Are You Addicted to Killing Time?

Strange sensation, the pull of words! The push of perusers! The tickle of the morning light full of the scent of java, and how it calls the fingers to the keyboard even before the mind has formed any thoughts, translated them into language, and sent them along the neural pathways down to the fingertips. And yet...I'm doing it. Like I have for countless millennia. So it seems. It is less than an addiction,yet more than OCD.

These days, it seems, especially now that my so-called day job has exploded into a full-time monstrosity, a certain portion of each day must be spent on connecting to one's myriad electronic venues. I speak of the ill-named social media. Perhaps Socialist media would be more apt, but I jest. The analogy cannot hold. Almost every day I can survey my classroom and find most students engaged with their little pocket pets. Go into a coffee shop and many are similarly engaged with the electronic genie. Everyone seeking engagement, stimulation, and yet they dare not raise their eyes to the next person. 

There has always been email to check (usually worth a moment's amusement), and the more accounts one has - each for its own nefarious purpose, I have no doubt - but now there is also Facebook and its multiple personas to monitor and manage, and the same perhaps for MySpace, Tumblr, and other similar "social networking" sites. (I wish I had coined that term; could be making billions of rubles off the rights by now!) Plus the noisy bird-filled tree branches Twitter - again with multiple accounts for slightly different agendas. And Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, and the newer WeChat and Whatsapp! I find myself unable to not be a part of them. Even LinkedIn has captured my attention.

And the Google+ which I'm still not sure how to operate or for what unique intention it was created. And for writers and readers, there are plenty of sites online such as Goodreads, of which I have become a member in order to introduce my books to an unreading world. I have also joined a site for those interested in steampunk, a genre or sub-genre (no fights, please) of science-fiction or utopian/dystopian fiction. And don't get me started on all the blogs my friends and a few strangers have created, maintain, and add to often enough to occasionally intrigue or amuse or infuriate me.

I find myself getting up earlier now than I really need to just to get myself ready for a day's normal effort simply to be able to check everything. I need to be sure the world is safe for social networking. I need to be certain that my previous comment(s) have been commented on - or rejected - or, worse, ignored. I shun arguments on walls and feeds - unless I'm right and everyone knows it. I must check that things are happening, that political views are in balance, that social issues are being taken care of by someone, someone other than me. And, for good measure, I usually check them all again, in order or perhaps only the most critical ones, before eventually logging off and leaving for the day's Grand Illusion.

On good days, that could occupy two full hours. On bad days, only an hour. Weekends, I tend to languish over anything that might engage me, that could possibly stimulate the pleasure centers of my brain. In other words, I could remain plugged in the better part of a Saturday. I feel refreshed, confident, and ultimately relaxed, knowing that I have checked in, that my field of audiences have been informed that I still exist. Some may be surprised, but that is another blog post. 

Perhaps the fact of my existence itself is enough to compel some to socially dismiss the network in favor of the other, older networks: what used to be the visual arena of ideas and entertainment, expanded a thousandfold. Yes, I speak of television, that splintered soul now languishing in the wastelands of electronica, hanging on for dear life with dancers and singers and the scandalous Hollywood mavens of malevolence, or whatever else can be stood in front of a camera and later mocked. It's endless, of course.

And so there remains, for an escape, the ancient art of linguistic scribbles pressed into wood shavings. I refer to the ubiquitous book. Such pleasures I have known with a good book between my hands! Such adventures I have had once I've fled the world to enrapture myself in! And still, that paradise, that comfy bed of brain bliss, even that venue is changing! Yes, the sacred objet-d'art is joining the electronic universe! With a few tweaks and more than a few reconsiderations ("Do I really want to say that? Will anyone actually read this?"), any book written today may be sent through the vast airwaves to a handheld mechanical device, a mere tablet with screen projecting...wait for it...a page of text upon which one's eyes may focus for pleasure, perversion, or perhaps a person's private pontification. The possibilities are perfectly pointless.

However, this is not the place for a discussion of the nature of the newest Age of Books. It may seem to be, given this post, and being one of those electronic utopias about which I am ranting, yet it is not. As I have stated, it is necessary to engage, to feel connected, to matter to someone somewhere - even a Twitter poet in a city on the opposite side of the world whose 140 characters touch something you thought long hidden, long lost deep inside your head. And so you type back a complimentary remark to connect albeit only electronically. Can you feel the sizzle of satisfaction?

Ah! The good ol' days of pen to paper, the envelope, the postage, the weeks getting there and the weeks of return, to read a response to something you had forgotten you'd sent. Those good ol' days. I'll bet you've forgotten them.

