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I really like routines. At least when they are of my own devising. I like being a regular. I have my bar where I'm known. I have my favorite restaurants where I usually order the same things to eat. It's nothing extreme. I don't get nervous when outside of these habits. But I tend to find what I like and stick with it.
The coffee shop on avenue A is an example. I go there most days around noon for a coffee and a toasted sesame bagel with avocado and tomato. They start making it before I sit down. This makes me extremely happy. Most days I cross paths with my friend N. who seems to be in the same routine. She gets an avocado bagel too, but with no tomato.
N. just opened a clothing store on avenue B. It's a small operation, and she spends most of her time minding the store. She confessed to passing the time doing jigsaw puzzles. I suggested she should get an internet connection instead, and she replied, in the most natural way possible, "What would I do on the internet?"
I had no answer. I hadn't even considered the question before, although I have heard variants of this thought. Just never so clearly. I was really struck. What exactly do you do on the internet? Just why is it so great? I mean for someone who doesn't already think so. It's a hard question to answer.
I struggled for a second and then shrugged my shoulders, like, "I guess you're right, that's a stupid idea." Still, I'd definitely want internet access. I want it everywhere, all the time. But not so I can do things, in the sense that you "do" a jigsaw puzzle. I don't play on-line games. I'm not compiling my family geneology. I don't even download music. But it would be very difficult for me to be without the net. I'm trying to figure out exactly why this is so. Here's my first try:
It's not so much that I want the net in order to accomplish some particular activity. Instead, having net access is a way of being. A way of doing things in the real world. And it boils down to this: I used to put off learning. I'd come to some problem and think, "you know, I really should figure this out some day." But I usually wouldn't do it. And once I put off learning something, I usually have to wait for it to come back up as a problem before I think to figure it out again. But with net access the answer is always just a google away. And I really do it. All my "I wonder...." moments are now swiftly met by a "hold on...." click, click, google, click, "...right, here it is."
And the benefit is not so much in finding all this information. It's more in my changing expectations. I expect to be able to find the answer to almost anything, right away, by myself. This is tremendously empowering. Just knowing that I have access to almost all knowledge changes everything about me. It makes me better. More curious. More independent.
But I still have no answer to my friend's question. I don't so much "do" stuff on the net (well, not counting my programming time.) I do things in the real world, and the net is there to back me up. The net is there to let me be my own expert. Even at things I don't know much about. I can't wait until I'm wirelessly connected all the time. My guess is that as this happens the question of "what do you do on the internet?" will make less and less sense. Like asking "what do you do in your long term memory?" Well, nothing, but you use it all the time. And you certainly couldn't get along without it.