It’s “Brave New World” time

The world that is being created around us is less and less one that I want to support or participate in. I won’t be presumptuous enough to claim I understand how the indigenous folks felt when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, but I can definitely relate to how humans felt after they encountered the Borgs. “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” Seems to reflect the perspective of our new AI wannabe overlords. 

What used to be Twitter [now “X”] is reported to be removing the ability to block accounts. That, plus an insistence that I provide a phone number to authenticate my account were the last two straws. If you’re interested, I can now be found at https://mstdn.party/@JohnHthePoet. 

I had been planning on acquiring a new Apple laptop. The odds keep increasing that I may bite the bullet and try a Linux version instead. The family gave me a new iPhone for my birthday, to work with my new hearing aids. I’m finding the “new and improved” iOS software to be more intrusive than I prefer. I’ve always believed that technology makes a good servant but a poor master. The AI Borgmeisters don’t see it that way, as long as they think they’re the masters.

books, and books, of poetry

Photo by J. Harrington

Fortunately, as Paul Simon once wrote in I Am a Rock:

I have my books

And my poetry to protect me

Much of the poetry that protects me these days was written by Joy Harjo. Many of the books were written by Ursula K. Le Guin. I recently started reading, for the first time, Always Coming Home. I’m looking forward to comparing her style in that novel with that of Debra Magpie Earling in her The Lost Journals of Sacajewea.

I lived a rich, full, less stressful life before there was an internet and hundreds (thousands?) of companies trying to turn me into a product as they competed for my attention in this new economy. I think it’s past time to return to a world that has neither the time, interest, or need for a metaverse. Just the verse part will suit me fine.

X Minus X

By Kenneth Fearing

Even when your friend, the radio, is still; even when her dream, the magazine, is finished; even when his life, the ticker, is silent; even when their destiny, the boulevard, is bare;

And after that paradise, the dance-hall, is closed; after that theater, the clinic, is dark,

Still there will be your desire, and hers, and his hopes and theirs,

Your laughter, their laughter,

Your curse and his curse, her reward and their reward, their dismay and his dismay and her dismay and yours—

Even when your enemy, the collector, is dead; even when your counsellor, the salesman, is sleeping; even when your sweetheart, the movie queen, has spoken; even when your friend, the magnate, is gone.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.