Into The Matrix

In front of the PC
I surf the web for any 
human signs that may 
hinder my continuous assimilation
with the inorganic machine.

Three years after writing the passages above, a friend who used to work at Smart Communications told me the future of the Internet:

Personal computers can access the web without the need of cables. Broadband would be useless and telecommunications companies, like the one he's working for will provide Internet service to its customers.

At a time when social media was still being developed as a platform for trash and profound opinions, and dial-up remained the main method of connecting to the web. I merely shrugged at his prophesy. I couldn't even afford a postpaid service so I relied on pre-paid cards to access my blog. I am not even a techie or someone who goes crazy with electronic gadgets so whatever he told me meant nothing.  

As long as I could go online in a net cafe, then my worries were gone.

But then and now belong to different age. It is like comparing the renaissance with the landing on the moon even when both historic turning points share only the same vein. I knew there was no turning back after we have given up on dial-up last March. It's about time we catch up with technology. And with the appearance of the first laptop inside the house, the day when we will finally cut the cables and move around with a computer in our hands drew near. 

But a catalyst is needed to start the change.

I remember telling the partner that within a year after getting my laptop, the entire house will be wired. Funny because a few months after we first met, I told him that I knew nothing about Wi-Fi and all those stuff. I don't even pay attention when tech people around me talk about their latest electronic toy.

Last summer, I told my sister to convince my brother-in-law to get a laptop. Tutal, it will come from his mom's wallet. Since he doesn't want to work in an office setup, maybe he could just find a freelance job that lets him work at home. 

It so happened too that the organization where he moonlights lent him a Macbook. Ang sosyal lang diba, considering that what he does for a living has something to do with casting the government in a bad light and organizing "Occupy Mendiola" movements year round. 

  

But when the favorite aunt decided to give away her old laptop, and it coincided with the thoughts of letting my mom talk to her sisters abroad using Skype, that's when the need to unhook ourselves from cables become an urgency. We cannot stay longer sharing a single Ethernet connection, especially now that the sister too has emerged from the Dark Ages. 

It was when I went home one night and found my sister's husband working on a project in our living room did the final push happen. He could have done much work with the web around. The same morning, I asked the matriarch to fund my venture. A request I haven't done in a long time. Mom understood my points and handed me fifteen hundred bucks to buy this:

D-Link N-150. P1,950 Gilmore

A week has passed. The sister seldom stays in my room anymore to use my desktop. The brother-in-law stays more often in the sala with his Macbook. And the matriarch, the one who lent us the funds to complete this revolution, had her first taste of Facebook the night the entire house went online.

Sooner or later, when the helpers could finally afford a cheap smart phone from China. They too will be wired into the matrix.

The household will only then officially enters the Information Age.

Drained of humanity,

I was left in my chair

downloading my soul.

Cyber Sentience

Poem Book Six, The Dark Side of Light, 

I-Third Year UST - 2001