After almost three days of being Offline due to an Internet-service-provider outage due to some highly spirited winds that swept through the region like a gorilla with a broom knocking down trees and “hundreds of Rose-of-Sharon blossoms” into a friend’s suburban pool, it dawned on me I wasn’t Online... on line... line... where have I heard that before? ... Etymology for “to rule” is “reg- direct in a straight line, rule”... which is what empires with their corporate businesses including media love to do, keep people in line, metaphorically and literally, while the cards get shuffled and the loot hidden. Stand in line, citizen, for your next holiday shopping, wait on line at the motor vehicles bureau, check the liner notes on your new CD (ok, some cool stuff too, even though they say Nature has no straight lines). Online isn't all bad and, actually, there are a fair amount of good things, especially if you make the time to look for them or are interested in all kinds of people's perspectives, yes some goodies along with what's become a major arena for commerce, plus propaganda dissemination, the latter of which leads to . . . Empires abhor a circle of unity . . . a spiral of living . . . an elliptical orbit of planetary motions ― but they adore linear thinking and want you to get Online and shop, check the linear news complete with headlines and bylines, then pay your bottom line bills. Then it dawned again (what I already knew but post-storm everything feels like dawn) that peoples of ancient wise ways and individuals considered enlightened got that way, way before gadgets. And even though we're in a new era where the technology has many helpful uses, one of the things I learned on my summer storm Internet vacation is that the dis-traction from other-than-gadget ways is even greater than I already knew it was. As example, instead of my early daily routine of checking news and doing networking for business and pleasure, this bird lover got even more acquainted with the patterns of the winged-ones in the backyard . . . the sounds, the timing, the arrivals and departures and arrivals... one of the timeless rhythms of the day but not a backdrop to the day rather a significant aspect of the actual (not virtual!) fabric of life, including trees, seeds, water . . . Wire-Fi In his 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, Marshall McLuhan explores not just what humans did with the burgeoning technology of the printing press, but what the technology did to humans. He uses the word “interiorization” to indicate how a technology can become part of one's mental or spiritual being. My time Offline helped me to slow down and feel more centered. When first getting Online again it was viscerally noticeable the amount of clicks, rapid motions, and – like Philippe Petit a high-wire artist who “did a tightrope walk across the top of New York in 1974 - on a 131-foot cable strung between the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center”[2] – the reminder to breathe evenly and stay centered while going from screen-window to screen-window. What effects cyber-activity has on visual and nervous systems am not sure but do recall seeing books on the topic. The time Offline eventually felt like taking a de-cyber shower, in other words, washing away some automatic screen-reflexes from my body-mind-spirit operating system. historical archetypes Uncannily, about 500 years before computer science began the march toward the Internet, Gutenberg's printing press (invented circa 1450) began to have as vast an influence. As McLuhan noted: “Printed books, themselves the first uniform, repeatable and mass-produced items in the world, provided endless paradigms of uniform commodity culture for sixteenth and succeeding centuries.”[3] The alphabet is a line of letters, and, when combined with Gutenberg's press, the already existing movable type allowed for the spreading of linear print consciousness throughout the world. The moving alphabet began to travel more widely, as did Columbus, reaching the Americas otherwise known as Turtle Island to the Original Peoples. Joni Mitchell provides a concise historical summary as to what ensued: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot / With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot.” 26 letters (and a bunch of other so-called keys) became mega-amplified via computer by 2 numbers known as binary code. Call the main result cyber-colonization or some such 2.0, though back in the '60s McLuhan also saw the potential for how the electronic age would connect people via what he dubbed the “global village.” If someone in an ancient village went for a walk, everyone would know; nowadays if someone videos going for a walk anywhere, anyone with Internet access could watch. Offline, a line I am very fond of is “lineage,” though that's only a line on paper because experientially there are umpteen twists and turns along the pathways of our ancestors' roots, and the elders of one's family convey lineage information about wise living to younger generations. Also, various spiritual traditions have their lineages, for example Zen, where teachings and energies are transmitted from teacher to student. bait and switch On/Off implies a message that when one is not Online, one is off, as if something is lacking. So when I went to go Offline for the first time in several days, I realized, am not really turning off something rather simply continuing on with my life, doing something else just as 'on' if not more so. Humans have given themselves the power to turn light switches and all manner of gadgets on and off. Because this power has gone to some rulers' heads, they think they wield all the world's on-and-off power, and because so many have been going along for the straight line ride, we're all facing the potential further turning off of various natural living systems that were not meant to be turned off, ever; so many polluted rivers . . . and lands . . . and airs. As with Gutenberg's printing press with movable type, the Internet is a tool and tools can be used destructively or constructively. If the privilege, the treat of doing cool things Online is abused, then there's a risk of the savvy toy being taken away more severely. A small fan helps keep a computer cool enough and functioning properly. A very much larger fan can knock out electrical power and the Internet. NOTES: [1] Photo link “Philippe Petit’s Moment of Concern Walking the WTC Tightrope” [2] “Philippe Petit Walks a Tightrope Between the Twin Towers in 1974” [3] Signet Books, p. 197. Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. See his new book of nonfiction with a poetic touch, “photo albums of the heart-mind”. © Copyright 2020 by AxisofLogic.com This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you! |
