Goodbye

From the beginning, Carmen says her new lover will kill her and the rest of the story is its inevitable methodological working out. She couldn’t have changed her destiny had she wished, written as she was written, into a story. But we, we modern people, we tell our own stories and, if we’re fortunate, we write them too.

I’ve just returned from a conference in beautiful Durham where I heard about Reality Plus, an augmented reality view of one’s own life and here through technology - integrating our own presence across multiple platforms such as social advertising, programming virtual existences - we are, apparently, becoming , not consumers but ‘prosumers’.

We are creating our own roles and relationships with the world and with the people in it. New Prometheus then (only this time the girls get to play too), we steal the fire again and again. Blurring the boundaries between public and private, we place our viscera on the internet, expose our innards and hope… Hope what? – That the new organ grown will be different, better or more interesting than the previous?

I think, maybe, it’s because there’s now a place in this enormous sphere we inhabit where we can feel for just a while, safe enough to take a risk. Maybe even fly a little when no-one’s looking…

Almost forgot, the title of this blog is ‘Goodbye’ – it’s goodbye to Pablo who’s flown away from us, hopefully to a better place where he will cut the hair of wealthy women in Caribbean sunshine and, again hopefully, play with his lover on white beaches and in warm seas. So farewell Pablo, I’m going to miss you - many can cut hair but not many discuss Gabriel Garcia Marquez with their clients. Hoist the yellow flag Pablo…