The Wide, Wide World

(I typed this part last but thought I should bring it up front because it's more to the point than the rest of my scattered thoughts, see below for the beginning)
So, what sort of world do I want to live in? ...I'm currently doing research on Second Life and I'm finding out that there are the same sort of problems in the digital world as there are in the physical one. That leads me to think, that perhaps "What sort of world do I want to live in" is looking at the wrong end of the situation. Maybe the way to look at it is "How do I want to live in the world. What sort of me?" Instead of thinking about the medium or the interface, what if we think about the message that WE bring to the equation? Does that line of thinking reject the aim of this assignment and even the class? And yet, the question of digital text and digital space only becomes pertinent, I think, when it is interacting with a user. But then, where/how do medium-specific issues come into play?

What sort of "me?" I suppose on some level I feel an amount of anxiety in the physical world. Insurance, bills, grades, work, the environment--yeah, yeah, I know, glass-half-empty. But how do we go about addressing these very real concerns? Ultimately I would like to be more comfortable with these issues. Is there any "world" that can facilitate that? Can the digital help with that in some way? Is there a digital Buddhism? This conversation seems to be turning more and more to hybridity. What about "born digital" elements? I hope this question continues forward throughout the course this semester, and beyond, it is crucial for all of us to grapple with.

(This is where I started writing, and how I got to the above paragraph)
In class last week we were asked to imagine what sort of world we wanted to live in. Hard question. How is one to conceptualize a response to this? Do I focus on a grand-scale, like world-peace? Or, maybe, something more individual, like how my street could function better? My academic interests revolve around space and architecture, and currently I am fascinated by the possibilities (and limitations) of blending the physical with the digital. I'm also at a loss for knowing how to connect these two concepts that seem impossible to interweave. Responding to this question in class, I wrote things like: I want a world of constant revision; I want a world where text and image merge (what does that mean?); I want a world where writing becomes a physical act; I want a world of mutually experiential texts.

Now, if we address the notion of interface (writing v. reading, physical v. digital), what sort of different "worlds" do each of these create for us? How does the type of interface alter our perception of that world (writing a book v. reading a book)? Our class is focused on writing and how it is changing in the context of the digital. In addition to this, I am also interest in how space-as-text changes in relation to the digital. However, there seems to be a fundamental problem with the idea of space as digital text. What about the body? I was enthralled by Vinge's book "Rainbows End" (I'll talk more about the book in a later post). Perhaps this is the sort of world I want to live in, one in which the digital has been integrated into the physical. Does that means I want "enhanced life?" What's wrong with analog life?