{"id":4396,"date":"2011-04-11T12:30:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T17:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/?p=4396"},"modified":"2023-12-05T07:47:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T13:47:55","slug":"creep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/2011\/04\/creep\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Creep’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DREAMS<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had a dream, or perhaps it was a nightmare, a few nights ago. Not the sort of thing that causes lasting trouble. It was a murmur, barely enough to banish sleep. In this dream, it was shortly after noon and I was standing on a ridge overlooking a vast valley. The place was alive with that preternatural crispness only found in sleep. I felt a calm breeze with the scent of the sea just beyond the nearest mountain range. The place was clean; it was minimalist, symmetric, sensible and never ending. I felt pure. Then it felt like the sun was descending, except I could still see it hanging high staring me down with its bright orange and waves of violet in the spotless sky. I looked behind me and saw where the dark was coming from. It was a storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

From my vantage point it seemed like a sandstorm, one of those dark and angry plague-like monstrosities from the deserts I love so much. I could hear the hiss of its parts rubbing against each other, approaching with improbable haste. As high and as far as the eye could see. It was impossibly wide, impossibly dark, impenetrable, and I couldn\u2019t move. It came over me and I braced myself, half expecting the flesh to be stripped from my bones, but all I got was quiet. Through that silence, with every ounce of my body saturated with adrenaline, I stood, afraid to look up or even breathe. After what felt like an eternity I opened my eyes to an environment that wasn\u2019t as dark as I had expected. Floating in the air were, in place of dust particles, the pieces of electronics. The air had taken on a fluid texture, every flinch causing a ripple in the silicon parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned around to look back over the ridge and saw that as far as the eye could see; everything was covered in that dark. Somehow, deep down inside me, I knew it had overrun the world. It was then that I felt the tremor beneath me. There was something moving toward me with purpose, somewhere behind me. I couldn\u2019t budge, I couldn\u2019t look back, I was petrified \u2013 pieces of me turning to stone, tendrils of gravel spreading through my veins, refusing to let me move. I fought it with all my will, but no sooner did I see bits of it crumble and fall from me, it would be replaced. Then the cause of the tremors burst from the ground, cables \u2013 hundreds of tendrils writhing out like the tentacles of some implacable beast, grabbing hold of me to keep me steady as one massive cable with a usb head rose like the tail of a scorpion and rammed into the back of my neck, severing pieces of bone and sending white-hot fire down my spine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I could feel my body heat up and through my periphery vision; I could tell I was glowing. The pain was unimaginable, but any attempt to scream was stifled by the simple fact that I did not know how to. I felt pressure in my skull, like some heavy liquid were being poured into it and then I knew everything. My head was flooded with information; the entire world became a data point. Tweets, Facebook statuses, headlines, all became points of light, playthings for my scrambled sanity. With a thought I knew the weather in Hong Kong, the exact geographic coordinates of some celebrity I\u2019d never cared to know, the entire history of a single car, the deepest secrets of some girl named Ashley in Madison, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think hobo vagina is illegal in Ohio. Fish tacos are not.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201comg, when I get home I am so going to blog about your new haircut.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJason is listed as single\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA car bomb detonated today in a market outside of Baghdad\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGLOBAL MILITARY SPENDING REACHES NEW HIGH\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The noise was unimaginable, no voice could be silenced, no voice could be heard, and all voices could be heard. I knew everything; I was everywhere, I WAS THE ALL SEEING EYE AND ALL EYES WERE ON ME. I WAS THE ALL KNOWING! I SAW A THING AND ITS ENTIRE HISTORY WAS AS AN OPEN BOOK! I WAS\u2026 exhausted. I awoke to a blade of light in my eye, drenched in sweat, and felt suddenly small and blind and disconnected. But I couldn\u2019t look at my laptop. I couldn\u2019t bring myself to switch it on. I couldn\u2019t bring myself to pick up my phone or my iPod Touch or my CR-48 or my Kindle or my TV. I couldn\u2019t bring myself to it. It had finally happened. The \u2018creep\u2019 had finally caught up to me. I was too connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CREEP<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The creep is a steady encroachment that moves to surround you and is never really noticed until you\u2019re caught in it. You see it with vines sometimes. You watch the vines crawl up trees and walls and it never seems that bad until one morning you look at your walls completely consumed. You stand there and wonder: how did we get from point \u2018a\u2019 to point \u2018b\u2019? The same thing happens with a messy room. It starts with one shirt tossed on the chair; wallet not put away, shoes left out. Each time it seems like no big deal, a little thing to sort out, then one day you walk into your room and it\u2019s a pigsty. That is fundamentally how creep works. Unlike a flood that is sudden and tumultuous, creep works slowly enough for you to adapt and get comfortable with. Unlike a flood, it