4 letters . . W-H-O-A
This word, in all its simplistic glory, defines how I feel about what I am currently doing. To talk, to communicate, to allow others to hear me throughout the world. No person fifteen years ago could do what I am doing right now, in the lost time of night, in a basement in Canada, wearing only plaid boxers and white socks, opening my mind to millions of people.
Well, i suppose all I can do right now is simply introduce myself.
My name is Mark Kwong Leung. My generation is a strange one. This creation called the Internet spawned before the world while I was in my early teens. Before then, this synthetic and digital universe never existed. I am of a generation that had just hit the crest of the internet wave, almost missing it by being born too early (which would have me become a twenty year old man, taking night courses at the local college to learn how to grasp and control this virtual phenomenon), but at the same time, not being born late enough so that I would learn my alphabet while discovering how to search for digimon toys on e-bay. I do not know whether this flourescent screen before me is my glass eye to an infinitesmal realm, or the eye of a growing technological beast slowly digesting my mind and soul, only to be churned out onto some demons's hand as a new blue-coloured five dollar bill.
I do not know what I have planned to do in this place. I do not know what this place has planned for me to do. Will it be truly "me" who is speaking, or another drone murmoring sounds of disillusionment. I apologize. I do not know. For in my generation, such dividing lines of individuality and society are greatly blurred.
And in my generation, these headlines will define our time. Obesity. Addiction. Consumerism. Pornography. Terrorism. Empire. Global warming. Cloning. Extinction.
You will fail to find words such as: Fulfillment. Morality. Replenishment. Some words will disappear from the face of society entirely. Abacus. Tazmanian devil. Cash. Other words and their meanings will be changed into an "online dictionary."
Online shopping: to purchase goods through the use of the personal computer and the Internet with virtual credit.
Online tourism: to travel to other places by viewing the scenes on the monitor of the personal computer.
Perhaps these things mentionned will never happen. Perhaps humans have not turned their back completely on nature. Perhaps a revolution of life, replenishment, or healing will echo throughout the lands of Earth, and these things suggested will never be. In that case, my moment here on this pedestal, where millions can read the words I have littered upon the screen, will be a mere flicker in history. The distant shadow of my soul will be forever lost in cards of metal and plastic, forged by a man living in India, with two daughters and a sick wife.
So in wonder and in horror, I open myself to you, whomever you may be. My skull is cracked open, for all to now prod and poke. This is my non-existent reality, where my virtual self now resides. And in a place between diabetes and insomnia, the real Mark Kwong Leung is looking for answers to an ocean of questions. He and I hope that maybe you'll learn something here. And perhaps, we will too.
