COLUMN: me@email.getalife.edu

From Sonja Stumacher's "Fragments of the Sun," Fall '95 From Sonja Stumacher's "Fragments of the Sun," Fall '95My vision has blurred. I strain to focus on the world through eyes red and sore, their tiny bloodshot capillaries weaving increasingly more visible and intricate patterns across the surface of the windows to my soul. My contact lenses threaten to stick forever to the unblinking irises upon which they rest. My head aches. I haven't slept much, haven't been home much. Time inches along its weary path. If I strain my ears I can almost hear the plethora of words slowly gathering inside the minds of my fellow students, overflowing through the tips of their fingers and onto the objective screens before their bent heads. I am on the fifth floor of some library, you may have seen me there. I sit in front of a computer. I am on e-mail. I have recently found myself staring unswervingly at these pale, glowing screens all over campus. I have entered a separate world, a world of words only, of instantaneous correspondence, of mystery and imagination. A world of non-material connection, speedily bridging the fabricated gaps between myself and those from whom I am separated, if only by the length of a mere stone's throw. A world of faceless language -- of letters, phrases, commas that string together sentences attached to nothing, attached to no one. A lonely world. This is not like me. I am an alive, breathing, tangibly interactive human being. I strive to reach out and grasp your hand, to see your face and hear your voice. I work to step across the lines dividing me from you, so that we may understand one another. I am dedicated to human interaction, to proximity. The basic premise of electronic mail seems, somehow, contrary to these instinctual cravings. The idea of transmitting words at the speed of light from one terminal to another, from one mind to another, entirely erases the elemental human component, the unconscious body language and magical energy flow that accompanies a person's speech and personality. E-mail has spurred a new potential to form half-acquaintances, friendships built only upon the carefully-typed thoughts of other free-floating, detached and safely distant minds. I suppose if you asked me to I could also extol the merits of these electronic relationships. I have certainly met some interesting characters on the internet (you people know who you are). And there have indeed been times when e-mail has helped me to reach much farther across the world than I knew was possible. I recall exchanging daily messages with a friend studying in Europe last semester, a vital correspondence that would have been otherwise impossible. Among writers in particular I envision a real virtue of electronic mail. Writers love to show people their minds, love to form and mold their words for others to digest. They yearn to sit quietly, in solitude, and open the dams of their souls while the language of their hearts pours forth. Writers dedicate themselves to imprinting with words their existence in the world. Yet this mission does not, perhaps, require anything beyond mere language. I, too, wish to make my mark in writing. And yes, e-mail has created for me a forum through which I may extend my words into the minds of readers. But there is something more in my intent; the language strives toward a perhaps slightly altered end. I hope to construct with my words a simple link between you and me, to create a metaphor for the entirety of our relationship, for everything that comes before and after you have read my words and I yours. So here I sit, rapidly typing away. Perhaps it will soon be time for me to burst out of this closed space and breathe in the cold Philadelphia air. This computer screen can be my comrade for only so long before I search for something more, some actual, fleshy proof that I am not, after all, alone. Let us not sink ourselves into the clutch of power computing instead of human interaction. Let us not allow the internet to replace our elemental discourse. We might try to use this new electronic dimension as simply a further expression of what we can already communicate to a flesh and bone reality. After all, we are still human beings. So give me real, live people, I say. Show me your words, yes, but show me your faces, too. Show me who you are. Let's not forget our basic, human need for clasped hands. Otherwise my vision will continue to blur, my eyes to ache, my head to pound, until I fuse with this machine before me and the lab assistant has to pry me from my chair at the end of the day.