|| Return to On The Road... ||
June 14, 1996
San Diego
Dear Friends:
Do you know what the missing Link is to your site?
Don't worry, it's not on the Web; you find it in your mirror every morning.
We used to scratch drawings on cave walls.
I wonder what it was like for the first cave person (being cave-politically correct) who picked up a rock and started drawing on those walls. Imagine a dark cave infested with smelly hairy people, all who are related to you, some who are married to you, some of whom are your children? With all things relative, you need an escape, an expression. Acting like a grunting hairy stinky thing was too easy an image to fall for; besides, someone wanted to leave the cave, leave the darkness, and go outside and play.
Instead they were forced to browse, which literally means looking through forests, trees, shrubs, grass, whatever for remnants of food. Starving, living day to day, browsing. Never stopping because there wasn't enough time, nor enough food. If there was, you'd stop.
After you got home from browsing and hopefully collecting food, all you had was the around the fireside discussions of what was happening. So sick of hearing and smelling your relatives that you had to do something, express, fill those dark walls with something to look at. You grab a rock and begin tracing a figure on the wall. Stick figures begin, an outline (where was art school in those days, where kids could learn to be creative, if they had enough money to learn) all from a rock.
All of a sudden your artwork would cover their walls. The old bland environment would encourage thought. People can't look at images without reacting, and you're so fed up with your stinky surroundings that you create the first Rorschach rockblots. You start experimenting with language to make sounds that get you what you want. You are evolving and they hate you for it.
And they blame it all on the rock. If only you hadn't picked up the rock, nothing would have changed, everything would stay the same.
Everything changes. Always. Embrace change. Engage the Web. Pick up your rock and don't worry what others say about you. They will change, they don't want to but they will. It's not the rock, it's not the dark walls you are trying to illuminate, it's not the fact that you even using the rock!
It's your mind, wanting to express itself. To engage an audience, spark their curiousity, hit a nerve, and run the gamut of imaginations and perspectives leading to new viewpoints. A creative process. You are born, you live, you die. And somewhere along the way, you hopefully create something that people look at. Being the first means having to explain what you are doing. But if you can make them understand...
Soon they stop complaining about your drawings and ask what they are. The audience picks up rocks and makes drawings. They start discussing with other people in the cave what the drawings mean. You start selling space on the walls to draw as they become full. You sell different types of rocks, sticks, and other implements to express with. Soon your idea becomes an integrated, interlaced thread of thought and expression, powered by the products and services you provide.
As the pioneer, you are the expert. Time to get going, miles to go before I sleep. Before you sleep. Before we all realize that the most powerful tool is within our minds. Technology is an echo of within. Those echoes are moving faster now. The tools are growing rapidly, scaring people.
Your Web site is your cave; have you drawn any pictures lately? Have you invited the audience in to draw on your walls, or at least to shop?
You should. Before your rock becomes a cliche.