the great outdoors
July 10, 1996

So I'm sitting here, on my porch back at home, listening to the stream run through my front yard with that satisfying swish, and hearing the occasional car drive past on the road. So many questions come to mind about life, and yet so few of them actually seem relevant. I'm sitting here trying to figure out whether or not I can use a computer and still be able to enjoy the outdoors. I think that I can.

Now there's a little voice inside of me thinking that I should put the machine down, but a pen to paper and try it that way. But I can type a whole lot faster than I can write freehand (and still come up with something ledgable that is). I really see no thing wrong with this picture. The laptop is silent, the only noise coming from is is the occasional click of the keyboard (and while those clicky IBM keyboards will always hold a special place in my heart, there is something to be said for silence). I can look up from my work and take in the world around me. I can still feel the cool breeze against my face.

I feel that there is a place in this world for actual, tangible "worldly" experiences, and I also feel that there is a place for the online, virtual "frivolous" experiences. I have had many discussions with people about how I can spend a large part of my time with my computer, conversing with people I've never met, and probably will never meet. How I can stay glued to my chair and my screen on a nice summer evening. How I'm wasting precious moments of my life. How there's nothing online that I can't g et from actually getting out of my house and experiencing it for myself instead of through a computer.

I believe that the experiences that I have online, on my computer are just as real as the experiences I can have walking down the street. They are just as much a part of my life as walking along and feeling the grass crunch beneath my toes, or petting my dog, or spilling a glass of milk. The life I have online is still part of my life, and I feel that the time spent there is not wasted time, but is rather just another aspect of my life, another part of me.

While I will be the first to admit that spending all of one's life on the computer with no interaction with other people is not good for a person, I would be fooling myself if I said that my life without computers would me more fulfilling and meaningful. I enjoy using my computer, talking with people I've never met, letting other people in on aspects of my life.

That's part of me, and there's no way I can let it go.

jcn@brown.edu

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