My vestigial life

We think of virtual reality as some far-off technology that will accompany transporters and holodecks. But I say the future is now, numbah one (if you're not a Star Trek Next Generation fan, that reference will be lost on you).

Sunday evening, having planted my butt firmly and permanently on the couch after working on the computer all afternoon, I snuck a glance outside and realized that I hadn't actually looked at cold, hard reality for more than a few minutes that day. Then I did some quick math (that's the only way I'll do math), I was alarmed to realize that I spend most of my days looking at and living in some kind of projection screen, be it a computer or t.v. It seems obvious, technology is the bane of modern civilization, it's making people antisocial, yada yada yada--but when you look at it in terms of cold hard numbers, it's shocking that I'm spending most of my life in a non-real world. I'm awake about 14 hours every day. Of that time, 8 to 10 hours are spent 'inside' a virtual world. That's waaaay too much.

I want to live again! I want to be able to process non-VGA and non-Cathode Ray light. I don't want my eyes to become vestigial. Even more importantly, I don't want my life to become vestigial.

I'm going to take the dog for a walk now. I might be a while.