Dolphin Address 34
August 9th 2005
This is meant as a ludicrous approach to a maddening medium. Since Verena left for Berlin I have to be all round again and I don't mean at MC Dermotts' pub. Suddenly I seem to have collected an unfathomable body of digitally operating machinery that initially profiled itself after the mountain view on Connemara: alluring shapes and colors but from here only reachable by imagination. Many of you visitors probably acquired your computer skills in early childhood, like a China child naturally speaks Chinese. Until I was 44 I considered computers as an 'après moi le deluge' phenomenon, a loss by ageing I made with a shrug, a field of enterprise I did not need and had no cause to venture.
Sometimes I profoundly wish I should have kept myself to this innate oblivion. But then I met Marieke and in her wake I traveled my first pathways on the liquid screen to documents and e-mails. When the answer is at hand the questions come easy and the digital horizon was a mere fingertip away. After Marieke I consolidated my skills by volume. I started writing stories and reports and little by little found some new pathways to process my data. Organizing my mind had an unexpected beneficial effect on my man.-dep. ailment: my energetic fascination for life expanded, while my mood chutes withered away. After 30 half years of misery the plusses and minuses beat the plusminus. A vaguely related ancestor of mine, The Trobriand philosopher Le Charrue once stated that there is hope if you don't look for it too hard.
Little did he know computers. The same property that eases kids into digital understanding sucks the elderly into addiction: the opportunity defines itself and the answer always seems but a key away. Our natural curiosity gears us into the expectation that paradise is just around the corner. To work this out however you need either a natural understanding of its grammar and idiosyncrasies or a reliable navigator.
This is where I met Verena. She had been whiz-kidding the digital empire since childhood and it was poetry in motion to watch her butterfly the keys to astounding results. Though I was far too slow to copy her motions, the magic she achieved was so enticing that it led me straight into my second digital youth. The digital reality we live in turned from an undisentangible clew into an abundant menu. To enhance our power of observation we bought state of the art photo and video equipment. We're able now to cover every eyesight be it far or near. But a simple click on a button does not render a picture like it used to. Behind it lies an arduous process, a routine once you know(and can remember what you did), but an ordeal of trial and error first you hunt it down.
Now I am on my own and so much miss her and her helping hand. The past four days I only left the computer for food and sanitary purposes. I have been trying so hard to capture and save the footage of the camcorder in my documents and burn the content on CD. I learned everything I should not do and finally hemmed in the true path with the help of my distant neighbor Robin, the ever support of my webmisstres Carola and the finishing touch of the promising digital talent of Tricia. Today I hope to burn my very first Everio CD and I know Verena will be proud of me.
Jan Ploeg, Meadow Fanore, August 9th 2005
print version