Downloaded...

At one time or another, we all live vicariously. Sometimes, it's just a flight of fancy, or identification with the hero in a favorite movie. Sometimes, it's watching children and grandchildren experience the rigors and wonders of growing and learning about life. But I wonder about the possibility of getting lost in a virtual world.

I work in an office, sometimes. I work at home, sometimes. However, I spend the majority of my working hours immersed in the flickering light of a computer screen, my thoughts traveling at incredible speeds across a network unimaginable when I was growing up. I dawned on me, as I was waiting for my e-mail to download, that I spend a lot of time waiting for information to download to my screen and then (sometimes longer) for it to download to my brain. Often it's as though I were afloat on an ocean of information (often only an inch deep) in a paper boat full of matches. At other times, however, I ponder getting lost out there, left behind in a dark place, waiting because I lost the connection to my life...

Mick


Downloaded

In the daily online commuter race,
I'm often the first one out of the gate.
If I don't win, I at least show, or place,
Unless an unforeseen crash makes me late.
But is this a life, this online struggle?
Am I living, here on the Internet?
Is there a warm place out here to snuggle?
Or will I finish angry and upset,
Found stranded alone in the online night -
On an isolated unmarked byway;
A block and a half, just past the stoplight,
Off the information superhighway?
I feel I'm stuck at the side of the road,
While I'm waiting for my life to download.

Mick McKellar
November 2007