From Essays After Montaigne
My whilome father...hath heretofore told me, that he much desired to bring in this custome, which is, that in all cities there should be a certaine appointed place to which, whosoever should have need of any thing, might come and cause his business to be registered by some officer appointed for that purpose: As, for example, if one have pearls to sell, he should say, I seeke to sell some pearls: and another, I seeke to buy some pearls. Such a man would faine have companie to travell to Paris; such a one enquireth for a servant of this or that qualitie; such a one seeketh for a master, another a workman; some this, some that; every man as he needed. And it seemeth that this meanes of enter-warning one another would bring no small commoditie into common commerce and societie; for there are ever conditions that enter-seeke one another, and because they understand not one another, they leave men in great necessities.
Is the Internet a "place" to which whosoever should have need of anything might come? It's certainly a mechanism by which you can find virtually any piece of information, buy or sell most anything (legal and even illegal), and converse with an ever-growing multitude. It's the most astonishing mechanism for research, commerce, and communication yet conceived. But is it a place? Does that matter?
The Internet is spoken of as a place. All of the prepositions and verbs surrounding its use ("going to," "visiting," "access to," "transferring across," etc.) assume spatiality. Place is clearly the most intuitive metaphor for understanding the Internet, but any geek can tell you the limits of the accuracy of that metaphor, the technical realities that metaphor glosses over. And yet geeks tend to be most emotionally connected to the Internet as a place, precisely because of the ways in which it's not a place. For example, the Internet as a place, or as a replacement for or improvement upon place, lends plausibility to the Extropian fallacy of "intelligence, information, order, vitality, and capacity for improvement" independent of bodily manifestation. It grants the illusion of escaping the more difficult, inevitable, and undignified aspects of physical existence.
But place is ultimately physical, and we are ultimately monads of body, mind, and soul. Place is where our whole self meets other whole selves without the benefits or limits of the attenuated contact permitted by the Internet. Though the Internet may facilitate our meeting face-to-face, it cannot replace it, and that shouldn't be our aspiration. We can never feel whole or wholly developed unless we abide in a place that we share with others. We cannot be truly connected to someone unless we can see and hear them cry and offer them our non-metaphorical shoulder and arms. The world in which we actually live is composed of places, and the quality of our life is determined by the state of those places. If we're unhappy with the place in which we find ourselves, we should seek to transfigure it, not transcend it.
I direct all of this at myself as much as anyone. I've used the Internet as a substitute for place within which to define and present myself free from the complications of real contact. I've made connections through the Internet, but I've also learned just how tenuous those connections are. I feel like a reluctant swimmer circling a pool, checking the water temperature without actually diving in. Though I've been able to reflect upon and write about emotional and spiritual matters, I haven't acted, felt, or believed--though my conceptions are clearer, I'm no more emotionally or spiritually engaged. I must remember to continue through to the significant effort of making all of this real.
7:54:49 AM 
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