can be predicted and you had plenty of opportunity to stop it. But you didn\u2019t. You didn\u2019t because you always had tomorrow to take care of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the situation I found myself in with my gadgets. The thing is I don\u2019t have as many gadgets as most people. The gadgets I do have are sometimes endearingly outdated, but what sets me apart \u2013 and I presume most of the geek persuasion as well \u2013 is that I know how to paint miracles with my gear. There\u2019s no question, I am plugged in. There is no place I go where I cannot check my email, tweet, update Facebook, look up the entire history of an item, purchase an item that can be anywhere in the world, etc. At the speed of thought I know the latest news from anywhere in the world. Oh, it\u2019s in Chinese? I have Google translate for that. Oh it\u2019s in metric units? I wouldn\u2019t know because my device converts it on the fly. No it\u2019s alright; you don\u2019t need to tell me what other book I might like. Amazon\u2019s algorithm already sent me a list that will probably be more accurate than you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not an internet addict, I\u2019m merely part of a generation for whom being plugged in is like drinking water. It is natural and needed. My parents grew up in a world where you only had five senses. I grew up in a world where I had a billion, and that number is growing. If it amused me, I could wire my coffee maker to tweet at me when it\u2019s done (fortunately, I don\u2019t find such shenanigans amusing). In general, this is a good thing. The human brain\u2019s limits have never been about what it can do when it has information. The bottleneck has always been the specific absorption of information. It\u2019s fair that we find ways to outsource the acquisition and storage of information and in return we can access it whenever and wherever we like. The process is fascinating. However, we may be losing something in the process. The connections we make in the digital world aren\u2019t any less real than those made in the meatspace, but it becomes a problem when we completely neglect one over the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment that I fell victim to creep, I realized that my fellow noisecasters were capable of reaching me in more ways and with more tools that my own mother. This wouldn\u2019t be a problem if it wasn\u2019t for the fact that I live in the same house as my mother. (Hey, don\u2019t judge me. This is the 21st<\/sup> century, it\u2019s a recession, we live in the same city, and I\u2019m not American \u2013 staying with family is culturally normal for me). It was suddenly crazy to me that you could reach me faster by tweet than by phone and faster still by email. Half the time I don\u2019t remember where my phone is and the other half I have it on silent or vibrate. What happened to my boundaries? A few weeks ago on a whim, or perhaps by some latent prescience, I started forcing myself to switch off all my gear for a few hours and do nothing remotely digital. I\u2019d spend the time either being aimless or napping. TV isn\u2019t an issue for me any longer. Insanely enough, it didn\u2019t offer enough information at the speed I wanted it and on my schedule. I lost my interest in it and only catch up on TV shows in batches on sites like Hulu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
It’s clich\u00e9 but maybe I need to unplug?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know how I feel about all this. I don\u2019t know that this is a problem and needs to be addressed. I don\u2019t really know why I\u2019m writing this. This is what it is. I am more powerful, more intelligent, and more connected than ever before. All the same, perhaps a slight pull-back is in order. What that means, I don\u2019t know yet. Perhaps a few hours away from the computer, or a minimum number of hours each week completely disconnected from everything. Without my constant flow of information I feel blind, it\u2019s like I\u2019m talking in a cavernous void. Thankfully, I\u2019ve always valued solitude. Whatever I do, whether this is good or bad, surely I don\u2019t need to be in contact with fellow noisecasters 24\/7 through gmail, facebook, twitter, phone, convofy<\/a>, yippayap, skype, and Teamspeak. Perhaps today, the chances of rain in Hong Kong should mean less to me and I should come to terms with the fact that I will never purchase property in Croatia so property prices in the area are meaningless. Contrary to my subconscious belief, Wikipedia doesn\u2019t cease to exist if I stop hitting that \u2018random\u2019 button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One final thought on that dream. The reason I was dubious on referring to it as a nightmare was because of the way I felt when plugged in. I was powerful, it was glorious, and for one genuine moment I didn\u2019t feel alone because no one and nothing was a stranger. If you describe it as a high, then perhaps I\u2019m an addict. But it didn\u2019t feel like a high, it felt like seeing for the first time. The question is: do I want an all-seeing eye, or a world of infinite uncertainties?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a world where being connected is the norm, one writer questions whether we’ve lost something in the process. Read about his experience and decide for yourself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1141],"tags":[274,962,22,963,965,964,646,966],"class_list":["post-4396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-editorials","tag-electronics","tag-google","tag-internet-addict","tag-monstrosities","tag-nightmare","tag-spotlight","tag-unplug"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Matric-Revolutions.jpg?fit=649%2C336&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/selghY-creep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4396"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20892,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4396\/revisions\/20892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}