The Miracle of Computer.

It has been almost 14 years now since I returned to Malaysia from my stay overseas which lasted 24 years of my life and what have i got to show for it? Nada!Zilch! Zero! Oh well I still got a Kancil and it gets me around and I did get my name into the Penang Art Scene with a few Solo Art exhibitions, Am I running dry at long last? Am I coming to my final lag of this journey  ( to find out)/ Should I be writing down my conclusions, wrap up my case and get ready for the pastures, where ever that may be? My blogging too is reflective of my state of mind which is like a juggernaut winding down towards its final resting stop. I really have very little or nothing left to share, thank the Good Lord as I am getting tired of spilling my guts to the non existent audience, but it was all worth the time spent as I could have been doing worse, which is doing nothing, although I have come to realize that there is really nothing wrong with it(doing nothing).
I have tried my hands at almost everything that I had set out to try and in most I had given my all for better or for worse and i am still alive and well even if not so independently wealthy like most of my peers.Such Is! I have climbed the mountain and the journey have been one long trail of successes and failures, many rivers i have crossed and many I have yet to venture and i still find myself sitting and watching as the ships roll by with no end in sight.I have tried my hand at making new friends and joined new clubs to see if that is where it is at but often enough i find disappointment one after another for all is not what it seems and boils down to simply making waves to justify my existence.
I am presently reading "Cyburbia", a book by James Harkin, (The dangerous Idea That's Changing How we live and Who we Are), which is like the history of computer and what effects it has on Mankind. My hours spent at blogging is a testimony to this fact, my children mistaking the tools for the message when they communicate with me or one another or the amount of time they devote towards thumbing away on the key boards is another reflection of things to come, we are in a 'Cyber Age', an age that will either unite us as a whole or disperse us into competitive groups vying to dominate through the collective minds. The age of information and technology or the age of ignorance the choice is at our fingertips. The modern day computer was a by product of a war effort according to Harkin, it was in the search for a means to shoot down the Nazi war planes bombing England during WW2 that a mathematician by the name of Norbert Wiener set about putting man and machine to work together in bringing an end to the reign of terror in areal bombings.Today the computer technology has been put to use in numerous war related technologies such as guided missiles and Drones.
As i may have mentioned in my earlier blogs, the Computer is perhaps God's (for those who believe) final Miracle for Mankind; or it could be the Devil's pitch fork we either make it or break it this time around, the age of the Prophets and Messiahs are gone and fewer great men are coming forth from our time and age to lead us on the right path. The Computer is our final respite and the challenge we face in its use or abuse will culminate in our crowning glory or extinction as a specie or for all species for that matter.For so long as we are ruled by greed, hate and ignorance, the Computer will be detrimental to our being, however if we collectively can resort to the voices of our past wisdom, the wisdom or our ancients, we might be able to salvage whatever there is to be saved through the proper use of this God given miracle ; the technological feat that could be our Saving Grace.

"Militarisation was not the only danger that Wiener felt confronted a society which controlled itself automatically through a system of feedback loops...His chief concern was that automation would lead people to surrender to the machine their own purposes and their power of mind."
                                                                                      Cyburbia, by James Harkin

While having my breakfast at " China House' ,this morning at English gentleman stopped at my table and we talked about the book and its impact on our lives especially that of our children and their future. It is no doubt in his mind and mine that our lives has been altered from its norm and not all for the better as we watched our children spending so much of their time hunched over the lap top or the PC, their fingers running at breakneck speed over some gizmo while their attentions totally absorbed in some weird game or another not at all in touch with what is going on around them.I told him that it is to me the most formidable form of escapism from reality as most of the kids today ( my children included) have a hard time making their own beds much less anything else. How do we get to strike a good balance in between the dependence on technology and the exercise of the human faculties such that the later is not totally dissolved into the former?
The computer age has yet to affect the whole human society globally as many countries still have yet to have excess to electricity much less computers and people are not all computer literates and thus still maintain a close connection with the more traditional modes of communication; like they still travel to one another's homes to greet and be greeted and they still share common stories and goals that is close to their hearts rather than be dragged into a universal mess that is now inhabiting the global scene as has been brought by the Internet into their lives. Is ignorance a bliss in this cases? Will we be overrun by information technology to the extent that we fail at our inter-personal communications? Will the next generation after be able to even communicate with their parents like humans instead of text messaging with unreadable spelling in short forms that only they would understand. Or would they even care to say Hi! with their BlackBerry.
Such Is!