Monday, January 26, 2004

On blogger.com, the other day, I read as many as 300 new blogs are created per hour. That is a significant number of people putting content online. The rate at which global interconnectedness increases is astonishing. Yet, just the other day I met a couple running Horse treks through the Manali area of India; they were explaining how they meet people along their way who have no access to electricity. Being an ardent supporter of electrical technologies, such a lifestyle is hard to comprehend. Sitting quietly in the hills some place where the wind passes few ears and carries no hum of electrical generation is only one of the spaces available to us. Another space is city life; it has all the of advantages of boiling culture, religion, business, and other elements into quite an enticing brew. Each of us is left to figure out what space we occupy. Self-determinedly we choose the content filling our space; we can be in more than one place at a time. With technology and the reduced time to communicate new actors and audiences are continuously being created. We can create space including although not limited to our physical space. Phone, email, webpages, instant messaging, real-time broadcasts, radio, they all connect us. All of that being said, nothing touches the heart more than a face to face 'hello'. Sharing space has never been easier or more challenging in the absence of presence. This is for the girl in the high back office chair sitting at 125, the stacks, childpsych, class, dinner, or wherever you tread.

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