Dock

So this is interesting how we find something that teases us, like a coincidence that titillates. There I was seeing who "my neighbors" were in this collection of electromagnetic pulses. Turns out it was only a sign, much like a billboard you drive by and ignore on the road. Yes it pestered for some cause kind of techno-save-the-children, but who should the opening shill be, but Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J. !!! Wowee Kazowee!! I love long French names. They seem so noble and pure, like J. J. Rouseau, who dumped his kids in an orphanage. Anyway, a guy named Walter Ong studied P. T. de Chardin. Ong was positively broad or broadly positive whichever you like and was buddies with Marshall McLuhan, most misread guy on the planet. (Woody Allen was right!) Yes, you guessed it I boned up on Ong. Sheesh, what a coincidence. One thing leads to another.

Well, I was spinning out this initial blather because it fills a need: my need. Spurring the masses with hope, dope or rope that's someone else's deal. Sure it's nice to have a community chat, but on a certain level talk is so overrated. We always assume when we engage with others through various media that we'll reach greater understanding, peace, hope, but alas, McLuhan said it best that "the global village is full of spite, more so than any nationalism ever was." Think about that. How many people expired in the 20th century wars of nationalism?

If you give a kid a computer, what will he learn? What is then at the top of his hierarchy of knowledge? Paraphrasing Thoreau, if a kid in Iceland emails a kid in Ghana what do they say? It's damn cold here, anything else? Sure, they compare technology and now the tail wags the dog.

Let's end this on a happy hopeful note from none other than Darth Vader. Keep hope alive, Darth!! "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The power to destroy a planet is insignificant to the power of the force." Anything that perverts the human spirit, yokes it to some plastic and wires, robs us of a true understanding between beings and substitutes some ultimately insipid imitation, masquerading as engagement.

Now get up, walk away from you computer and go talk to an actual human being and ask them about something trivial, but listen for their soul and respond to it. Say Hello In There.