in a world that lets me enjoy virtual travel and participate in a larger world. I’m glad — proud — to be part of a community of bloggers, a community of friends around the world. And deeply grateful. How about you? I’d like to hear your stories.
- Book Review: DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY (Douglas Adams) (unclenecro.wordpress.com)
- Book Review: The LONG DARK TEA-TIME OF THE SOUL (Douglas Adams) (unclenecro.wordpress.com)
- “Every particle in the universe affects every other particle, however faintly or obliquely….” (stoweboyd.com)
- Back to Front Ideas (blogerp.typepad.com)
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Categories: #Blogging, Media, social media, Technology
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I agree with you; the Internet is a wonderful tool that keeps many us from living in isolation. I myself have several issues that keep me housebound more often than not, and am hundreds of miles away from what few family members and friends I have left. The Internet lets me “travel” all over the world to “see” new places and talk to people, and I’m so grateful for it.
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Me too.
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I’m sometimes amazed when have a quick backwards-forwards comment session with someone on their/my blog and it suddenly hits me that they’re thousands of miles away! I’ve just arrived at work, they’re about to go to bed.
I wonder what it would have been like growing up with this sort of thing? I guess I wouldn’t be amazed because it would always have been there.
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My granddaughter has been using computers since she was 3. She understands nothing about them except how to use them. Like me with electricity. I use it, I don’t think anything of it because it has always been there. Her generation — she is 17 — isn’t even curious about how any of it works. To them, it’s as much part of everyday life as cars are to us.
My mother grew up with horses and carts so she never stopped being awestruck at internal combustion engines. Imagine: My mother was born in 1910, lived through WWI and II, Vietnam. Grew up with horse and buggies, then cars, lived to see men walk on the moon. What a time to be alive!
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“Connected”? It’s true. For instance, if I hit you on the toe with a hammer, something will come out your mouth and a hand will slap the side of my head.
But it is true.
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Wow. That’s really DEEP! You must be a philospher 🙂
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i don’t have even one book of philosophy in my library.
i interested in truth – not speculation.
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I don’t have any books (anymore), but I studied a lot in college and through the years. I’m a very curious person and when I hear about something, I want to know more about it. So I read. About everything and anything.
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Very moving, Marilyn. Ah, so you are a Piscean. I had guessed one of the Water signs! xxx
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You seem of fire and earth to me. I’ve got no earth signs at all but a Taurus son and Virgo granddaughter is quite enough.. I’m all water fire and air… and all FIXED. Fixed air, fixed fire, fixed water. That must mean I’m not really broken, if I’m so fixed.
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Golly, that IS a lot of FIXED! Yes, you are right – my Sun sign is Capricorn (many people guess Leo), with Virgo rising, but I have a lot of fire in my chart too. Love your little quip about broken and fixed: most droll! xxx
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It would be nice if astrology gave us useful information. Mostly, it tells me what I already know, but provides a nice shorthand for expressing otherwise complex ideas (I think). Fire and earth. Like my husband. That perfect combination of hot-tempered and incredibly stubborn!
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Reblogged this on Technology World Wide.
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Thank you!
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