"I was part of the WELL almost from the very beginning. The Whole Earth 'Lectronic
Link was founded in the spring of 1985 - before Mark Zuckerberg's first
birthday. I joined in August of that first year.
I can't remember how many WELL parties, chili cook-offs, trips to the circus, and other events - somewhat repellingy called "fleshmeets" at the time - I attended. My baby daughter and my 80-year-old mother joined me on many of those occasions. I danced at three weddings of WELLbeings, as we called ourselves, attended four funerals, brought food and companionship to the bedside of a dying WELLbeing on one occasion. WELL people babysat for my daughter, and I watched their children.
Don't tell me that "real communities" can't happen online."
What the WELL's Rise and Fall Tell Us About Online Community
Learn anything about anything under the sun. ZOMG SQUEE!
I know I hear about most of the important (or at least loud) RL stuff that way.
...it's just that the Supreme Bean in its infinite wisdom and mercy chose to hide it from us poor left behind sinners.
And so made it look to us like nothing happened at all.
All those 'fake' rapture photos on the Interwebs? They're REAL! REEEEEEEEAL!
*wise* *wise with tinfoil hat* *wise with +666 wisdom tinfoil hat*
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
via online.wsj.com
- Out of Eden, Alan Burdick
