Saturday, November 06, 2010

Virtual adventure

My phone rang just after seven this morning. Michaela forgot her floor music for the first gymnastics meet of the season in Waukesha.

Shelly's idea was for me to burn another CD and meet her on the freeway - I had the song on my computer, as Michaela had made a copy at my house. As I was booting up the computer (and myself), Shelly called back and said that it wouldn't work, Green Bay GymStars were on the floor first in the rotation. Meanwhile, Kayla texted her friends; no one else had the same music, but in the past, others had emailed their song to someone at the meet who played it from their laptop. Shelly called the Waukesha Y. They thought they could burn a copy to disc if we sent the song data. I emailed the mp3 to Shelly's phone, Kayla's phone, and the email address that Shelly had gotten from the Waukesha Y.

I just heard from Shelly - it worked. And Kayla got an 8.0 on her floor routine!

Time away

As time is a construction of the human mind, this post is only relatively relevant. But I like to tell stories, so here's another:

I haven't blogged for awhile, but I've still been telling stories. Maybe I'm not inventing a bestselling kitchen appliance or negotiating peace in the Middle East, but I believe I am living a worthwhile life. I am choosing to continue to progress. Though life is comfortable in stasis - those moments when my nest has been built comfy and the winds of change are calm. It does not last. The next front moves in, stirs things up; I perceive, adapt, and rebuild. And I share with you, what I choose. You... the world, others.

As the technology of communication and information changes, so does our relationship with that technology. And it seems that our ideas are being shared more quickly, and spread more widely; however, the size of the packet of data is shrinking. I've taken to sharing bullets of information about my life and mind on Facebook. Sometimes, I'll share longer stories face to face with a living human being, or an email. I rarely use the phone for conversation. And I rarely write a letter.

So zooming out, I see a shifting of the balance of our information sharing. In the past, we would tell long stories, to one person (or a few people) written on paper, infrequently. We are moving towards sharing shorter stories, many times a day, to many people at once. I don't know if the total amount of information being shared has changed much - the total energy spent on that section of our lives may be relatively constant.

A storyteller telling a story about storytelling. And I didn't even know where I was going with this until I started typing. I just had a cup of coffee, a little time, and a nagging feeling that I should post something on my blog.