i pod; therefore, i am.
(deception of the senses) "koullon youghanni 3ala laylah..."

"i am; therefore, i pod" is now becoming almost true, a sort of a trend. At least among people in NYC (a small sample but an important one!). This of course may be attributed to the fact that the city requires a lot of commuting activity and, therefore, people need to kill time by listening to something. But ipod is not just that. It is a representative of a new species that redefines our existence. Technology has finally found a new recipe. Although Descartes gave us a pretty good one long time ago: "i think; therefore, i am", the current life style seems to have abandoned the notion of "deception of the senses". On the contrary, it is now quite acceptable to even fabricate your own. Just put on those magic ear plugs that they gave you, and in few seconds, you are! Magically, you exist in your own shell, you listen to only what you want, and you believe only what you want. Even the world around you now seems to conform to your liking, a pure product of your own senses. Everything is in complete synchrony with those ear plugs. A very nice recipe, "i pod; therefore, i am". Bye bye Descartes.

Although the above may seem a bit exaggerated, I wonder if, among all the new deceptions of this 21st century, people can still think the way Descartes wished for. Day after day, we're getting distant from the infrastructure that provides us with "technologies". On average, we do not have a clear understanding of what these things are or how they function. We are loosing a cognitive connection with everything around us. We are living in a matrix. We pod, chat, text, bluetooth, blog, web 2.0... Hey, was there a 1.0 to start with? Or is this just a jargon to have me jump on board? To be, I have to jump. So I jump. I still remember the old days when I had to write html code to create a web page. Now someone else will do it for me, and willingly for free. And I am not the only one. In fact, that someone will connect my web page to all the people I know, and those I don't know too... In few years, maybe I will transform my existence to an electronic form, and someone else will maintain it for me. From time to time I will download the parts I need. "I" will become "E", and E will be in total ignorance as to how E exists.

Existence... Didn't we ask the question about existence long time ago. Are we to release any understanding we may have gained over the years? Perhaps the whole universe is just a memory leak that was produced and forgotten? Does E really exist? E doesn't know anymore... E doesn't care anymore. Bye bye Descartes.