Whenever I skid on the slopes of emotions, or when, like now, my physical resistance is on the low side, I turn to aspects of life I find reliable, and which, as a result of their dependable character, I can easily understand.
In the first years of the Internet, as Web pages multiplied, I didn’t feel that much enthralled by the phenomenon. I was slow to become impressed. What was the use of so much information if it stayed fragmented, disorganized? I disliked this project of a network aimed simultaneously at all directions, sprouting like wild plants in an unruly, unkept field. It was not until I got acquainted with search engines based on Boolean logic that I accepted to seriously peek at the World Wide Web.
I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I simply enjoyed creating a universe, spotting its elements, spelling a specific scope, the chaining of operations, shoveling my way through sub-sets, including, excluding, unions and intersections, AND, OR, and the NOTs, the use of parentheses, and the symbols, their properties. All of these bringing an arithmetical clarity to the digital world. Tracing directions within a disoriented practice. Neat signs, like degrees on a sextant, to navigate through the layers of piled up data. A grammar to rank, divide, group; to identify species among thoughts; to name constellations of knowledge; to classify efforts, and find the proper lexicon for their titles.
I miss that. I realize that the “Advanced Search” feature of Google, with its form to be filled out, reproduces the Boolean system in a user-friendly way, but it neither has the poetry nor the flexibility the long coded sentences had for me.
It was very much like architecture, this building of intentions, of commands, designing gates for selected elements to pass through, defining one’s will with a sense of formalness which cleaned the air, getting rid of the agitation irritating my synapses, the muddy zones of affectivity that swallowed me. Rectifying hunches, articulating them around a syntax that made them intelligible, functional, useful. Writing to query one’s existential domain, systematizing questions so not to go astray, lost in irrelevant answers and meaningless statements.
So what do I do today? Searching remains an activity at which, I think, I still excel, colleagues looking up to me to find the information they need. If I can no longer take pride in the complexity of the quest, I now find some of it in the speed at which I find what’s required. But it’s no longer a therapy for my anxiety. It does not reverse my net tendency to make mistakes and misunderstand what's out there. It has become a repetitive exercise, a recipe producing slightly different variations of the same sauce. Or have I just become blasé?
The only efficient balm now rests with you. You remain the unexpected, the surprise, the wealth of possibilities impossible to narrow. Each one of you an infinite universe I will never encircle, for you are all in perpetual reconfiguration. So I quiet down, and shift the paradigms. I make lists. Things I could do for you. Lists of things I could buy for you. Things I can put away for you. Things I should bring you. And also lists of lists like maps to locate the roads, the lines, that lead to you.
Then, I feel better. I can burn the lists and start creating new ones. Different ones, for different times and moods, for different goals and results, for different ages and languages. With different pen colors and paper sizes. Selecting different order principles, by priorities, chronological, alphabetical, geographical. Sub-dividing the lists, inserting new sets of labels, sub-headings, and ideas for categorization, criteria unheard of for the exceptional situations you trigger. An unlimited text because you are complex, versatile, constantly changing and challenging. Beings with a true address, your own personal way to distribute potential through links, pathways and references, holding my hand every time to visit the new portals you've developed as you grow. Unthinkable for my lists to be comprehensive and up-to-date.
So you see, I’m fine.
Laolao
In the first years of the Internet, as Web pages multiplied, I didn’t feel that much enthralled by the phenomenon. I was slow to become impressed. What was the use of so much information if it stayed fragmented, disorganized? I disliked this project of a network aimed simultaneously at all directions, sprouting like wild plants in an unruly, unkept field. It was not until I got acquainted with search engines based on Boolean logic that I accepted to seriously peek at the World Wide Web.
I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I simply enjoyed creating a universe, spotting its elements, spelling a specific scope, the chaining of operations, shoveling my way through sub-sets, including, excluding, unions and intersections, AND, OR, and the NOTs, the use of parentheses, and the symbols, their properties. All of these bringing an arithmetical clarity to the digital world. Tracing directions within a disoriented practice. Neat signs, like degrees on a sextant, to navigate through the layers of piled up data. A grammar to rank, divide, group; to identify species among thoughts; to name constellations of knowledge; to classify efforts, and find the proper lexicon for their titles.
I miss that. I realize that the “Advanced Search” feature of Google, with its form to be filled out, reproduces the Boolean system in a user-friendly way, but it neither has the poetry nor the flexibility the long coded sentences had for me.
It was very much like architecture, this building of intentions, of commands, designing gates for selected elements to pass through, defining one’s will with a sense of formalness which cleaned the air, getting rid of the agitation irritating my synapses, the muddy zones of affectivity that swallowed me. Rectifying hunches, articulating them around a syntax that made them intelligible, functional, useful. Writing to query one’s existential domain, systematizing questions so not to go astray, lost in irrelevant answers and meaningless statements.
So what do I do today? Searching remains an activity at which, I think, I still excel, colleagues looking up to me to find the information they need. If I can no longer take pride in the complexity of the quest, I now find some of it in the speed at which I find what’s required. But it’s no longer a therapy for my anxiety. It does not reverse my net tendency to make mistakes and misunderstand what's out there. It has become a repetitive exercise, a recipe producing slightly different variations of the same sauce. Or have I just become blasé?
The only efficient balm now rests with you. You remain the unexpected, the surprise, the wealth of possibilities impossible to narrow. Each one of you an infinite universe I will never encircle, for you are all in perpetual reconfiguration. So I quiet down, and shift the paradigms. I make lists. Things I could do for you. Lists of things I could buy for you. Things I can put away for you. Things I should bring you. And also lists of lists like maps to locate the roads, the lines, that lead to you.
Then, I feel better. I can burn the lists and start creating new ones. Different ones, for different times and moods, for different goals and results, for different ages and languages. With different pen colors and paper sizes. Selecting different order principles, by priorities, chronological, alphabetical, geographical. Sub-dividing the lists, inserting new sets of labels, sub-headings, and ideas for categorization, criteria unheard of for the exceptional situations you trigger. An unlimited text because you are complex, versatile, constantly changing and challenging. Beings with a true address, your own personal way to distribute potential through links, pathways and references, holding my hand every time to visit the new portals you've developed as you grow. Unthinkable for my lists to be comprehensive and up-to-date.
So you see, I’m fine.
Laolao
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