I Am Alarmed

by

Hayden Wayne

I am alarmed. The record industry feels CDs are no longer a viable economic path to pursue, when competing with downloads. On demand will soon enough replace buying DVD movies, as well. DVD movies have all but replaced the need to communally experience a film in a theater, for the privacy of one’s home. But what once was the singular hearth-like gathering before the television, has been siphoned away by the personal computer, which is just that, personal. With every member of the family having their own computer, on demand has now even devolved the communal home experience into solo consumption.

What’s next, down loading books? The neighborhood bookstore, let alone library, where curious literary souls congregate, will evaporate into the individual orbiting of on-line surfers in an isolated paperless world. And what will happen if we can no longer afford to buy paper. Our consumption and presentation of ideas will be reliant upon the health of our computers and not only the digital server, but the speed in which it can up and download.

It’s no longer cost effective to have any physical connection with product. Our experiences with nature are viscerally recreated on-line. We transport ourselves virtually rather than personally. Soon enough, scientists may ultimately find it necessary to eradicate hunger by changing us into heliotropic virtualists.

Who can ultimately prevent a perverting of content by anyone more computer savvy. Hacking themselves into their self-importance, they will twist information and smugly breed chaos. No individual will be safe. Only as a collective, where we can compare Truths, so to know if they are authentic, will we prevent the final prophecy of a “Fahrenheit 451” from happening; where books are finally outlawed and only able to be passed on through memory and oral rendering.

As we become more isolated, there will be no witnesses to the abuse of power perpetrated on selected individuals. Who will we have to corroborate our experiences? When we need to speak with someone, will we appear schizophrenic only talking to ourselves? Will the ultimate act of love making be to masturbate? This isolation is going to destroy the human in us. Ultimately, corporations will decide our mating partners on projections of profitability and when and how many we are to issue as offspring.

On line communication totally eliminates any humanism in the delivery of content. We don’t hear the lilt of the voice, the intensity of delivery, the sigh, the giggle, the struggle to formulate our words of expression ... Text is dry, asexual and only as emotional as the receiving party’s subjective interpretation.

Once something becomes depersonalized, there is no way to tell its authenticity. It is the comparison of experience, which defines whether something is truth or folly.

Personally, I find a computer cold as compared to the warmth of a book. My books are very intimate explorations and as a result, I never lend them. I may even highlight words, lines and paragraphs that have affected me, for revisiting.

The same is true for my many CDs. Yes, I have been comforted by downloads of specific audio files that were no longer in print, as well as not having to pay for an entire album, when there was only one “cut” worth buying.

But beyond the reality of finer audio quality, each CD, like a book, is a personal piece of evidence, my hand held collaborative sensory experience. I use my eyes as well as my ears. I use my touch as I go through the process of unwrapping the product, unveiling it. I smell the ink and the paper. There is the collective experience of seeing it, reading the text, or simultaneously reading the lyrics as a song unfolds itself. Short of physically witnessing the performer in concert, this is the next closest to a live performance.

Let’s face it. If it is our desire to communicate, wouldn’t one assume the more sensory stimulus that is communicated, the greater the experience?

4/18/09