The Crowded Mob Running From The Mobbed Crowd

Because you don't know who I am, I don't have to tell you about the minute-to-minute minute minutes of my moments.

You don't get to see how I massage the messages when my associates and I go to Mass, while we contemplate Mecca or which we paste inside prayer wheels.

You can't tell the difference between a legally-authorised network and an illegitimate one.

You see social networks as something you choose to join.

I'm a simple man, an influence peddler hobbling along the cobblestone streets of your cities, towns, boroughs and thoughts.

I cup Earth in my hand like a bocce ball, watching the strategy being laid out by my colleagues who are opponents in the moment.

Seven billion nodes in one network you consider the most important (but one of many).

I am a humble man, constantly reminding myself of the mortality of this aging body that I've been trained to call me, knowing I am a temporary confluence of material borrowing material from the environment, a different person from moment to moment.

Not everyone is me. Do you understand the structure of that last sentence, the sentimental, logical and cultural components?

Have you ever built your own rocket, coating the exteriour, reinforcing the fins, running field tests of rocket motors, accelerometers and parachute recovery systems?

I can't count [i.e., remember] the number of rockets I've built, tested and launched.

Successes and failures I recount at my leisure.

So, you see, I weigh the pros and cons of every one of your lifestyles against what you mean to the survival of OUR species in relation to ecosystem diversity and how you, I, and you and I together will take a few eggs out of this basket and put them into another one taking off to otherworldly adventures.

I make no judgment about who you are or what you choose to call your lifestyle.

I am not you.

I am not the seven billion nodes of the network of us.

I am me, managing the strengths and weaknesses of the lines between the nodes.

In this moment, a blog entry pulls an "I" out of the environment because I'm drinking a hot cup of freshly roasted and brewed coffee beans from the Bluff View District of Chattanooga, a small First Nations village that grew into a polluted steel manufacturing town along with other industrial burgs on this continent caught up in the first wave of post-industrial revolution changes, then transformed into a clean, green information technology city wrapped around mountains and rivers.

My tongue's taste buds want to belong to a body that can appreciate the aftertaste of coffee beans grown on another part of this planet and shipped here, stressing the importance of commerce-based networking for our existence.

Thus, I am here, here with you, sharing your influence on me in this moment, enjoying the richness of this experience, hoping (but never assuming) you know how important we are to each other all the time, anywhere and everywhere.

In some moments, I am not-me, ripping apart the seams of the futbol I call my brain, tearing out the stuffing and starting all over again to see what "I" appears in the next moment. It's a painful process I don't wish on anybody. But the pain says I am me, a body with an externally-measured history it does not see.

We will say Rick was born, Rick lived and then Rick died but there were billions of Ricks who occupied the space within the artificial history of one person named Rick.

When you understand you represent billions of yourself within what you think of as your single lifespan, then it becomes easy practice to replace billions of yourself with billions of (billions of) us and see a network of billions of people within the billions of you.

From there, it's a simple life (simple, but not always easy).

A shoutout to Samantha and Suzette.  Good to hear from Julia Osovskaya again - I thank her for her Thank You project.  I wish Urmi well in whatever she's doing.  The folks at the Acropolis were as welcoming as ever last night.  The late night host of the Bluff View Inn made me feel like I was home.

I guess I am!