medium

I use a variety of media to not communicate. I can ignore you in ways I never could ignore you before.

In the old days, I could just not send you a letter. (Okay, before that I could have not painted you a painting on the wall of the cave, but I wanted to keep it to the last millennium or two).  More recently, I could not send you a cable, or I could not call you.

Now, I can not IM you, not contact you through facebook, not tweet, not send a text message, not comment on flickr or on your blog or on your comment on my blog. I can not jaiku. I can not email you. I can not keep up on your wiki or reply to your seesmic or your DM.

I can be rude or insensitive or cold or ignorant in ways that could have never been imagined in previous generations. In the old days, my Swedish grandfathers were just taciturn. Everyone thought they were wise. Now, they would be uncommunicative.

My current challenge is significant because I am trying to figure out how to connect with a whole new physical community. I am realizing that the sheer volume of possible connections (number of people multiplied by number of mediums) is overwhelming my ability to keep current.

The temptation is to resort to broadcasting. For me, this blog is one way of such broadcasting. It’s a way to let people in all of my worlds know that I know that you and I and all of us are in trouble. We want to connect more than we ever have. We have more means than we ever have. We have access to more individuals than we ever have.

And more than ever, we are feeling kind of…medium.