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"Time goes from present to past." - Dogen Zenji |
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conceived: 5 may 99.
finalized: 15 may 99, 3:14 am.
spinning: Chicane, Far From The Maddening Crowds
the web is guaranteed to fuel and accelerate human evolution.
most problems -- between people, and within a person -- can be traced to the idea that people "forget what it was like" to be on the other side of the coin ... to forget what it felt like to be inexperienced, to be naive, to be a child, to be unlearned, to be bullied, to be paralyzed with fear, to have boundless joy, to have simple faith in something.
when we lose touch with our past, we lose the natural ability to relate to other people who are going through those things in the here and now. we laugh at the driver turning the wrong way down a one-way street. we snicker at someone who asks a "dumb question", or who misses a joke with a double-entendre or sexual innuendo. we look at someone consumed with joy and giddiness like they are an idiot. we objectify a person as being nothing more than a beautiful face or body. we prey upon those who look helpless. we disconnect.
the natural progression of time through one's life means that we inevitably lose grasp of our frames-of-mind and emotional states in earlier life.
if a person during childhood puts up the beginnings of a personal website, recording early thoughts, experiences, photos, interpretations, memories, pains, joys,
with sound, word, photos, drawings, recorded voice, any kind of creative outlet,
and continues to build upon it regularly and add to it as time goes on as they get older and move through life, chronicling important moments large and small,
eventually they will have a fluid snapshot of one's life's memories -- far more exact and accurate and continuous than natural, organic memory can retain and provide on its own.
and when we look back through the website, revisiting old memories preserved in those pages, they will trigger even more detailed memories surrounding that chronicled event or feeling -- we'll remember that point in time, how we felt, what we were thinking, even more vividly -- the website-memory will act as a stepping-stone.
just as a photo album brings back memories of that point in time, a personal website, with so much more of one's essence captured and archived, has the capacity to bring back many more memories and more detailed nuances surrounding a memory.
the logical progression of this is, as a website gets larger and larger, becoming a long-term archive of the self, the effect will be the ability to continuously remember more of one's entire life as a fluid recollection, not as scattered isolated random occasional memories and remembrances.
with the ability to have access to so many more points in time, more life experiences / mistakes / wisdom will stay fresh and conscious, not forgotten or suppressed. the website now acts as a supplement brain. as we review it we keep it more fresh in our mind. it doesn't matter if other viewers don't get the full context. what does matter is that the author, looking over old entries and creations, has the full context triggered within.
and when we notice someone in the present day or in the future, doing something or saying something "naive" or "stupid" or "brutal" or "myopic" or "delirious" or "prejudiced", our reaction will be, "i know what that feels like". we will be able to relate more and more to those that presently we are quick to scoff at, to look down upon, to lose touch with and sight of.
we will naturally empathize more. we will remember more than our brains allow. we will grow and change, through the mere availability of having our entire life at our fingertips.
this can only cause us to evolve.