But isn't that missing the point?
I admit to more than a bit of ambivalence here. Maybe rather than being relaxing,
vacations should be intense experiences. After all, if we're going to be
visiting places with which we're unfamiliar, it's going to take hard work to get
to know and understand them. In the past, I've wanted to learn as much about the
places I visit as I can. For that reason, while on the road I haven't wanted to
take along CDs (or, long ago, tapes) of music I like to listen to, feeling instead
that I should be immersing myself into the "culture" of the area I'm visiting.
But in our online world, "culture" (if that's the right word for it) has become
placeless. If I feel as though I'm at home when
I enter a shopping mall, or walk along a street in a foreign city, I've lost the
novelty of being somewhere different (not to mention strange). And if being somewhere
foreign is no different than being at home, why shouldn't I listen to the music
I want to hear, or visit the web sites that interest me, or access
my e-mail.
Go to: Get into my cloud.