Is there a point where it is no longer possible to learn by the seat of your pants? Until 1993, I had never sat at a computer keyboard. In fact, whenever someone suggested I might enjoy computers because I enjoy graphic design, I would very bluntly interject, “There is nothing in the world to match the art one can create with a pencil and paper and count me out, I don’t need technology.” In my mind, at the time, this pronouncement was my only and unshakable truth. Yeah, right!

I eventually gave in, just a bit, only to type a letter. After all, typing a letter would not be an insult to “real” art, and doing it with a computer was not any worse than using a typewriter. Of course, since I had keyboard and screen in front of me, it would not hurt to discover what this “Internet” creature looked like, just out of curiosity. I also agreed to learn how to use email, which I justified by convincing myself that it was an acceptable tool for someone who likes to write.

In a matter of less than a month, I had the computer on before nine AM each day; I had started designing a brochure to accompany my artwork and a website for a church I attended at the time. I was hooked, fascinated and totally inspired. Whatever synapses I had had to develop in the first moments of figuring this out were now multiplying exponentially. I just got it. Every step led to a better, faster understanding of the next step. I was in high extrapolation mode. However, I learned all of this much in the same manner I had learned to play the flute; on my own, by imitation, trial and error, and by associating symbols with results – sections of HTML language in the case of web design and notes in the case of music. For example, to this day, I can place my fingers correctly on my flute to match the notes I see on a page, but I cannot name the notes on the page, nor could I play a note someone names.

When the need arose for me to design a database for my employer, I felt confident I would simply sit in front of my screen, summon my expanded network of synapses into action, click through a few initial frames and figure it out without batting an eyelash. Instead, I stared and blinked in disbelief. I was barely able to understand how to begin. I had no point of reference to build on. This was new, uncharted territory, my brain had lived through at least ten trips around the sun since my first encounter with computers, technology had changed, and my synapses shut down. For the first time in my adult life, I had to take a class. For a solitary person who had lived many years with the illusion that “I can figure this out by myself”, it was embarrassing and demoralizing.

Interestingly, I soon realized I simply needed to begin to learn a new set of symbols and a new technological language for my mind to fire up and, once more, connect the dots at the speed of light. By the time I was done playing with this new technology, five years had gone by and I was in the market for a new job. By then, I knew a lot about desktop publishing, web design, database design, spreadsheets, and web applications. And I knew nothing. As I browsed the many possible job openings I qualified for, I came across lists of programs in which a perfect candidate should be proficient, and I had not a single idea what some of these employers were talking about.

Therefore, it appears that while my own revolutions around the sun last approximately twelve months, man made technology evolves synapses of its own in a matter of days. I am always fascinated by the young people who have their hands in every possible corner of technology and the internet on a daily basis because, frankly, I cannot keep up.

There was a sort of breaking point at the beginning of the twentieth century when everything accelerated, but any one who was not directly involved with this movement evolved a wee bit slower. At least I did. I am a child of the sixties. I am certainly a fast learner, but without keeping a hand in every technology I have ever begun to learn, I fall light years behind every few days I step back. Moreover, the learning curve is more difficult every time. I am like a medieval person who has been preserved in cryogenics for centuries and awakened in the current modern age. I have enough understanding of technology to put two and two together and make sense of the new world around me, but not enough to move along with it without being stunned and confused.

Is this typical of all human beings? Perhaps it is recorded somewhere that, throughout history, humans could only grasp so much within their time until they reached a mute point, a place where the vastness of it all stops one in their tracks. Perhaps this point of transfixed amazement is a necessary step; the one from which new inventions take root or where we realize there is something much greater than we are at play.

Slainte!

Ever since I encountered my first computer, sat at the keyboard and began exploring all the functions and cyber universe, I have been hooked. This tool is utterly fascinating to me. For some reason, I seem to have caught on rather easily even though I was already in my thirties when I began. I very quickly learned to design web pages using HTML codes. Why I understood this was beyond me, but what is even further from my understanding is how someone's brain would have to be wired to even begin to conceive the intricate pattern of electronic components and bits of programming required to create a machine that can write, draw, communicate, expand, connect, calculate, be modified at will by the user, self-regulate, update itself and so on. The intricacy of this device is so, so ahead of what we are essentially, just an animal, with a digestive system and arms and legs and a brain to drive it all.

Recently, I have become even more fascinated by what I now call the "cyber generation". When I began researching sites I could use to blog or write, I discovered a network of high energy folks who had posted articles, all different one from the other mind you, on as many as twenty different writing or blogging sites, all interconnected in some fashion or another, all supported by referral program widgets and personal ventures they had initiated. The instructions alone, for these sites, are mind-boggling. The extent of work that goes into every detail of writing, formatting, providing suggestions for networking, lists of tools for monetizing.... the very term, "monetizing", all so completely developed, thought through, detailed, broken down to the last bit. It is a completely new language, a new way to look at the world and see it as a whole, yet also as every single particle that forms the whole. All this, all at once.

According to diligent instructions regarding ways to ensure success with one's blogging or writing career on these sites, networking and elaborate content are essential. One should not settle for the one blog entry, the one webpage, the one subject that strikes their fancy. No. Readers want more. Readers will not read you or click on your affiliate programs if you do not provide an intense experience with an infinite web of possibilities for additional materials at the click of a button or link. For someone like me, straight out of the sixties, straight out of a more literary background, this was, well, too much information. I quickly let go of the urge to follow in these imaginary footsteps, in much the same manner I would not insist on becoming a rocket scientist. I leave that to the rocket scientists at heart.

So I settled with a couple of blogs and one ezine, which I update at my own pace for the simple pleasure of writing. When so many avenues are open before us, it seems we have two choices: Committing to managing a variety of paths or committing to recognizing where and how we fit in. It all boils down to accepting one's own style. There is no competition. There is only distortion. The distortion lies in thinking that since so many people can do all this now, and since it clearly works for them, I should do it also to demonstrate that I am also capable of that level of multi-tasking, or because someone might tell me that I am missing out on opportunities to expand my territory, my network, by not jumping into the pool of cyber-connectivity. In reality, no one is saying this.

The individuals, mostly fairly young I suspect, whose passion it is to develop this cyber world of theirs and share their success stories are doing just that, sharing their story, sharing their joy, sharing the joy of being the creative person they are capable of being, sharing the joy of honoring their dreams and talents. They lay it all out for me. They do not hold back. Their ability to explain and tutor is as intricate and expansive as the computer programs they develop. Their generosity knows no bounds. Perhaps this is the ultimate lesson in networking: Freely share what you know, allow others to see so clearly that they can decide the right path for themselves without hesitation.

I am content with my little piece of blog as it is, for the shear joy of writing, and I remain fascinated by the ever-expanding creativity of the new generations. I wonder, once more and repeatedly, how it is possible to participate in war, segregation, discrimination, any level of inflicting suffering and pain on others and on other creatures when we are capable of such magnificent and mind-opening creativity. Perhaps this "cyber generation" is on its way to connecting all of us through one giant web whose hub is a greater sense of fraternity. I hope so.

Slainte!