sw00361a-hermit.stance

Autobio



 Hermit Stance


 Why am I persisting in placing my past and passing thoughts online
 only, especially since few are aware of my presence here &/ most
 of those few stay away?  The main reason is--in spite of whatever--
 I, in general, do honestly feel more comfortable here.  I do not like
 having to slant my thoughts and the manner in which I present them
 toward the biases of some editor.  Also, in most cases, I find the
 submission guidelines too restrictive.  I am not oblivious to the lone-
 liness of being online, or/ of the difficulties of so being, or/ of the
 uncertainties.  However, the immediacy it affords is an attraction
 hard to resist.  I did manage to stop playing online games a few
 years back after Lycos sent me this message:  "Thank you for 
 letting us waste your time."  Even so, I know I may still be wasting
 my time, but that is a risk I am willing to take.  Definitely, revising--
 a nearly constant activity for me--is magically easy in cyberspace.
 Further, it is easier to be (even for this non-techie) creative in new
 ways in cyberspace.  For instance, I have a ribbon-like poem in
 this journal.  It covers a span of six days, and each day's word
 ribbon has its own color.  The reason I'm using the background
 color you see here is because that poem has a white ribbon day.
 Further still, a couple days ago I finally found an HTML ASCII
 table that contains the information I was seeking; and so today I
 accessed it to learn what codes would enable me to insert   é   in
 a French poet's name, and to insert   ü   in a German poet's name.
 The degree symbol was another special character I learned how
 to code from that table.  I'm not big on aphorisms, but I've written
 a few.  I made an entry for most of them.  One is:  When it comes
 to learning, the opportunities are everywhere.  I've always done a
 lot of reading.  These days I do most of my reading online. 
 - 
                                                                                  This
 WWW/Internet we are inhabiting is T. de Chardin's noosphere, the
 fourth fold of the human brain (as I see it), the magic carpet of 
 our evolution into ever / more fascinating realms.  Through it, this
 sphere of knowledge, we aretranscending toward T. de Chardin's
 Omega Point; and we will arrive there so long as we cease
 making those missteps which militate against our continuance as
 a viable species.  Mainly becausewe use fossil fuels, Michio Kaku
 informs us we are a Type zero civilization, and that advancing from
 it to a Type 1 (and there are yet higher types in his pantheon)
 civilization/ is fraught with dangers.  Carl Sagan said that the hulls
 our intelligences reside in are among the weakest of those forms
 one could imagine might exist in the universe.  Nonetheless, even as
 we are, we are deeply blessed, we are incredible; but it is exactly
 because we are so we must walk with care through each sacred now
 as we dream of zahv-trah   and re/member dots gone.   



Brian A. J. Salchert