EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES

O.K. now, listen up:

There's a lot of nonsense abroad in the land, and I'm going to take the time to set a few things straight. To begin with, there's the state of Apple Computer, Inc.

A lot of people are calling the purchase of Apple stock at its current low price a "no-brainer" and I suppose it is. In fact, if AAPL stays in the teens a while longer, I just may buy some myself. The company has lots more money than I do and the office furniture alone ought to be worth $19 a share, so what the heck? Um, well, I'll tell you: there is always the possibility that what we may have here is the end of an era staring us in the face.

In Internet years, Apple and quite a few other technology companies are getting awfully old. Before long the executives will look different, too. Imagine Steve Jobs in a cardigan with gray hair and a double chin, yow! It's gonna happen, you know, and not all the money in the world can stop it. Any minute now these guys are going to look in the mirror and say, "Screw this!" Who wouldn't get tired, too? Tired of all the bickering. Tired of the endless competition, scheming, wasting of resources and lives. Aren't you getting tired as well? Tired of the hollow buzz? Tired of being one step behind on the merry-go-round? I mean, is that what our lives are all about, really?

Sometimes I think that if I could push a button and blow up the Internet, I would. Don't get me wrong, now. I love the largely-unrealized potential of the 'Net, but I also hate the commercial aspect of it for all the energy it's sucked off into nothingness. It's the old golden calf shuck-and-jive all over again, doggone it, but aren't we all grown up now, species-wise? Isn't it time to truly "think different"?

How's this for starters? A very special person formulated this wisdom for me once : "If you give, you live."

Corporations don't give a thing, not even a damn. Haven't we turned over enough of our energy and resposibility to these conceptual entitities? That's what bothers me about our fixation on Apple, Intel, Nokia, Oracle, Microsoft, Time-Warner, General Motors, and all the rest. Hot dog-eating contest champions, every one. Whenever I read about who just bought whom for another billion dollars, I just think: wait for the belch. At least in pagan times they had gods to worship! This is really getting old. What are we going to do, just keep it up until one of them eats the world? In their dreams!

Giving, living, knowing, growing -- not the kinds of things I'd want to bet against in the long term. So why do we?

Meanwhile, here in beautiful northern New Mexico, the only thing keeping the sky blue is the fact that there's too much of God's creation left to be swallowed whole. In this isolated corner of America, nature still has the upper hand. Take a look at the above picture from just over the line in southern Colorado and you'll see what I mean: there's plenty of room here for all those unsold Cubes, and we could give every doofus meglomaniac ten acres and a shovel and shut the door. (Hah! In my dreams. . .)

We're such strange, mixed-up animals. So much potential and self-destruction in one lumpy package, it makes me want to cry sometimes. At those moments in particular, it's hard to escape the conclusion that almost everything we've ever been taught is wrong. Might explain a lot of things, yes?

Most folks think they have a pretty firm grasp on just what constitutes "reality," for instance. You think you're standing on solid ground? Think again. Stamp your foot once or twice, what do you feel? And where do you feel it? The sensation of solidity underfoot is an illusion, of course. You feel it where the nerves dump their electrochemical cargo, right there inside your brain. For that matter, your brain doesn't really "exist," either. And sooner or later we may have to confront the possibility that the universe itself is a dream. Well, if all we're talking about is indivisible energy of some sort, then -- whoa! No kidding, grasshopper. And we're sitting around wondering about stock prices or how to overcome the megahertz gap? [tap, tap] "Is this thing on?"

At this point the notion of All There Is dividing into a bazillion ignorant beings begins to make sense, or would if we had any. Unfortunately, most of us don't, and I'm not any better than the rest. I too was raised not to see auras and taught that only ghosts can walk through walls. I can't seem to fly, either, or watch the sun set on Mars, but I'll be darned if I know why not.

Here's an idea for you: it doesn't matter if Apple thrives or not! But what is your sense of the most beautiful, fulfilling future world of computing that you could imagine? Is there an Apple logo on it? Cool! See how this works? Just remember, none of this amounts to more than half a beat of a single gnat's wing.

(And now I'm off to try for the ten thousandth time to try to follow my own advice. . .)

John H. Farr edits the news for Applelinks.com with a PowerMac 8600 that goes up to "11," and he invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM and has an ongoing project called Zoozone News (if you're lucky you'll find a different photo of New Mexico there every day).

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