virtual reality

I've turned off my virtual light on the world - resigned my membership from digital clubs - turned in my key to the electronic gossip gallery = I've quit Myspace and Facebook.

So far - so good. When my email isn't enough, I check the newspaper now. My brain has to skip that time-suck of a beat and move on to something else, something more worldly than a collection of pixelly pictures of my oldest conocimientos.

It makes me wonder, is it better to spend time reading about the mundane details of my most far-spread least contacted friends - "S0 and so is spreading around her dissertation," "Such and such are feeling sick," "Him and her went on another trip to another place and took another photo! - or is it better to read the New York or LA Times, the Washington Post, the Onion - "Bear Stearns Rich Old Guys Arrested!" "Obama still continues to push buttons and kick ass" "Area man has a sad little routine when he needs cheering up!"?

I'm going to say...I will put my money on...well, really either. The news of the rich and famous is only interesting in regards to the scale they accomplish it on. I suppose if good and interesting things are done on large scale then we appreciate them more - they seem more significant. But then again, to see that my old classmate who used to inspire me by running a marathon at the same time as the school newspaper has now has two children still gives me important insights into how the world can work. Do we learn from lessons of strangers or our friends? Probably both. I guess the question here was, how do we distract ourselves? Do we entertain ourselves with the external world or a more closely connected one?

I chose to get off the sites to avoid conflict, avoid wasting my time, avoiding trying to pay attention to everyone I've ever known doing so in hopes that I can pay more attention to the details of the lives that I do know now. My current friends, my current loves, my current life. That is - I'm giving up my virtual life for my real one. I'm giving up the idea of everyone for the reality of one.

When I lived in NYC _and_ when I had realized it was the "only place to be" I noticed that non-new york new yorkers, that is emmigrants or immigrants yet-to-be, were always reading the NYTIMES with a religious devotion. It was as if those outside of the city somehow could really keep apprised of the city and therefore the world by consuming the black ink and off-white page, leaf by leaf.

As a new-yorker in new york proper, I rarely touched the thing. It was as if the city itself was enough, and that reading about it on top of living it would have been some sort of overdose, and self-centered at that. Like a stage-mom searching the tabloids for news on her daughter, it would consume me, instead - the wide review of life as I knew it.

Of course, that left me well and good ignorant about many things. But I always had the comfort that paper was there when I needed it. Now - on a Sunday morning, that paper will only ever be delivered onto my laptop screen as long as I live in this town of 16,000, Donna, Texas. I believe I can get the paper in my box, if I wait a day or two.

So I am up, it is a warm beautiful sunday morning, and I've made my coffee and now I'll click through the Times, page by virtual page.