virtual republic

One might raise the question whether a thing can be in itself -
everything being either nowhere or in something else.
                                    - Aristotle,  the Physics
 
you could say it started with the walkman
and now that everything's everywhere
nobody is where they are anymore
everyone's anywhere
and all at once
spread so thin that
no one's really with you
no one's anywhere at all
stay put and you won't be missed
we're virtually gone

it's like God or Santa Claus
- with welcome houses everywhere
what good does it do them?

up in the sky you see planeloads of them:
the-dissatisfied-where-they-are going somewhere else
that's what they'll call our time when it's over
- the age of somewhere else

of course people love to complain about it
'I spend so much on my phone bill', 'I'm always commuting '
no one can get where they want fast enough
and when they get there of course they want
to be somewhere else.   Everywhere's such
a disappointment.   For one thing everyone there
got there before you.  In fact the faster life gets
the more of a waste of time it seems

the Japanese bow on the phone
and with mobiles they bow while they walk
in Korea last year was the world's first
mobile phone fatality - a man walked
into a tree on the phone
I guess his mind was elsewhere
and then he was gone

but it's not just the phone
I was in the supermarket today
and none of the people working there
worked there.   The fish company does
the fish shelves.  The dogfood company
does the dogfood.  None of them know
where anything is except right where
they are.  I guess you could say to
the fish people.  ' Where's the fish? '
and they could hand you a packet
and say 'It's right here.'
and you'd call that presence