Greetings, programs.
Let’s get the obvious questions out of the way, shall we? “Who the hell are you?” “Why are you writing a blog?” “What do you have to contribute?” “What is your blog about?” “What’s with the ‘Greetings, programs,’ shtick? You do know Tron was just a movie, right?”
I am your friendly, neighborhood dunebat (Desmodus desertus, if you want to get technical). I roam the blistering hot steppes of the Llano Estacado, the palisade plains of West Texas that have been my home territory since birth. Like most other chiropterans, I am very territorial and don’t leave my nice, cozy cave very often. I have been accused of being antisocial, and I wear the label with all the pride and contempt for modern society that it entails. Though I can communicate well via text, I am quite shy and don’t socialize easily. I am a card-carrying geek, though my antisocial tendencies prevent me from associating closely with other like-minded souls.
I’m writing this blog because I need to learn to ride a bike again. When something we haven’t done in a very long time is easy to resume, we compare it to riding a bicycle: “you never forget how”. That adage is pure rubbish. Never mind the fact that I never learned how to ride a bicycle; all skills atrophy when they aren’t practiced often. I haven’t written anything that wasn’t work-related in so many years that I’ve almost forgotten how to write for my own pleasure. This blog is an attempt to correct that grievous sin.
If you asked me why I stopped writing long ago, I am certain I could give you many excuses or explanations. I’ll save all that for some other time. For very personal reasons, I sank into a deep depression and stopped writing sometime midway through 2004, only a few years after I had begun to write. I have been trying to break out of this depression and get back in the habit ever since, without much success. If I allow this trend to continue, my dream of being a writer might as well be dead, and I am not ready to bury that dream yet. I no longer care if I am paid for my work or if I receive the recognition of the masses. I just want to write again.
A blog is a public forum, so I will be forced to improve my writing over time if I wish to gain – and retain – readers. If I have enough readers interested in my work, they will pester me anytime I don’t update the blog often enough, which will give me at least a shred of accountability and (hopefully) keep me writing often.
Most successful blogs have a central theme, a primary subject that the blog centers on. The author is an expert on that subject who posts insightful and well-learned musings that eventually gain him or her a loyal following of readers. One day, I hope to actually have a central theme for my blog, a subject I can point to and scream, “THIS is what my blog is about!” At the moment, I can’t really think of one. Until then, this blog will be a collection of missives about anything and everything that interests me. At times, my writings here will be quite personal and experiential. At others, they may seem rather academic, more research-based. There may be times when I post a snippet of fiction instead of fact, just to try it out. If it interests me, rest assured I’ll write a blog post about it. Whatever I write will be tagged by subject for easy reference.
That is why I call this blog “The Echo Chamber”. This is a place where my thoughts can echo through the digital caverns of the Internet in text form. An echo chamber is a hollow area where sounds can bounce around off the walls and produce echoes. (The caves that bats sleep in are perfect natural echo chambers that resonate with bat biosonar pings.) In the media, an echo chamber is also situation where information may be amplified, discussed or reinforced by transmission and repetition within a virtually “enclosed” space. Twitter is a perfect example of a virtual echo chamber in action. Blogs are another.
Now, to answer a question I’ve been asked before. “Why do you say, ‘Greetings, programs,’ so often?” I start the day on my Twitter feed and on my Facebook stream with that phrase. The blindingly obvious answer would be, “because I loved the movie Tron,” but that only tells you where I got that phrase from. It doesn’t tell you why I use it.
I view reality as a well-organized, well-programmed system – comprised of smaller and smaller holistically-linked subsystem –b that obeys certain governing dynamics. Everything works by the numbers. The trajectories of planets, comets, stars and space dust can be expressed in mathematical formulae, and have been since Isaac Newton postulated his law of universal gravitation. The numbers may be more nonlinear than we’d prefer them to be, but the underlying order is still present beneath the seeming randomness. Even explosions obey mathematical laws. Furthermore, I believe this system has a Programmer (a User, if you will pardon the appropriation of the term). We are all programs within the system, and we each have a purpose to fulfill, a primary function that we were uniquely programmed for. I believe we, as individuals, can only be at harmony with the universe once we discover our primary function and carry it out to the best of our ability.
I have no idea what my primary function is. I thought I knew… but time and experience can greatly alter one’s perception. I hope, through writing this blog and working through my thoughts and ideas, to discover – or possibly rediscover – my primary function.
I hope you’ll stick around for the journey.
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