The sun sets on another day…
It was a stunning sunset again. I know it’s no surprise that I felt good about it, and if you have been reading this every day for over 4,000 days, wow, you read a lot. The world at sunset is full of hope, and the people who run the twilight walk between both worlds.
Everybody thinks they invented something special. Well not everybody. That’s a rather broad stroke of the brush. That statement is pretty funny as well, as it’s something that was said to me once that made me realize that you can’t speak in absolutes, even if you are a scientist.
I sat here today thinking about the internet and the early days. My first interactions on the internet were on a 180 baud modem. You can type faster than that if you’re not sure about the speed.
No one person created the internet. It was a series of very smart people who created connections between computer systems and fun things called routers and switches and dozens of other ways of handling data and bouncing it around first the United States and eventually the world. The internet was initially meant to allow communication in the event of a nuclear war, and yes I was one of those kids that was told to hide under the desk because school desks in the 60s can easily resist an atomic bomb.
I digress.
In the late ’80s I became aware of social media. There were lots of things that I had been involved in before that, everything from multi-user dungeons to relay chats to email. Yes there was email way back then. When I found social media I found a way to interact with people in a more effective manner and as I did so a group of people emerged that enjoyed the nameless interactions between casual acquaintances. It was a lot of fun. There were games and exciting moments and as we interacted it became more.
In the early 90s I established the night watcher BBS. I built this after another company failed and hope to take it to new levels. I did this out of pure Sweat and Tears as I didn’t have any type of silver spoon, in fact I was lucky I had a plastic spork. I built this social media platform and found thousands of users who enjoyed every moment online that they could. I started with a few lines and at the end over 40 people could be concurrent at any time and interacting in real time games, real time chat, and a lot more.
I suppose it would have been easier if I had a lot of money, but I did. I trudged along until 1996 when America Online decided to introduce something new, unlimited time online.
Prior to this, accessing the internet through telnet and timet or any other gateways could be expensive. This could cost anywhere from two or three dollars an hour to up to $5 an hour just to be online. I had found a way to do so for 75c an hour and was covering my bills with a little extra on the side. I still had my plastic spork.
This change forced me to adapt as well as why would somebody pay $75 an hour when they could spend $24 and have 100 hours or more. It changed the model and forced me to reconsider how I was approaching everything.
Still, social media as it was in the BBS world is not so much different than anything that’s going on today. People want to interact. People want to focus on things that make them special. Today it’s no different, we write posts about things that we think make us special and hope that people will click that they like it and try to create some type of upbeatness as they review it or we talk about the negatives in our life and the latest surgery, latest political mass, and latest frustration and hope that people will commiserate with us. Nothing new.
The web we weave is a web of positivity or negativity around what we see is important in our lives. The web we weave can be pretty cool or pretty not cool, it depends on us.
Be a positive force and enjoy social media if you can, but maybe enjoy the beach instead. Maybe find some happiness in the little moments that we can all enjoy.
So as the sun sets on another day, sorry about the odd little story time. Life has been interesting and we have formed something different that makes us a little different. Better or worse only time will tell, but we will adapt and it will all be good, no matter what.
Sleep sweet, love life, and enjoy the ride…