My mother, who passed away 15 years ago, just missed the landmark television event, the O.J. Simpson trial. Clare was a news junkie. She had a passion for getting into people’s business and this extended from her neighbors to celebrities. When I heard the O.J. verdict, I was returning from lunch tuned to a radio station. I sat in the car stunned–not by the verdict, necessarily, but by the culmination of public display of private drama. “Wow,” I thought, “Clare would have really loved all this.”
As I become a blogger, as I read the various texts assigned in the APOC program, I’m thinking again about Clare. How would she react to the internet age? Would she fear it? Would she embrace it?
I think Clare would have become an internet grandma. My mother was always enthusiastic about new things. She liked adventure. But most of all, my mother was a communicator. She wrote me long letters when I was in college when my roommates parents were satisfied with a weekly long distance phone call. Clare enjoyed getting her thoughts on paper and exploring deep into issues that concerned her (especially about my boyfriend whom she didn’t like.)
Clare sat down with a pen and paper. Her distractions were physical—dishes in the sink, a son practicing tuba in the next room, a husband returning home from the local bar. I sit down with a laptop. My distractions are physical, sure. (In the last two days, I have organized my closet by color-coded hangars AND have cleaned out the rain gutters.)
My virtual distractions present an even bigger challenge:
- I’m using a new version of Word and I really want to click around and see what new cool things I can do. I resist.
- When I start to craft a sentence about internet for the “have-nots,” I really want to google the statistics on computers in impoverished countries. I resist.
- An email from my daughter’s school flashes on my screen and I am tempted to click over to my calendar to see if her spring break coincides with USC’s. I resist.
- Thinking about spring break reminds me of a trip I have to plan in February and I really should go see what Southwest airfare is. I resist.
- When I mention Jeff Cole’s name in Blog #1, I actually do google him to make sure I get his title correct. Resisting here would be stupid.
Mostly, I’m resisting because I know that one click will lead to another and another and another. I don’t know where I’ll land, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be back here for a while. I’m learning what it’s like to be a writer today. I’m giddy with the endless choices I have.
The way that we “do work” is being revolutionized. Do all these choices at the ready improve our lives? Are we being bombarded with too much at once? Who is going to separate out the really great stuff? And, one of my favorite questions: why isn’t there any central control? For example, we’ve given Amazon the monopoly on online books. Where’s the Library of Congress when you need it? (Stay tuned for another blog on this subject.)
So, my brain is loaded with snippets of ideas about society, community, creativity, connectivity, web-based software and venture capitalists. Is this what blogging is all about? I like it. Hey, Clare, guess what? I’m an APOC student. I can succumb to temptation. It’s my job.
