What is happening to me? Am I the same person anymore? Has Apple Computer, unknown to me, performed some kind of clandestine brain transplant on me? Am I in fact the same person I was before March 24, 2001? I am not sure anymore. I am so unsure of many things. I feel haunted, haunted by a daemon.

It all began so innocently. Well ... almost. I saw it coming. We all saw it coming. We had experiences with beta versions and all that, but didn't really stick with it. Too much to give to up back then. And now, on March 24, something about me changed. I can't quite put my finger on it. But slowly I feel a transformation bubbling in my gut, like a fly flew into my transport pod just before teletransportation. Something inside of me is growing, like a statue pushing to get out of raw marble. But it is not me anymore. Or is it? I was anxious. Like the first kiss, with shaking hands and a sweaty brow, I installed it. It was beautiful. The beauty. Was this a BSD experience or LSD experience? Was it a ... Mac anymore? That was the rub. I wasn't sure.

But then again I was never sure of what "the Mac" was in the first place. Oh, yes, I hear the talk of "ease-of-use, simplicity, speed" and all that. But you can say the same things about a sausage maker and so I knew they did not capture the essence of the Mac itself. Like Socrates asking "What is justice?" I was asking "What is the Mac?" It was very hard to answer. VERY hard. But I think I hit upon it.

Simply stated (as I did a year ago at another site): The essence of the Mac is that it is a computer. Simple enough, eh? But this was also the essence of a Dell box. In fact, it might also be MY essence as well (the only difference is that I am wet on the inside and it is dry on the inside). So I realized the essence of the Mac as a computer was that it is a Universal Turing machine (a calculator basically). Simple enough. But what was the essence of the Mac as a Mac? The answer suddenly hit me, like a violent storm-front on a Floridian coast - the essence of the Mac as a Mac is that you do not realize its essence as a computer. This was it.

I almost shut down everything. I almost stopped writing. After all, everything you could say about the Mac could be said in this simple formula: The essence of the Mac as a computer is that it is a Universal Turing machine; the essence of the Mac as a Mac is that you do not notice its essence as a computer. This says it all and no one had ever said it before. So we, the Mac Web, might as well shut down things and go home. Right? Yes. Everything that will be said after that will simply be restatements of that simple truth. It's what so many of us had been searching for; what we didn't even know we lost, we found. It would all be repetition after this.

And then came March 24, 2001.

This began a double movement identity crisis in my life. The reflection in my monitor had changed because of both who was looking into it and what was being reflected back. Like a convex mirror, the shape of the window changed the image of myself I saw. But which had changed more, the glass's shape or the one reflected by it?

Both.

I was just exploring, you know? I had a new toy, a whole new operating system, and was just pocking around to see what it was like. I can't believe, to put it bluntly, that for a mere $69 (educational price) I have received in return so very many hours of pure fun and enjoyment. Oh, and yes, I have been productive too! I haven't lost anything because I adopted OS X early, thanks to a very stable Classic environment. But I was just looking around and thought, "This is new, I'll check it out."

And then BANG!!!!!!!!!

It was the moment the universe changed; it was the second I changed; it was the instant my Mac changed. Both — me and my Mac — seemed to have simply disappeared in a puff of smoke and slowly floated away, starting a double transformation between me and my Mac as we both vanished. As the valley grew lower the hills grew higher. There it was, right before me, like I had never seen it before. What did I see that changed everything? What scream caused me to wake up? I opened the Terminal app and the ProcessViewer app. The moment I did my Mac disappeared, and me along with it. After all, I can no longer be a Mac user if my Mac suddenly ceases to exist, can I?

What had happened? Suddenly the essence of the Mac as a Mac was gone before my very own eyes. If in fact the essence of the Mac as a Mac is that one does not notice its essence as a computer, the Terminal and ProcessViewer apps changed all that, unveiling right before me the essence of the Mac as a computer and smothering the essence of a Mac as a Mac.

And I disappeared with it. As Pierre Igot so aptly put it, "You are no longer a user but an 'Administrator.'" What? me? A UNIX Systems Administrator? I teach in the humanities not the sciences; I don't have plastic liners in my shirt pockets; I wouldn't know a UNIX command if it ran up and kissed me and said "Thank you!" But the moment I saw the Terminal app "talk back to me," as it were, I wanted to know more.

Suddenly: The fact that FreeBSD 4.3 came out was news to me. To ME!! I started reading "Learning the UNIX Operating System" and "Think UNIX." I looked through "UNIX in a Nutshell." I wanted to learn the differences between BSD and other species of UNIX. I wanted to create other users, fictions really, and run a real system like a SIMs village. I was going to Barnes and Noble and reading up on ... the Korn shell? The vi Editor? "<" was no longer just a quote mark in emails — it now means "Redirect input from a file." I am no longer playing in a GUI but I exist in a Matrix called an "environment' made of a hostnames, accounts and users. I will do it, I will learn UNIX with the help of a lot of reading and trial and error. There is so much power sitting there and I want to take advantage of it. But what have I become? Where did I go to?

"Learning the UNIX Operating System" keeps saying "If none of these suggestions helps you ... ask ... your system administrator." But I AM the 'Administrator'!! So now where do I turn for help?

It is a feeling that even Aqua itself cannot wash from me, no matter how much I love Aqua (and I do love it a lot). Even if I never open the Terminal again, the damage has been done, and I keep having BSD flashbacks. And sure, Quartz is beautiful. Yet now so much is not hidden from me: "One cannot be told what the Matrix is. He has to see it for himself." Yeah, kind of like that.

I use OS X full time now and I love it, I really do. It has taken patience, perseverance, and lots of time and hard work, but I have adopted and adopted early. I am learning new things everyday (and as a educator I like that, a lot!). I am learning how UNIX/BSD works. I knew, for the most part, what I was getting into. Yet, OS X has taken something important away from my Mac, namely, Apple's long standing trick of fooling us into thinking we are not using a computer when we are. And OS X has taken something important from me, namely, myself as a Mac user.

But it had to be — the one depended on the other.

Email David Schultz

David's "Infinite Loop" page here at Applelust

See also "The Psychology of Early Adoption" and "Fools for the Mac."