How old is a Digital Native?

Recently in the Second Life Education Forums there was a thread discussing the trend of adults who didnt grow up with computers now integrating more digital things into their lifestyle.

The term for these people is "Digital Immigrants". In contrast, a "Digital Native" is born late enough to always be around digital things.

The discussion seemed to imply that a digital immigrant could evolve into a digital native by immersing themselves in digital technology until they reach some "comfort level" that might be similar to that of a digital native. I feel like there's a point that has been missed here... so let me explain my reaction:

In my experience a Digital Native has the distinction of never having been in a non-digital world. Where the digital nature of things is for them, like the circulatory system of the world, for a digital immigrant it's just skills.

In my experience you can really tell the difference in pressured situations.

Tell a native and an immigrant that they have 5 minutes to successfully fill out and send an online form complete with signature and in most cases you'll get two very different solutions, even if the immigrant is comfortable with digital things.

The native will fill in the form online or save the form in a document that allows that. The immigrant will print it and handwrite the info into the fields.

The native will register themselves with a digital signature service like Adobe, and immediately apply the signature (which isnt a signature at all, just an ID code, much harder to forge) then send off the document with full confidence of its readablity and security.
The immigrant has now handwritten their responses and proceeds to find a FAX machine to send it through, or scans it and sends it as a graphic file which on the receiving end leaves it impossible to copy/paste from so someone there will have to re-enter all the info again by hand, we hope accurately, but certainly an hour later.

There is a fundamental difference in the entire flow of "getting things done" between immigrants and natives and often a big difference in the end result.

Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab wrote a book "BEING DIGITAL" about the war between atoms and bits, and spoke of one of the bit's big advantages, the ability to change forms without losing substance. Digital natives are intuitive about how to convert forms of information into other forms without ever making the info analog.

If you have an email and you print it out it has now lost all it's digital functionality. It's no longer editable, or easily shared. If however you convert an email to a Word doc, or a PDF, or even a text-based graphic, it's still editable and easily shared. You could even convert it to sound by letting the computer read it to you.

This kind of shape-shifting is only really intuitive to an individual that has never known another way of doing things.

So can a digital immigrant evolve into a digital native? By definition I'd say it's very rare.

Seker

I had a dream last night...

I was told that there is a passage under the Sphinx in Egypt and it needed to be opened to public knowledge. The world was ready.

The dream moved fast...

I was in Cairo in the office of one of the curators of the big museum there. He was "in the know" about the passage but did not know how to open it short of breaking the walls in and the Council of Antiquities in Egypt forbid such projects.

I told him the key was "12 paces to the Constellation of Seker".

We went down into the archives in the lower floors of the museum and found a 6 meter statue of the god Seker. I stood at its base, turned away from it and walked 12 paces, and turned again to face Seker. Then I took out a magic marker and a small sheet of plexiglass I had in a hip bag. I held the plexi up to the statue at arms length. I then circled on the glass both hands, the forehead point, the top of the crown, and the tops of the rods the hands held. Then I connected the circles with lines and it formed a sort of constellation of points on the plexiglass.

Next we were in the passageway in the leg of the Sphynx. On a particular wall I think was near the paw I stood on a worn spot on the floor where the disc of Ra used to be carved. I held the plexiglass up at arms length and moved it until 6 of the heiroglyphs on the far wall lined up with the constellation perfectly.

I woke up then... but I'm certain there's more to this.
-Alan

Saviors

Issues call to us for attention all the time. The daunting realization of how vast some world problems are can be so depressing. And even as we are saddling our heavily armored warhorse to go out there and do battle we all have the quiver in our breath... is this gonna work?

Maybe, I should spend a moment to make sure the crusade is personal and close to my heart. Then all my energy goes to a sustainable mission. I can sustain it out of my own conviction and intent.

And then, instead of saving the world, I should save my neighbor.

So then he can see how to save his neighbor... and so on.

If you understand the term "expand geometrically" you can see the world will get saved faster than you think.

Katch' koly

The first time I saw you I had no idea what to make of you but there was something familiar in you, like a part of myself I'd forgotten about long ago.


That you chose this moment to come up from the depths and work with me is both an honor and a mystery. I can guess that my own gates have moved me to a place where I can begin to understand you... at the same time you are overwhelming.

You've come to teach me something about creating. And yesterday I felt the first turbulence of what you are bringing... it caused me to see something.

I saw myself and so many other creators standing in bright light making the stuff we make... and all of it was being born out of these mirrors that stood in front of each of us. Mirrors that stood between us and our view of the world. I could see that in the bright light we tend to pull our creations from human memory and we take these things we've known before and we tweak them and twist them with varying degrees of originality and mercilessness and declare them our "new" things. It's just, they aren't really that new.

And then you arrive and I look into that obsidian eye and I see dark, infinite depths. I hear you calling me to sink down with you in the crushing dark. You know all about the massive ball of fear that stirs. But I'm awake enough to know the dark you are inviting has nothing to do with evil... nothing to do with a lightless existence... it's a dark that is FULL of EMPTY. It's so hard to describe this. But it's a place where I think you'll show me how to start creating without the need for light, without using a mirror, and memory and perhaps even without thought. A place where things emerge at my hands that are so strange, things never seen before, like that first infinitely small moment when God asked "Who am I?" and all of Creation burst forth in answer.

I know I'm afraid to go too deep there. But I'm going to trust in your intent and go with you, and we'll strip off the fears one by one.

Into the crushing depths... to create without light... straight from the Source.

I realize right now that I'm not so afraid of what I'll create... I'm afraid I won't recognize myself after I learn this. And isn't that always the fear when we face change. It always is.

- Alan

Making friends with food

I never grew up with much of a sense of excitement about food. It was a neutral issue, like breathing... something you just do. Even today, see a food show on tv... meh.

But I also have come to understand how intolerant my body has become for certain foods, and it took a friend who cooks to bring to my attention the idea that maybe I need to "make friends" with food, and my body and food will get along better.

I take a holistic view of most things in life, and now I'm adding food to my view of universal connection. I need to be on friendly terms with what I eat, emotionally, mentally and physically.

So now I'm getting in the practice of sort of re-engineering the old religious practice of saying grace before a meal... I'm taking a moment to follow the path this food took to get to me, noting all the different hands and processes and energy that it passed through on the journey. I feel that by taking time to recognize these things I can "shake hands" with them and create a kind of peace and understanding. I'm paying respect to the thing that's going to keep me alive.

I've just begun this so I'll post in a couple months how this feels but right now it resonates for me as a good path. Perhaps my food allergies will disappear... be nice to be able to eat a pizza every so often.

The River of Abundance

My meditation today provided this imagery:

I am standing in an empty space. Streams like green silk ribbons flow away from me into the distance...
In the streams I see things I sometimes desire... prosperity, experiences, states of mind, they tumble away out of sight...
If I reach for them they slip through my fingers or pull so strong I cant hold on to them. I realize many of these things are the prosperity of others... I feel covetous.

There is a noise, like a mix of wind and water... it's the first time I've noticed it but I realize it's been present always. I turn around.

I'm standing in a river of light. The green silk threads surround me flowing straight through me from this other horizon. There's a sense of awe, feeling almost stupid... how could I have missed this? My whole life, standing in this river, immense abundance flowing straight to me and all I ever saw, turned away, was what was passing me by.

All I have to do is look now upstream and pick and choose from the things that are flowing to me. I need to learn to simply be open, to make space, and these things will flow right into my hands. No grasping, just accepting. This lesson goes deeper... tomorrow I'll look again.

It's day 31 of my 40 day Subagh Kriya.