Sunday, February 10, 2008

A new post

So much has happened over these past few weeks -- or is it months? -- I don't even know where to begin. First and most importantly, I apologize to my subscribers that I haven't written sooner (but i have been able to cash those checks.) For some reason -- does anyone else have this problem? -- I can't write on the computer. Just can't do it. I try and try but always wind up reading about Barack Obama or how terrible the Orioles are. But even when I'm not distracted, there's something about the white screen that interrupts the message from head to hand. So I have to copy that long-thought-exinct, laborious drudgery of writing down my thoughts in illegible long hand and retyping them on the computer. And that's exactly what I'm doing right this second.

Which brings me (or brought me a few minutes ago) to a thought: however unique (or odd?) I may be, I know that I am not the only person in the entire world to suffer from typetile dysfunction (you don't have to laugh), and I wonder how much creativity is lost because of this "problem." I mean really, who's going to take the effort to handwrite notes and then type them up? Most of the people I work with don't even know how to use a pen. And looking at their handwriting and my own -- it's an art that seems to have had it's hey-day.

At a recent conference I attended, a speaker called computers "imagination machines." I think that for so many things this couldn't be truer. When I open up Google Earth, when I type anything into a search engine, when I listen to pandora.com, when I see kids programming computer games, I couldn't agree more. But with so many games online and articles about Brittney Spears, computers may have become just another means to escape from our imaginations, rather than something that could spur us to actually think. And we spend so much time staring at the computer screen, we miss all of the wonderful things going on around us...

OK, I can't read my writing anymore. But I'll check in again soon.