As I was taking a walk around the block in (what has been for days) the smoky and stifling air of North Central Florida, I realized two important things about my previous post.
(1) In my catalogue of “vital stats” one might wish to know about another person passing in the streets, I thought only of superficial mostly virtual details and nought of what might concern us in encounters of the flesh. On the streets, would we not also be tempted to want to detect in our hand-held monitors anything and everything from the common cold to STDs to genetic diseases, if we could? That is, if technology and society fostered such a practice? I say this as I imagine, my eyes still sore from the stinging atmosphere, that disease will soon consume us.
And so my rose-colored invention darkens.
Even more so in my second realization: (2) Environmental pollution and disease have not yet consumed us, which suggested to me the idea that it will consume us, and therefore this rosy world I live in is an environmental equivalent of the pre-9/11 world. The Floridian atmosphere struck me as so unhealthy as to not want to be out in it. My absence of concerns about disease, pollution, or any other condition of the fleshy world, in addition to my fixation on the rainbow-colored MySpace visions of the virtual world, suggest to me that life remains uncomplicated as far as public health in the U.S. goes. Yet that smoke-laden polluted air dropped a heavy veil over my lungs, rendering my previous post suddenly bittersweet.
2 Responses to “Virtual Living, Redux”
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so, I’m assuming that you want a fleshy encounter with the people you meet on the street? 😉
Well yes, considering that I simply like referring to all non-virtual social interaction as ‘encounters of the flesh.’ Makes me feel radical. 🙂