Editorials @ Applelust

Digging, Memory and Mattering

Well, everyone is saying it and I don't need to say again — we're all trying to get back to normal, as if that is possible. It will be very hard. I simply have some scattered thoughts of the events of the last week and my own relatioship to the Mac and Apple. They are scattered because I am scattered.

I cannot tell you all how many times I have sat down to start writing and could not do it. Finally I did write last Sunday night. It felt good. But even now it is hard, and very much so indeed. I write what I feel and think. But what I have been feeling and thinking cannot be put into words. So I could not write. But slowly I am seeing my way through this...

Digging

I saw an interview with a family member looking for his brother in the aftermath of the attack. He was frustrated and all he could do is stand at the Police line with his brother's picture. After all, he said, "... they won't let me dig."

Yes, for many days that is all I felt like doing. I just wanted to dig. I still do. I could not be angry about the $20 'free' upgrade to 10.1. I could not be outraged that my upgrade costs were getting high. I could not be frustrated that I cannot buy an iBook. I could not pound my fist anymore whenever IE crashed. I could not get upset that I am still waiting for my major programs to be ported to OS X. I cannot be angry about anything Michael Dell says. I cannot, it seemed care...

I just wanted to dig.

When I did care I was ashamed. I was in discussions with a vender shortly after the tragedy about review products. I was embarrassed to care that they sent me a Windows code and not a Mac code. Embarrassed to the core. Oh, it was not about the fact that I got a Windows code. It was the fact that I cared at all about a mistake with such small measure that troubled me. No, in the same way that we longer see ourselves, as many are saying, as black-white, poor-rich, and so on, but as Americans, or at the very least, as a People focused by a common tragedy, so I no longer see the world as Windows-Mac.

I was embarrassed that it seemed to matter to me. I was ashamed that I seemed to care. Deep down I did not. But having to write a simple note to the vender that he accidentally sent me a Windows code and not a Mac made me feel small. This was a small matter to me. It still is...

I just want to dig.

Memory

Memory is a sign of weight, importance. Memories are echoes of importance. They signal important events and processes in our life. We remember things because we care; we remember things because they touched us; we remember things because they changed us; we remember things because they hurt us; we remember things because they brought us deep joy; we remember things because they turned us.

One thing that has always troubled me is the fleeting fancy of the Mac Web — its short memory. It has a very short memory. Simple, short articles are published and never followed up on. Issues, in many cases pure fabrications designed only for page views (what we call "baititorials"), flood the link sites every day. We get fooled anew by rumors with every Expo; we just don't learn because we lack memory. We fiercely argue and debate like there is no tomorrow, and in many cases, the issues we so hotly debate have no tomorrows. We forget. They fade. They disperse like smoke floating above a crash site. The forums explode with outrage over firmware updates and lingering bugs in updates. In truth, we know, that these Mac matters won't keep our attention. The fleeting and fabricated nature of issues on the Mac Web is an indication of their lack of ultimate importance. The fact is that they do not keep our attention because they cannot. We are not built, as human beings, like that.

We want our time taken up with matters that matter. We want to think we will leave a footprint wherever we go. We want to touch people. We want friends and family. We desire meaning on a multitude of levels. And when something that cannot satisfy these begins to occupy much of our time and efforts our lives become comical and absurd. We push the stone uphill and rolls back down, only for us to push it up again, ad infinitum. I felt comical because I have a short memory.

Earlier this week I was in a bookstore. I saw the WW II books by Stephen Ambrose lined up on the end of the rack. I saw people, my age and younger, sifting through them. The children and grandchildren of those who fought the great battles are showing a great interest right now in the bravery of what their fathers and grandfathers did. They WANT to remember. We want to honor them; we want to build a memorial to them.

Our future will some day be others' memories. Are we seeing the same thing now, if in fact what happened on 9-11-01 was OUR Pearl Harbor? Will our children be reading about us in the same way 50 years from now? Will the books have to be written? Will we do anything, if called for, that others will WANT to remember? Are we a "Great Generation"? These questions will be answered in the next few weeks and years as we are told what will be required of us, and if our response, if needed, deserves to be remembered 50 years from now. Whether we want to live in the memories of our children in this way is NOT up to us. History may have forced it on us last week.

But I will never forget 9-11-01. No one will.

Contradiction

And then there is the Mac. My mind was, and is, so far removed from the Mac that I almost feel estranged from it. I recalled those "I [Apple logo] NY" signs from the NY Expo. At that point two things were combined which represented completely different worlds to me. New York, a smoldering pile of rubble in the center, the skyline changed forever, a scene of death and destruction. I have seen so many tears the last week. My President, and seasoned journalists. Hardened and tough firefighters. Politicians. Tears. The Javits Center, the location of so much Expo disappointment a few months ago, was now a place for rescue workers, supplies, and hope amid destruction. The Apple logo. A sign of innovation, strength, and good ole American know-how, one of the great American success stories. And when I put them together in my mind I reeled. The ambiguity of the message produced an infinite ambivalence in me. At one moment it seemed petty; at another moment it seemed poignant.

One the one hand I saw fragility. One of my writers told me that he was only thinking of how fragile civilization was. Indeed. I have a fair knowledge of history, especially ancient Greek and Roman history. I have read about civilizations which have come and come. Sumer. Mycenae. Egypt. Persia. Greece. Rome. Greece in the Archaic Age, and Athens in the Classic Age, with its Democracy, produced philosophy, science, and history. All have come and gone, and some have lasted longer, some shorter, than the United States. In these past times when a crisis poured on a society and temples and monuments fell, the people just walked away from them, as they did in Mycenae. The civilization was ended. Now we dig, and we don't walk away like they did. We have the technology and public safety. We are still digging even as hope fades. But at rock bottom we are just as fragile as any of those civilizations. So I just want to dig.

On the other hand I saw strength and innovation, and the freedom to create in the Apple logo so poignantly placed in that sign. Apple has become am emblem of a way of life for me. Thinking Different is a way of life. And when I saw that contradictory sign I saw the fragility of that way of life. I saw determination among debris. I saw creativity among destruction. I saw my way of life juxtaposed with the threat of the fragility of that way of life.

Mattering

Some things are starting to matter again. Slowly, we seek normalcy ad continuity. It's hard. But it's needed. In a few weeks the things that mattered to us will began to matter again, but with a perspective and vantage point unlike any of those we have ever known, or cared to admit to ourselves.

When Apple canceled the Paris Expo for safety concerns we were all reminded of what matters. An Expo! The most important event for us Mac users, will not happen. These are times Mac Web sites look forward to because they produce large page views. They give us issues and speculations to write about when we run dry. Not so now. Seybold is still on though. But be that as it may, when the Paris Expo was canceled the message was clear — there are more important things to care, write and think about. It was as if Apple itself was telling me this directly.

Neither me, none of my writers, nor any Mac site can lead the way to mattering. It is individual. It won't happen in our forums. It will be in our families and with our friends. We can keep doing what we did before; we can in small ways lead. We can help in small ways. We will once again be a pleasant distraction. The fact is that many are trying to take those small, feable steps forward, and no one is yet running. But we will run again. For we talk about the Mac Community, and Communities mourn together, they help each other, they survive by relying on one another. They all feel the same pains and experiences the same injuries. The Mac Community will never replace family ties, and we don't try to. But as the Mac Community comes together, as we slowly get back to things, mattering will come again. But at least this time I suspect that it will matter in the right ways in and the right proportions. We will be better for it, as all of America will be. I am sure of it.

Dave Schultz

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