or “Time and Relative Dimensions in Cyberspace”

Firstly let me apologize to no one in particular for the tardiness (TARDIS-ness) of this post, but it only goes to further a point. These monthly catch-all articles are pretty tough when compared to the daily ones we do, if only because those can be whimsical and spur-of-the-moment, and these have to have, ya know…a well thought out theme. It’s the easiest way for me to remember the clear dilineation between “Blogging” and “Writing”, but I digress. Once again. Allons-y!

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A funny things has occured while working on WILI2010 with Andy, which we’ve chatted about from time to time. By writing about what you’re learning as you’re learning about it, you’re removing a lot of the passive elements of observation. Put more simply, by staring at the thing you’re changing how you learn it. It makes things that you’ve even already experienced and are ruminating about different by changing the perspective and lens through which you view it.

Andy probably has a more thoughtful way of explaining something like that. He’s a subtle man. I on the other hand am a caffeine-soaked melodramatic nerd, so I’m instantly reminded of Schröedinger’s Cat. You know Schröedinger and his Cat? Ostensibly, it’s a theory used in quantum mechanics that states that observation affects the outcome. Apt metaphor, no?

Which brings us to what I learned in February. There’s a pretty distinct correlation between the media I’m consuming on a given day, and what I end up learning/writing about. It just so happens (and probably not coincidentally) that things this month were largely concerned with the concept of Time. From a beloved television show that I absolutely let consume my life, to the song that I found myself humming every day, to the relationship I’ve entered into, to pitcher’s and catcher’s reporting.

So it should be no wonder that I found myself thinking about it so much. When I wrote “7 Days is a long time in human years”, it was my reaction to things changing in my life in a staggeringly concentrated amount of time. When I became obsessed with the MTA and their train schedule (or lack thereof), it was because of how much time I spent on them, and how they were responsible for the way I managed my time, every single day (and the hours and hours I lost on these broken fucking rails). There was also the notion of how fast time goes by, like how it feels as though it was just yesterday things were beginning, and now they’ve already finished up. And let’s not forget the almost haphazard disregard both of us had for deadlines. This is supposed to be updated daily for god’s sake, and I constantly felt the burden of time to get something/anything up by 11:59 PM so I could claim it as being “on time”.

But this is nothing new, is it? It’s not like I’ve never thought about time before, about how it never seems to go at the ‘correct’ speed, things are always way too fast or far too slow.

Can you believe it’s March already, holy-shit does time fly. But God, I can’t be-lieve it’s still fucking winter.

It’s just that staring at time is what changes it. You’re experience of it isn’t steady, it’s completely relative. Just like Schroedinger’s Cat. And just like what I have learned and will continue to learn throughout the year.

So yeah, that’s what I learned. Oh, and Dr. Who. I learned a lot about Dr. Who. Mostly just Dr. Who. He was a time-traveller though, so that counts! Right?

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Fuck off!

-diggy