Labyrinthes of life

1. Even before the Twitter activity I believed that the world is governed by the stellar time. Though our lives are subtly intertwined with one other we do not notice most of the time that a slight change in the trajectory of one’s path can cause drastic transformations of another one’s. This happens due to the fact that in a day-to-day life we usually focus on short- and medium-term goals. To be more specific the question is how to minimize time and other resources moving from the present point A to a desired point B in the future. As it’s known from geometry the shortest path between two points is a straight line. Therefore, more often than not we tend to perceive time and our existence in a teleological fashion as a linear combination of intervals and milestones. Though our path is constantly crossed by millions of other humans we tend not to give this fact any attention since 99% of such encounters do not bring about any immediate tangible change in our current condition. Yet nobody can ever tell the cumulative effect of these small variations that we with our single-minded plans are constantly exposed to. The importance of these at first sight minuscule interferences from outside is usually noticed only at the critical situations or emergencies. Than we become sensitive enough to perceive the presence of others realizing how much we depend on each other. We have to stop (or be stopped) and face the inconvenient truth of having just a partial control over our seemingly delineated and well-planned lives.


Having said all of the above, the Twitter experience appeared to me more like a fountain of chaotic signals, which barely had an impact on my daily routine. I think that the reason for such a perception was the fact that I didn’t know good 90% of the screen names that I was following and therefore couldn’t relate personally to the people that posted them. For comparison, having a profile on Facebook, updating my status on a regular basis and responding to updates of others, I get a sense of presence of my friends who are either in the City or hundreds of miles away. For me personal relationship is key.


2. The hypertext activity turned out to be very interesting and thought-provoking. It’s clear that the author tried to create an illusion of an individual life path with all its intricacies, unexpected twists and mistakes that most of us tend to repeat. Like in real life you never know where your next choice is going to bring you to and there is no other way to check but to make this choice. Like real life the text was divided into certain parts of cohesive text that would be partially unreadable because of black stains and illegible design. And then when a page is read you have to make a choice from the given number of options and risk being brought back to the very beginning of your reading.

I wasn’t particularly attracted to any of the words. Every time I tried to choose a different word or phrase hoping that I’ll be brought to a page that I haven’t read yet. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Running in circles I managed to read about 2/3 of the text. I think the tactic that I chose tells me that I’m a person who pretty easily gets bored with what he has and is constantly looking for new experiences choosing different ways to reach them. Unfortunately or fortunately, sometimes another turn into the depth of the labyrinth brings you right back to the entrance.