It was 1994. C++ programmers had been introducing themselves into my life for sometime. The most interesting was Matthew.

Matthew had grown up on a commune, the son of a Philosophy Professor (Dad) and a recognized Artist (Mum).

Silicon Valley had snagged Matthew because he had something most C++ Programmers didn’t have–a creative imagination that astounded.

Like me, Matthew was drawn to puzzles, especially to new things that might have widespread implications. In front of a computer, Matthew and I became enthralled children.

One of the things I especially wanted to make the computer do was video conference. I’m not sure why, but I felt compelled.

Matthew worked out how to do audio/video communications quickly. Within a hour the card was installed and set up. In a minute we had a very snowy image of a student from UCal. The student and I talked about Economics. Canada was still in a recession, but the U.S was starting to recover. The student felt the Canadian economy would follow shortly.

Next, we contacted two people on a yacht in South Pacific. At first I didn’t believe we could be connecting to a boat on the ocean, but Matthew understood how the connection was being made. That conversation was about an impending storm. The video was snowy, but I could see them in the cockpit.

Lastly, we got a American Student in the Middle East. I listened intently as he described the hardships caused to ordinary people by embargoes, while political leaders remained unaffected. No video this time, just a very American voice.

I sat and thought about it a little while.

I was dumbfounded…

What this meant was that we could speak to people we didn’t know, anywhere in the world, and ask them exactly what was happening, in real time.

It was clear this was going to change politics, economics, communications industries…everything. It had not occurred to me until that moment.

It would not surprise me if there are countless books, blogs and articles that describe this period of time as the age of innocence on the internet. I think of it that way.

The people we spoke with that day gave intelligent responses to pointed questions, They had no thought of gain, fame or branding. This was simple conversation.

Matthew and I continued to make the computer do interesting things for a while, but then I was off to University of Toronto and he was off to San Francisco.

I wish I could say I’d had some kind of ‘McLuhan-esque’ foresight regarding how it would all play out. I was certainly privy to enough clues. For the next few years the computer was nothing more to me than than a tool for writing papers.

When I tried to extrapolate possibilities, they seemed endless and I was overwhelmed.

What happened to the blog?

The answer is simple.  Life happened to the blog.  Family ties, duties, considerations of what is right or wrong, what is best or worst, how to love, support and be supported by those close to me, completely superseded any thinking about ‘online life.’

Let’s be clear, I, more than anyone have been wired to the net.  I lived nearly exclusively on the net for years.  Apart from propriety, I had few psychological barriers between self, machine, and online existence.  If anyone should have been able to integrate internet activities with life, it should have been me.  Rather, it turned out, I became only vaguely aware that there was a ‘real’ world.  It rarely intersected with my online world.  The other people on the net were living in the net world.

The net may as well be oblivion into which I toss feelings, random thoughts, live stream, video or still images.  The blog, a depository for thoughts that might shed some light on this experience.  Electronic media provides little, if any, feedback that is meaningful.  TOO MUCH INFORMATION IS MISSING.

For me media and especially the net, are simply NOT REAL.  Some reality can be added to them by directly connecting them to people or things in the real world, but that’s the limit.  Even then it’s thin.

Media does not fully satisfy ANY of my senses.  It does not even try to satisfy most of them.  In the real world I gather information and form assessments and responses based on what I see, hear, taste, touch and smell.  Subliminally I am experiencing nuance and noticing pattern.  The subtleties are crucial.

On the net I experienced ‘numbers’ and ‘demographics,’ or a ‘demographic consciousness.’  That’s all I could rationally (or irrationally) divine from the information I had.  Occasionally there would be an e-mail from someone enlightened, who was able to cross the chasm.

It came as a great shock to me that many people understand what they see on screens or other devices to be real–that they simply accept what they see or hear without thinking about it and incorporate it into their real lives.

So the blog has been pre-empted by life.  If you were sitting here with me, about to eat peanut butter on toast, you’d know exactly what I mean.