CJ Eller

Belated thanks for the shoutout John Doe:

CJ Eller's post about analog hyperlinks reminded me of an article's fragment I came across a few weeks ago:

“If you experience something — record it. If you record something — upload it. If you upload something — share it.”

These days it feels like all valuable experiences must be recorded, otherwise, they have no value — like they never even happened. CJ Eller was spot on when he realizes (or reminds) the real value of human interactions — an analog hyperlink — even if they are not translated into bits flowing through the web.

I believe our constant need for sharing and getting feedback in today's world is a distraction, and that makes us lose sight of what is truly important.

What happens when you share an idea and don't get any feedback? Is a human connection possible?

I believe it is.

It took me a while to respond directly but all the while I carried your thoughts in my head — mulling over how “sharing an experience” can be reduced to uploading it to the internet for others to see and how that flattens said experience, how feedback doesn't tell the whole story of interacting with someone's writing, how I can read something and hold it in my mind without giving feedback (like this post) and think it over for days on end, how that experience is impossible to put in a “Like” button.

Is that not worth more than a single comment?