In The Year 2 B.I. (Before Internet)
The year 2 B.I. was a very significant one for me. It was the first time I experienced death in any meaningful way.
I'd experienced the death of people who were technically closer to me before, people like my grandfather, for example. He was a fairly remote figure, though, whose demeanour I found a little scary. He died before I reached puberty, and consequently before I'd begun to properly understand death. I just knew it was sad because I could read it in other family members, and, as you might expect, knew how to mimic their behaviour.
There had been more famous deaths, too. I sometimes hear, or read, that everyone remembers where they were, and what they were doing, when President Kennedy was shot. I think I was at school, but I can't remember much more than that, except I couldn't get my head round what would possess anyone to kill a person, let alone Kennedy.
Incidentally, because you might be wondering, Kennedy was killed in the year 6 B.I.
Otis Redding died in the year 2 B.I., and that event is what made it a significant year for me. It wasn't so much that I was an enormous fan of his; I liked the way he sang, and was into soul music (among other genres). However, I did feel I knew him, or perhaps it would be truer to say, I felt I had a bond with him, through his music. It was the unfairness of his death which hit me. Unlike Kennedy, a powerful politician who was bound to have powerful enemies, I couldn't find any reason which explained why Otis died.
It was that which made me begin to realise that shit happens. There was no big answer which would explain it. In fact, it wasn't even a big question. Shit happens, and sometimes it's personally painful. No amount of wishful thinking can erase the painful events which have happened, nor prevent future painful events. Better to invest one's energies in learning how to deal with them.
That's not to say I didn't find it bitter-sweet when Dock Of The Bay came out the following year. There were times, when it came on the radio, that I had to pretend I'd got a bit of dust in my eye.
(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
Listen on Posterous
Just under two years after Otis Redding died, the internet was turned on. I didn't know it at the time, and I didn't know the exact date until I read this article, by Venkatesh Rao, just the other day. The date was October 29, 1969, which could become a momentous date for future historians, not to mention calendar makers (click the link to read the article!), and for everyone.
It's pretty obvious that the internet has brought great changes to our world, and continues to do so, with the potential for even greater change. But I am reminded, especially in view of the roll it has played in recent events ('Arab Spring', The Occupy Movement, and most recently, the Burzynski affair) of Karl Marx and the ownership of the means of production.
The owners of the internet are businesses, some of them very big businesses. If they feel too threatened, if they feel it necessary, they can simply turn it off. I feel like a part of me is missing when I experience an internet outage (not so very uncommon in my part of the world), but how much worse it would be in a crisis situation if I had to rely, once again, on media controlled information.
I remember watching TV shows (in black and white) about world war two, and how the resistance used encrypted short wave radio transmissions to communicate. Maybe we need a modern equivalent. An internet that doesn't rely on big business. Then all we have to do is figure out a way of independently generating enough power to run it! Just in case some more shit happens.
"People say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"
