the internet

the internet has gotten a bad reputation for me recently.
"i'm on it too much" i tell myself.
but it means such a variety of things: i read physics papers. i find out who the people are at places that i may get a post-doc. i read the thoughts of friends and strangers. i read the news. i read people's digestions of the news. i turn on instant messenger and see who might be on. i search for my name on google and see whether i'm becoming famous or not, see what kind of reputation i'm acquiring. (none) i try to find something humourous. i find a map to the place i'm about to go to. i check and see what has been said about a book i'm reading. this blog. email. email. email. more.

even though many of these things are uniquely internet related, they also overlap with other social and work aspects of my life. i find something vaguely sinister in the idea that part of my life is going online: that i am extending my self, that my personality is reaching out into this world. i'm not comfortable with this yet. i seem to be drawn to movies like the matrix and the lain series which explore the blurrings of identity between physical life and a computer based life. i'm feeling like i need a framework for how to think about this. i feel like i am drowning in the possibilities. that there is no structure to this world i am entering; like a creature trying to develop and learn in an environment with no rules. if there are no rules then one can not learn. maximum order and disorder both have zero information. i find it frightening.

maybe i just started with it slightly too late. like trying to learn a new language later in life, one may never be entirely fluent. i have this core resistance that won't give. well. maybe i am misdiagnosing the problem.