It was at the gas pump a few years ago, that I realized that nobody was listening.
I was a strange feeling. Suddenly, I felt alone, abandoned, surrounded by emptiness. I felt dizzy -- a loss of awareness of my surroundings. Nobody was listening. I was disconnected
I realized for the first time that the world was out there making products for me, designing new ways for me to interconnect, new ways for me to think, new ways for me to experience the world and my fellow man.... new, new, new.
Problem was nobody was asking me what I wanted. Nobody was asking me anything about what my desires, my needs, my cravings. My wants and needs were assumed to be the same as several hundred thousands other beings, most of whom I had never met. I surely will never meet most of these faceless beings. The thought careened around my head, setting it ringing.
I stiffened. I felt the warm blood of resolve swelling up my legs, filling me with passion and purpose.
Then and there, I decided to rebel. To skip the middle man. To go straight to the masses and let my feeling, needs and wants be known. I would bare the flesh of my soul. I would find some internet street corner and pour forth my unspoken hankerings and hungers to passersby whom I would sideswipe for attention.
Of course, being the procrastinator I am, it took me several years to do this.
I am, however, now ready to cast sail. To blast off. Pedal to the floorboard. To crash through this metaphorical maze.
The gas pump? Let me explain.
After I had filled my car with gas and received a sneering snare from the barely readable LCD display (which showed a sum that made me gulp), the dark glass then blinked out a new questioning screen. "Do you want a receipt?"
Yes. Yes, I did want a receipt, but not those little chits of paper. What good were they? How would I ever find time to incorporate that into a record keeping system. I clean them out of my car once a month into an ungrateful trash can. Useless paper scraps.
"Help me out here," I pleaded. "Give me a choice." How about asking "Would you like a paper receipt or a email receipt?"
I would jump at that one. "Email" I would push in a second.
That's were I want my information. In my in-box. Where the receipt is safe and wrapped in functionality. I can search for it by city, by date, by highest price..... I can put in directories and subdirectories.
Anyone who says that email is dead, hasn't lived in my email box. This is my main information receptor. My antenna. My palp. It's how I feel for and sniff out the bits of info about the world that I want to consume.
The in-box is my paradigm.
If it's in my in-box, its real. If it's on paper, its a haphazard fact at best.
If "they" are listening, in a few weeks I should see that "Email" choice.
And then, well... "Excuse me while I kiss the gas pump."
