A short time ago while sitting at my duct-taped desk, here in the bowels of corporate America - I came to a disturbing realization that I'm sure many in my generation have come to: I'm finally sick of the Internet. I don't want to read articles on Wikipedia. I don't want to go on Google Video to watch some guy getting shot in the balls with a toy rocket. I don't even want to log on here to post this blog. I'm sick of it, fed up, done. Every day I sit here, feeling my hamstring muscles atrophy into a state of contracture from lack of movement while my brain is plugged into this global hive mind that is the supposed 8th Wonder of the World. I've spent the majority of my life plugged in, but I've recently reached a breaking point. An action potential is firing in this particular neuron of the hive mind, one which will change my relationship to the whole and its relationship to me.

I'm undergoing a serious transformation at the moment. I'm beginning to shut myself off from the firehose nonstop stimulation of 21st century living, a state of being in which every participant is saturated by a neverending stream of information and media. You see, we are all suffering from information sickness. Saint Gibson had it right. An entity subjected to overstimulation will surely implode just as that same entity will wither from lack of stimulation. It's been glaringly obvious to me for quite some time that I've been stuck at the former side of the pendulum, and that it's finally time to get off the merry-go-round.

That's why I'm beginning to tune out the noise, ignore the flashing lights and get back in touch with myself—my TRUE self. That little being in my head whose presence is timeless and whose voice is beautiful as a calm, still lake untouched by the hand of man. I'm beginning to reconnect with the REAL network, the one which does not require cables or WIFI or a service provider. And I'm starting to feel again.

I started this website/zine, Neometropolis, because I had a vision of the cyberpunk archetype. Clear as the sky is blue I saw a world of machines, beautiful and terrible creations hinting at some divine emergent design. I marvelled at the sight of the human creature, freely abandoning itself to become one with the machines of it's own invention. With child-like wonder I stared at the clockwork beauty of it all and said to myself "it is good."

But something happened to me last spring. The forest of my old psyche burned from the flames of corporate dehumanization while my body was breaking down from chronic stress disorder, something more commonly referred to as General Adaptation Syndrome. The turning point came on June 18th, 2007 when I was fired from the brokerage firm... 2 days before I was about to put in my notice. Obviously they were watching me more closely than I'd anticipated. After sleeping for some 12 hours I jumped in my car and started blasting Aftab Khan while making a B line for Chicago's India town neighborhood. Maybe it was a breakdown. Maybe it was a transcendental epiphany. Whatever it was, I was on a mission: I was getting out. Shortly after my departure from the dark beating heart of Chicago's financial district I enrolled in massage therapy school. I'm still enrolled today. And over the past year my life has been one winding white water rapid ride, pushing the boundaries of what I thought I knew about myself and the world around me. I don't know where I'll end up but I'm sure of one thing, which is that sooner or later I will abandon information technology as a profession and possibly unplug completely from this hive mind of ours. For the time being I will continue to work in Java development to pay the bills, but this'll all be behind me by the time I turn 30. Make no mistake, this is not the rambling manifesto of a disillusioned corporate burn-out verging on a total breakdown. Rather, this is the statement of my Will, and the knowledge that there is something else out there, beyond the relentless chattering of zeroes and ones.