I must now click the "post" button and make my words part of the universe - praying that someday, some far-away intellectual on a far-away world, in some random, slavish moment of silence comes to encounter these words, translate them into ideas, and thereby know that I existed, once upon a very long time ago, a time which was less fairy tale than instructional manual, and closes its eye(s) in delightful calm after a good night's fine contemplation. Soon the aliens will arrive and ponder over all of our magnetic ink.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2018 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Big F ...or, whatever it takes to get your attention

Dear Blog Readers and associates,

It's no secret that I like to write. People who know me think my name is Writer. The flies on the wall see me writing almost every minute of my waking hours. That is, when I am not engaged in my so-called day job. And what is that day job, you may well ask? I teach writing. Ironic? That brings us full circle, doesn't it?

However, lately I have begun to notice the curse of writing. I tend to write too much! Case in point: this past weekend I cranked out 15,000 words to finish the draft of the third book in my sci-fi trilogy, THE DREAM LAND. Yes, you've heard it all before "...greatest interdimensional epic ever!" That weekend word count might be an all-time record for me.

In speaking about blog entries, however, I do tend to write too much. It is said that most readers of web pages typically scan the page in the shape of the letter F. (I do not expect my readers to believe me because I know they are appropriately skeptical of anything an obsessed fictioneer says, so here's one of many links: F-Shaped Pattern.) Readers read more closely the first paragraph, to see if they want or need to read more. (I wonder how this correlates to how college students read the required texts.) Then readers tend to scan down the left edge, picking up bullet lists, etc. If there is something else of interest, a bullet list representing quick and easy information, then they will slow down to read more, hence the second horizontal line of the F.

Have I gotten you to the second horizontal line of your F yet?

Probably not. I don't write that way. I write as I was taught years ago, pre-computer, pre-web page. I save the most impactful information for the end, when I summarize my argument and present a conclusion. The essay format. That's what I teach--because that's what Academia wants students to learn: well-thought out, well-organized, argumentative writing--taught in the English course but for use mostly in every other course of the curriculum. Not personal web pages or Facebook, or Tumblr, or the 140 character Tweet.

Are we there yet? To that second horizontal line? (Did the red catch your eye?)

In my last blog post I waxed poetic on the exigencies of exoskeletons in everyday life, and especially so in science-fiction literature, to which I am adding my epic trilogy. (Let me put that in red to draw your attention to it.) Because of my tendency to write too much, I easily outpaced many dear readers. I thus ran out of space for including an excerpt on exoskeleton use from THE DREAM LAND Book III "Diaspora". Fortunately, on my blog, I can do pretty much whatever the heck I want to do--even as I consider the limits of my readers' patience.

If you are ready for the second horizontal line of the F, here is that DREAM LAND III excerpt:

Chucker took the remote control and studied the buttons layout. He pressed the yellow circle at the top and the fuel cell taped in the small of the man’s back showed a yellow light and hummed. He pressed the other, smaller yellow buttons across the top and other parts of the exoskeleton came to life.

“It is aliiiiive,” said Chucker with a snort. “Let’s see if we can get you up on your feet.”

The joints moved smoothly with the power on and Chucker eased the man into a sitting position, the frame cradling his hips and supporting the back, firming automatically to hold him in that upright position. Chucker helped him turn his legs off the table, lowering them until one foot platform touched the concrete floor. The rest was done my remote control.

“Relax,” said Chucker, giddy with his success. “Let the machinery do the work. Trust it. It won’t drop you and you won’t stumble. I’ve seen it work. See, there’s a gyroscope in the unit that’s fixed to your back. But don’t resist the system or you could break some bones. Think of it as a robot that is walking you around and just enjoy the ride.”

A shadow fell on the floor.

“Excuse me,” said a voice not from the man in the exoskeleton.

Chucker froze. He was certain he had locked the door. He had. But a man had entered from the restroom side. He looked up.

“Sorry to bother you, but my boy....” The man was dressed as a tourist, and paused to wonder what was going on in the Education Center on a blustery October Saturday afternoon. “He really got to go and the restroom over at the African Market is out of order.”

Chucker saw a boy of six or seven hiding behind the man’s legs.

“Sure...aaa...go right ahead.”

Remain calm. They probably don’t have any concern for what you’re doing. They probably don’t know a serial killer has escaped his handlers and is hiding out with a madman from another world.

He heard the dad giving instructions to the boy, the words echoing back to him, and he thought of his own children, waiting so long for him to return, insistent as he was about completing this final mission.

“What’s that thing, mister?” asked the boy, proudly exiting the toilet, slow to hitch up his pants.

Chucker did not miss a beat as he stared at the man in the metal transport frame.

“It’s a robot. We’re getting ready for a carnival. Somebody is having a birthday party later and we are the entertainment.”

“That’s cool!” said the boy. “Does he do tricks?”

“Sure, he does.” Chucker pushed the right blue T-shaped button and the right arm swung from beside the body to a Heil Hitler salute and back down again. He pressed the left T-button and the left arm repeated the movement.

Too irreverent to the science? To a paralyzed man in a wheelchair being rescued/kidnapped via an exoskeleton? 

I'm sorry. No, I'm not.

I suppose I must simply accept my fate: Readers will rate this post an...





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(C) Copyright 2010-2013 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.