Month: December 2006

When I began seriously studying English in high school, I fell in love with the word onamatapoeia. It was a word that you could roll around your mouth … and its meaning … well I am sure you know.

My interest in more hardcore learning had been stimulated by a friend of our family … a woman who appeared to my young eyes, to be a cosmopolitan person of the world. Her house was filled to the brim with books on art and Chinese culture — sections of rooms were petitioned off with silk scrolls and her furniture was black lacquered wood. There were statues of buddha, Turkish rugs on the floor and the pervasive smell of cigar smoke. And when she stepped out onto the streets of my beachside suburb, she did so in patent leather high heels and jackets trimmed with faux fur.

She looked out of place in these bright, sun-drenched streets … and yet she was also part of them. You see, she and her family had been living in the neighbourhood for years — everyone knew her and loved her. She was fun and wielded her wicked sense of humour as if it was a sharp cane to beat the mediocre and mundane. In Australian parlance, she was known as "a character".

Each Friday I would arrive home from school to find her and my Nanna sharing a bottle of champagne or wine. They would be laughing and telling stories, trying on new clothes and prancing around our living room like queens. Sometimes, for a treat, we would order Chinese takeaway food and laugh into the night.

It is the sound of her laughing that I remember most … and her smiling eyes, but it is another sound that I am hearing now, as I write. You see, the world is a quieter place with her recent passing. I found out last night that she had died and been quickly buried. I was saddened to realise that I had missed a chance to say goodbye or "thanks" or to celebrate her life with others who loved her.

But most of all, I am sad to know that one story has drawn to an end, and that part of my own — a small part of my own life story — has also been lost. I guess that is the way of the world. But in writing this small remembrance of a wonderful woman, perhaps she will live, not just for me, but in the imaginations of whoever chances to read this.

Her name was Ona.

Lynette has more clever thinking bouncing around Flickr … and I was drawn first of all to this one featuring Rupert Murdoch, but then found this other that captured my imagination a little more ruthlessly. The two quotes are conceptually related, and Lynette nails it with the explanation:

There used to be all this talk of the “digital divide” and it was between the haves & the have-nots in terms of what they could afford. But I think there is an even bigger gulf in mindset between the generations. It’s the difference between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants”.

Even those of us who are immersed or engaged with the Interweb on a daily basis are only first wave immigrants. We walk around with our online passports claiming early adopter status for Amazon, Yahoo, Google et al; we write blogs, MySpace pages and update our LinkedIn profiles. We think we have seen it all and know where it will go.

But the very fact that we know the NAMES of these devices and sites tells us that we are wrong — because our tired old twentieth century brains are built for obsolescence. The WAYS of thinking we have wired into our brains through the mishmash of culture, genetics and repeat patterning have ensured both our success and our future failure. Sure, we have been able to smash through barriers to innovation in the business and political worlds while opening new markets; we have seen the opening of China, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the death (but not trial) of Pinochet, the end of Apartheid … we had many of the right thinkers and participants just at the right time. But then, humankind always has done — we are always "of our time".

And this is precisely why people over 30 have a degree of difficulty grasping the fundamentals of digital identities — because, dear (old) friends, our time is past and passing. We are not of the present because our victories are already in the past. There may, of course, be other successes — perhaps grander than those of web 1.0 still due to us, and we may all be able to still have the times of our lives — but innovation for us now must focus around the application of knowledge and learning — even if that knowledge and learning points back to the foundations of postmodernism.

The fragmented postmodern identity that we have known and loved in its forlorn, empowered and schizophrenic manifestations is slowly, but surely, ceding its energy to the coming generation. Many will not mourn its passing while others will insist on its primacy — citing the role of history, the importance of "this" or "that" and the continual reassertion of the dominant paradigm.

Me? I think there may just be something in the Nintendo Brain Game … and opt for continuous learning. The sheer fact that I tried to iignore blogging, social media and Web 2.0 for years rings warning bells for me — but I am not yet ready to give in. They used to say that life begins at 40 … and while that may be uncomfortably close, I could easily have a Second Life who is 20. And while I may be virtually young again, I doubt I will again share in the reckless intelligence that made my 20s so much fun.

S.