In THE SPIRAL: Connected Stories & Fragments from the Virtual Future

VOICE/FRAGMENT: 'To Interface... with Thoughts' [7XP]

TO INTERFACE... WITH THOUGHTS

I was having trouble finishing my writings about my virtual worlds, especially with so much going on in my real world. For all the promise and the ideas they held, I just could never find the time to finish them. So, I thought; why bother to finish them? Maybe other people might. Maybe I would, one day, if they were really worth it. Besides, beginnings are more interesting than endings, because at the beginning there can be so many possibilities, so many paths to guess at... And besides, 'endings', well... they always lead on to new beginnings, and rarely finish the way they do in real life.

But it's also the case that beginnings may start to overlap with others... especially, I found, the ones about the latest interfaces, and their eager, hungry new users...

I liked reading the breaking tech stories in the morning, seeing how, everyday, technology was changing people's lives, either imprisoning them or inspiring them via new ways to communicate, express, to work and to belong, and, for those purposes build certain machines and interfaces. And, just as I liked to read, so did I start to find people to write about or write for. Coffee always helped, maybe too much (and a meeting with an old colleague named John Leaven also helped – a great deal in fact.)

Gradually, I started to find that these people began to reappear and have various parts to play in the way that certain technology – like its powerful interfaces – began to change, even overtake, as well as to empower, both in subtle or sudden ways, their own lives and the lives of others.

These 'players' gradually began to form a timeline in particular - ok, a beginning and an end, I suppose – in the continuing story of how our natures fare, when they enter into enhanced spaces for desire, learning, wonder, inspiration, business... and are left to wander there.

And so it's these writings that fall or have fallen loosely into the story, or the idea, of one, major, ultimate interface... The Spiral Interface...

Even as I write I feel the call of my own gear, hanging up - ready - in its special place, for continuing an access into a more instant, 'super-time' of building and communicating, working and belonging - actual interfacing - and cease this game of writing and thinking. Although, writing has its own pace in the formulation of thoughts. It will always - I hope - be a most potent medium for reflection. But it's also just one more path back into the playing, where many play blind, knowing only a little of why, or how, or what it is they are playing...

Just like in that old line from an Paul Simon song:

Half of the time we're gone
But we don't know where,
And we don't know where...

You see, we're all playing 'games', these reflections, these experiences of nature, that can test our nature. They are reflections where we apply our nature and our skills, however simple or complex. They are all linked and are a part of Life - that living game we all must play...

Take me back to The Spiral...

Of course, I feel that summons too, but will stay a little longer, lost in thought. For maybe it's helpful to know or share a little about 'the why' and 'the what', if I can convey something of them.

You can stay too, if you can spare the time, away from your game...

[FRAGMENT COMPLETED! +7 XP : BACKGROUND ITEM - see more under XP + Ranking]