A Problem of Inertia

Hello? Has everyone left? I wouldn't blame you if you had...there hasn't been much to see...at least on THIS website. As I was writing that sentence, I imagined what it would be like if, all of a sudden, everyone got bored of the internet, and just decided to do something else. It doesn't really matter what people chose to do instead...the first thing that comes to my mind is to lie down on the ground...preferably a grassy ground, not too damp. Once on the ground, it would be okay to just lie there. If there were a hill around, it would be nice to roll down the hill, but if there were sharp rocks at the bottom of the hill, perhaps it would be best to remain stationary.

The internet has come to occupy a space that does not exist anywhere, really. Just think! If people stopped using the internet, it would feel like a ghost town. The ebay items would sit gathering dust on the shelves of their owners. The music from Myspace pages would go unheard like the dusty old player piano in a saloon. And (many, but certainly not all) facebook and flick'r photos would go unseen...but not un-missed... like a stack of sepia-tinted gelatin prints on the nightstand in a house that was left in a hurry. And then there is Twitter. Nobody will miss Twitter. A significant portion of people's lives exists on the internet. If that portion does not exist ENTIRELY on the internet, then the "real life" version is at least duplicated or represented in some digital form and stored on some server somewhere.

There are two voids that would be palpable if the internet were to stop existing. 1) A functional void...without google and wikipedia, nobody would know anything...especially me. And 2) an emotional void...people depend on websites for happiness to some extent...for example this website makes me VERY happy. I depend on it like I depend on neurotransmitters to tell me I'm okay. (That is an exaggeration, but I don't feel as though I am overstating the fact that people derive great pleasure from many things on the internet...sometimes, but not always at the expense of their pleasure in the real world). I think that is really pretty incredible that something which has no substance has expanded to occupy such an important part of our emotional lives.

I think I might have just described one of John's nightmares. Sorry John. There there, John. I think I also might have described one of the internet's nightmares...don't worry internet...if I'm not here for you...I know that John will be. Sorry John...I don't mean to pick on you...but can you deny your love for this web of knowledge and communication? And finally, I apologize to all of you...any of you... the none of you who may have been emotionally injured as a result of my lack of communication in these past five (!) weeks. You see, from a scientific perspective, this can be explained by a little something I (and everyone else in the world) like to call "inertia." This video, I think nicely captures the relevance of inertia in terms of human behavior:



Finally, this is the force that pushed me into action...it is a nice music video for a song by Pepi Ginsberg. It just looks like fun: