Sun Sets Red

Meandering around online, I came across a Slashdot article that talks about an article in which Mr. Bradbury proclaims his love for libraries and his distaste for the Internet.  For him, it’s a distraction, invisible, and meaningless.  I can’t help but note the irony in mentioning this and my following opinions on the matter on, of all places, the Internet.

Mr. Bradbury grew up in a much different era than we do now.  And as mankind has taken great strides in communication since his time, I have to agree with him.  The human race is obsessed with speed and information, so much so that it’s been pressed commercially for the past 10-12 years.  And as I sit and watch television, or meander around the Internet hearing from different people all across the country and globe, I can’t help it that the first image that pops into my head is of a young child with a hypersensitivity disorder who, percieving much more than an average human would, becomes so overloaded with information that basic motor functions malfunction or cease to operate.

I’m an ignorant man; to claim otherwise is even more so.  And every day, I find myself constantly bombarded with new information (as I write, I can’t help but think now of people who wish to make the world “aware”, but putting together awareness groups in order to inform people of something, rather than doing something about it), so much so that it has begun to dramatically affect my memory.  We’ve become filters of information, leaving behind our previous roles as receptors, as the new information we’re given has to be filters into useless garbage or worthwhile knowledge (this may have started with the sending of spam mail, and the creation of spam mailboxes in email clients).  And all of this is a very small concern of mine.

Paintings on cave walls became stone tablets.  Stone tablets became written word.  Written word became printed word.  Printed word became the Internet.  Am I at fault for choosing preference to a certain type of information, or is it progress?  Is progress demeaning to the human condition, forging within us factories to carry out functions instead of hearts, or does progress create endless outward possibilities in the human mind?  Is progress measured quantitatively instead of qualitatively?  Should one stand in the way of progress, or be its gracious host?  Despite the many advances made in the past decade alone, it still seems too early to tell.

What I know, I know I know, and I only know one thing: that amongst the sea of information the human race is drowning, save for the hypersensitive ones, who stand on the shore, watching the setting sun and the humans struggling to stay afloat, wondering what all the fuss is about.