Mind Fields – The Windows Deluge

May 11, 2021

I have eighty two websites open on my computer. Right now.  It’s a lot of info, and I barely know where to go next.  All of it is Image.  The text is merely relish on the photos and digital constructions.  Every day that I sit at my computer or use my phone I am assailed by an overwhelming deluge of images.  Who can discriminate within a field of overlapping network pages? There are so many things to look at!

Let me go from left to right at the top of my computer’s browser.  I’ll read them off to you:

Lisa Witt’s Piano Lessons/Fredmiranda photography forum/dpReview camera review/.goodreads, literary opinion/Photoshop lessons/Ebay Tamron portrait lens for sale/two more Ebay pages/Youtube, archeology video/Smashwords, my book sales site/I have two pages of Inbox in the email pages that I use/ four windows open on Artsy, a wonderful auction site for artists/the Wiki page of photographer Diane Arbus.  If you don’t know who she was, check her out, immediately!/National Geographic, always urging me to subscribe…I’ll stop there.  You get the idea.  You probably have your own plethora of open websites in front of you.  What are your plans for today?  It’s Sunday. My plans involve a lot of sitting in front of my computer looking at these open websites. At intervals I will swing my chair a hundred eighty degrees and practice piano scales.  I usually check my email first but I haven’t done that today.  I’m more curious about the reviews of a Canon camera that I want to buy.  I sold my old camera using Facebook.

If I click on the little arrow at the top of my browser bar, I see yet another forty or fifty open pages.  It’s insane!  Everything is so interesting!  Much of it isn’t worth the pixel density it’s projected upon.  It may be interesting but it’s still Junk.  That’s not my problem.  I know how to avoid junk. I don’t use my phone for internet.  I’m not a phone person.  I’m a Desktop person.  I like the size and resolution of my computer monitors.  One of the monitors sits behind my digital piano where I can read music from its display. 

It has occurred to me that much of what I do from day to day is incredibly cool and none of it existed ten years ago.  That’s how fast the pace of change happens beneath our feet.  It’s like living in a constant earthquake.  The mental agility required to navigate the current epoch is intense.  Do we have mental health issues?  I wonder why.  Every human being must now be a juggler, a dancer and respond to life as if riding a surf board.  And you wonder why you’re so crazy.

You’ve heard the Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”  It’s a riff on the historical knowledge that “interesting times” are times of trouble and turbulence.  I  view our own times as interesting beyond credulity.  These are INCREDIBLE times and it’s a privilege, albeit a demanding privilege, to be alive in this cauldron of possibilities.  China just landed its own Mars Rover on the red planet. Holy shit!  What’s next?  Where is the dividing line between science fiction and science fact? It keeps moving.  I guess that’s my point in this rambling essay: living requires several kinds of agility.  If you don’t move with skill you’ll be lost in the undertow of this great wave of information that keeps rushing onto the shores of our consciousness like a digital tsunami.  It will take agility to survive.  It has always been this way.  It’s likely to be this way for the indefinite future. 

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Arthur Rosch is a novelist, musician, photographer and poet. His works are funny, memorable and often compelling. One reviewer said “He’s wicked and feisty, but when he gets you by the guts, he never lets go.” Listeners to his music have compared him to Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Randy Newman or Mose Allison. These comparisons are flattering but deceptive. Rosch is a stylist, a complete original. His material ranges from sly wit to gripping political commentary.

Arthur was born in the heart of Illinois and grew up in the western suburbs of St. Louis. In his teens he discovered his creative potential while hoping to please a girl. Though she left the scene, Arthur’s creativity stayed behind. In his early twenties he moved to San Francisco and took part in the thriving arts scene. His first literary sale was to Playboy Magazine. The piece went on to receive Playboy’s “Best Story of the Year” award.

Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016.

More of his work can be found at www.artrosch.com

Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos

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