Blog 22
Following the
recent hack of the Colonial Pipeline and its revelatory impact (under duress, too
many of us appear to subscribe to every
man for himself), a good friend asked me to contemplate the possible effect
of a similar interruption to the Internet on writers. I approached this
consideration from two angles: 1) with access to the Net and 2) without it.
Access to the Net: Acknowledging the many advantages
of the Internet, too numerous to try to enumerate, I have two thoughts to offer
about the possible effect of loss with the
Net. First, it enables us to escape the solitary, often hard task of writing.
How many of us do this, sacrificing the balance of time between writing and
everything else? Let me see – I need
to check my email. Ooh, ooh, I’ve just got to respond to this one and – and
maybe only two, okay, no more than three others. And while I’m at it, I need to clear my email of everything
else. Oh, let me take a quick peek at today’s news while I’m at it, maybe read
one, I promise just one, long article. Oh my goodness, it’s almost lunch time.
Okay, I promise myself, no interruptions while I write this afternoon.
Second, the
Net presents us a shortcut to a repository of endless but not always reliable
“facts.” Example: In examining a bio of an NBA player from Slovenia, Vlatko
Cancar (don’t ask), on the same site he was listed as 6’11, 6’9 and 6’8. Was he
still growing before my incredulous eyes? Or was he possibly diminishing,
depending upon which direction I approached his personal data? My point: These
easy-to-find facts can lull us in our
quest for research exactitude.
Without access to the Net: In this
instance, I’d like to offer two musings about possible Net loss. First, while
we’d be freer to pursue writing without the temptation to escape into the Net,
would we? Or would we be temporarily immobilized, at a loss to replace our
electronic habit (escape)? Worse, would we just feel lost?
Second, for
those of us at least old enough to remember, would we return to researching
facts the far more time consuming “old way” – through book bibliographies and
library card catalogues – or would we, again, find ourselves diverting into a
new form of escapism, possibly even inventing one?
Me? I’d likely
return to my first love and pick up a book while the Net recovered. After all,
as writers, that’s how we got here, right? It would be like throwing B’rer
Rabbit once more into the briar patch. Loss?
No more than briefly. Lost? No way.
