I've been feverishly working on a personal website. It's been quite good for the soul. In fact, it brings me back to those days huddled in my cool basement with a phone cord snaking its way from the wall jack into the back of our Apple. I had heard about this thing called "Compuserve". The idea was that you dialed a special number through your computer that allowed your computer to "log in" and access information. I remember the inordinate frustration of dialing and redialing - the thrill of success when the icon said "Connected!" and the plunge to the depths of adolescent Hades when "Connection Lost" appeared instead. What could one do when connected? Well... lots of things. If you typed the number "1", you could see the latest world news, etc. Basically, the whole thing just excited me in a way I couldn't explain. But I've always been like that. I've always marveled at new technology, as much for the actual application of a thing as of the idea of what it makes possible.
I remember designing my first website. I had bought "Making Your Own Website for Dummies" and thought I knew my way around a little HTML because of the very limited set of commands that book taught. I can still see it now - the trite animated gifs of leaping flames - the scrolling banner that took way too long to figure out - the background image I carefully selected. It was great. I asked my girlfriend Sarah if she remembers "Geocities," and she said no. Sad.
Regarding my new site, my brother asked - what will you use it for? My first thought - unspoken - was, does it matter? Maybe I'm a Platonist or maybe just a dreaming innocent, but for me the idea, the naked possibility of a thing, is always just as if not more exciting than the thing itself. Who cares if no one visits my website. I made it. It exists. Its idea is clearly better than its execution. Pure possibility, potentiality, is dynamic beauty. That's saying a lot about a concerto of 1's and 0's, but I'm okay with that.
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