Amen.

Made this to put it up over my desk. Love these lines, and the song too! (Click on the picture for the full-sized version)

A Return to Poetry

I stood by the road
And watched them rush by me
As day turned to night, dusk to dawn
The most intriguing, ceaseless art you'll see

She brought me out of my trance
Quizzical look, hand on my shoulder
O Traveller, wither your destination?
You feel not the rain, nor the wind ever colder

Said I to her, you people move so fast...
Tracing curves in space and time with alacrity
Yet, in my world, I'm convinced you don't get as far as I do
For I subscribe to the principle of relative velocity.

Wiredness=weirdness?

Today, I read an article in the NYT by Mark Bittman chronicling his attempts to break away from the so-called electronic addiction that afflicts a huge percentage of the population in this country, and in many other societies around the world. He describes the process as one that required a lot of effort, but one that eventually deserved the hard work because it restored some perspective on how important being connected actually is. I quote him:

"I would no more make a new-agey call to find inner peace than I would encourage a return to the mimeograph. But I do believe that there has to be a way to regularly impose some thoughtfulness, or at least calm, into modern life — or at least my version. Once I moved beyond the fear of being unavailable and what it might cost me, I experienced what, if I wasn’t such a skeptic, I would call a lightness of being. I felt connected to myself rather than my computer. I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop."

I've had my own discussions with friends, mostly other graduate students, who have admitted that they sometimes feel rather uncomfortable with their (growing?) dependence on the internet as a means of spending time. We've all agreed that if only we could spend less time online, we could explore other options. Some of us would like to re-establish some good habits that we had in the past, such as reading books, or going biking, or simply trying a little harder to explore the social side of graduate school (it does exist!). Others would like to pick up a new hobby, start a gym regimen or simply spend more time studying.

I've done more than my share of experimenting with different degrees of detachment from the internet at various points of time, and it's a trivial conclusion that the problems arise only when one has extra time at hand, or should we say, unallocated time. Back in the times when I didn't have any regular internet access (nor any need for it), time had to be accounted for. And that needed planning, and reaching out to other people to see if there was anybody else who was struggling to keep the clock ticking at a comfortable pace. It didn't seem to be that big a deal at that time, but the fact that I'm bothering to note that should indicate how far the boat has gone down the river.

The beauty in that system was the vulnerability and need of the agents in it. I was dependent upon entities not under my control to fulfill my needs. On the surface, the internet did away with most of that deficiency by giving me all the information, all the music, all the video and all the tools I would probably need to stay in touch with friends. However, it created the possibility of being left high and dry when the bubble finally burst.

In that light, Bittman's conclusions are almost obvious and his delight and satisfaction quite palpable. However, I don't think that the same inferences are applicable for people like me, in situations like mine. At the outset, I'd say that I agree with him when he says that being cut off allowed him to think and feel one with himself again. If I have a computer screen staring me in the face for most of my waking hours, I can hardly avoid being drawn to it, even if it is on the most acceptable of bases. If I'm thinking about something, and I realise I have a need for some information or some reference at that point to help me proceed with my thinking, I'm going to try and find it on the net immediately. And unless I'm really, really short of time, what with the marvellous cross-linking on Wikipedia, one click will lead to another, and time will be history very soon!

That having been said, I differ with Mark Bittman because I feel it's really counter-productive for me to try and avoid the internet or other forms of connectivity. At this stage of my life and my career, I think that the internet can only help me if I use it with a measure of wariness (I was going to use 'self-control', but that sound like, and is, preaching) with regards to what the benefit versus cost is at a certain point on the usage curve. It's not very different from the concept of marginal profit; after a while, it ceases to be a good idea.

In addition, it's easier to avoid the internet on a weekday, especially with the kind of schedule I have, because no matter how much work I do, I always have more to consider. But that turns the tables on me, because if I want to grab a 15 minute break by taking a walk outside the lab, it's never going to be 15 minutes. And that's both the good thing and the not-so-good thing about real people: You can't always get what you want from them on your terms. It's definitely a gameplan that's too iffy for my liking. So, I conclude that I should have the internet ready when in such a situation, so that I can (hopefully, and note that this now depends to a much greater extent only on me) switch off and switch on as per my requirement.

What about the weekend? Well, on the weekend, the theme is mostly sleeping. And while awake, it's very, very tough to stay away because if I'm at home, then I'm probably in a fairly crabby mood anyway because none of my plans took off the right way (or remained grounded in a worst case), and in that situation I don't want to make my temper worse by trying hard to make something work for me when it's already looking bleak. So, what better way to feel better than to vent my spleen on someone who happens to be online at that time. It's a very effective stress release mechanism (for want of better options, I'll admit), and it works much better on people at a distance than on those in the next room.

So, I think I'll stick with the net for now, try and make the most of it while I can, and then maybe one day, when I really have interesting things to do all the time, I can come back and moralise on the ills of internet addiction :)

The Best Last Lines of Any Book I've Ever Read

"I have at least one old man's ill: I suffer from insomnia. Late at night I lie in my bed, listening to the dank and hopeless sound of infirm men and women coughing their courses deeper into old age. Sometimes I hear a call-bell, or the squeak of a shoe in the corridor, or Mrs. Javits's little TV tuned to the late news. I lie here, and if the moon is in my window, I watch it.

I lie here and think about Brutal, and Dean, and sometimes William Wharton saying, That's right, nigger, bad as you'd want. I think of Delacroix saying, Watch this Boss Edgecombe, I teach Mr. Jingles a new trick. I think of Elaine, standing in the door of the sunroom and telling Brad Dolan to leave me alone. Sometimes I doze and see that underpass in the rain, with John Coffey standing beneath it in the shadows. It's never just a trick of the eye, in these little dreams; it's always him for sure, my big boy, just standing there and watching. I he here and wait. I think about Janice, how I lost her, how she ran away red through my fingers in the rain,
and I wait.

We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long."