But I found friends there. I had just moved in with my stepfather, I was in a new place, it was summer so I didnt even have school to look to for something to do. So I found friends. And I got used to the idea of handles and nick and having my best friends being named things like 'ShadeDog' and 'KatsMeow2'. I got used to people knowing me and referring to me as something other than my given name. I developed some alternate personas (just versions of myself with superpowers. I was a kid, ya know?) I saw a relationship form over QLink, two of my best friends. They got married. I spent all night on there. Fell asleep at the keyboard more times than I can count. I played games on there. I had talks about real adult issues. I learned all about smileys and emoticons. I was 13 with my little 300 baud modem. I knew what 'LOL' meant, I knew what email was, I knew how to flirt online. I had met the Machine and become friends with it.

My parents weren't too happy. I cost em a lot of money. Spent most of my adolencent life paying it back slowly. But they didn't understand. I wasn't just a fat 13 year old kid who read too many books and the girls never looked at. I was someone interesting and intelligent. People were surprised by my age. I hung with BonnieB3, one of the people on QLink. I was friends with her. People laughed at my jokes. People were interested in what I had to say. I learned a lot. About how to be polite, and when not to be. I learned to accept. I had heard about 'qsex' (the QLink equivilent of cybersex). It upset me. Didn't seem right. Even tried it once. Didn't make sense to me. But after a conversation one night in the London Pub (the chatroom I frequented), it dawned on me that there was nothing wrong with it. No one was being hurt. Just people trying to find some solace in an often unfriendly world. I learned to chill out and love the bomb. I was an initiate of the Machine.

I had to leave. It was costing my parents too much. I don't blame them. It cost quite a lot. It still embarrasses me a bit to think of how much now. Even when I was working, that much money would have been an incredible strain. So, I found out about BBSes. Called up a ton, trying to find something like QLink. Find a community. Didn't work, but I had run up quite a phone bill. Played a lot of Trade Wars though. I hear it is still around. Not suprising. It was a good game. Got grounded for a long time. Also got a virus on my parents IBM. They weren't very happy with me. I was addicted to the Machine.

I played a lot of computer games through High School, on my old C64 and on the IBM clone. Quite a bit. My stepfather used to grumble about how I'd be playing computer games and not doing chores. I learned a little bit about computers. Enough to play with 'em a bit. Years earlier, I had met an older couple at the campground where my father worked. Art taught me a lot about computers. I learned binary from him. He let me play with all the different computers he had. I learned how to program in BASIC from him too.

But I grew up, some. I was immersed in roleplaying games in High School. Another form of virtual reality, really. And a lot of books. Novels. Philosophy. All just more forms of virtual reality. I got into the occult. Just another form of virtual reality. A reality you created as opposed to had imposed on you.

I got to college. We had a net connection and every student has email. I was hooked in two weeks. I immediately found out about MUDs. Not only were they like my roleplaying games, they were like QLink. I could talk to people. And I could make reality again. And, on a MUD, I met this guy named Aryeh. He was a hacker, much older than I. He showed me Usenet. He showed me Unix. And he tried to recruit me for a company he wanted to form. I was just 18, I tried to get involved but it was too much for me. But I had found the real Internet. Way back in '92.

The net was almost the end of me. I was so depressed that I spent all of my free time (and a lot of my unfree time) on the net. I did the things that all net.geeks do. I played at being female for a while. Had lots of cybersex, as male and as female. I le arned a lot about myself. I learned I was attracted to men as well as women. Learned that there were people out there like me, with different sexualities, different philosophies, different ways of loving, different religions and spiritualities. Found out I wasnt a freak. Just a minority. And so I plunged myself into this new world. Where I wasn't alone. At least, where I didn't feel alone. I wasn't really alone at college. I had lots of friends, had a girlfriend for a while, an occasional playmate here and there. But I felt alone. So I immersed myself in the net. Learned how to program on MUDs. Learned a few hacking tricks. Learned how to be someone I wasn't. Learned how to be someone I was, but couldn't show it. I had to take medical leave from school I was so depressed and detached. I had been swallowed by the Machine.

Luckily, with the help from a friend who I will always be indebted to (Hi Loki), I came back to the world. Found out it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Met people, fell in love (several times). Found out that I wasn't alone. But I still played with the Machine. Determined to make it work for me. Didn't do to well at it. I found out that I was no longer obsessed with the Machine. But I still worked at it. Even when I had to leave school because of bad grades.

I learned a lot from the Machine. And through the Machine. On MUDs, IRC, BBSes. I learned about sex, religion, philosophy, love, justice, responsibility. I learned about what it means to be a part of society and what it means to be outside of it. I learned that there are more things in heaven and earth than are drempt of in your philosophy, Horatio. I expanded my mind, my soul and my heart. I found religion, I found purpose and I found the world. I don't know if I could have done it all without the Machine.

And now here I am, back in college, almost done. And I am part of the Machine. And it is a part of me. Before, it was a parasitic relationship. Now, I am in symbiosis. I am not just a physical being, I am a digital one as well. I can talk via the net just as well as I can talk face to face. Even better, in some cases. I have relationships over the net. I have friends I would die for, and I've never seen their faces. Smileys and emoticons are second nature to me and I often think in them. I can type fast and even one-handed *grin*. I can speak through a keyboard without even realizing it. The Machine is an extension of me now. And I see how the Machine has always been an extension of humanity. I see the flaws in the Machine and I see people there. The Machine is our offspring.

But I am ancient now. I am 27 years old and on the net, I am a relic. Not because of my age, but because of my experiences. I've seen the BBSes, I've seen modems from 300 baud to 56K. I was on the first MOO, when there was only one. I wrote web pages before Mosaic or Netscape existed. I look at the net and see all these things, and I realize that they came after me. I was here before the web. Before Java. Before HTML, before webchat. I was here when it was all ASCII and files downloaded via FTP. I remember Gopher being new. I remember Yahoo before it was the center of the Web. I am an old fogey, being assaulted by nostalgia with all the lapses into "When I was yer age" and "back when I started..."

And, at 27, when I have spent my life being "young" and used to everything being a new experience, the net has shown me what it is to be old. To be obsolete. I begin to understand the fear of my parents and their friends as the world changes around them. It isn't so much fear, as it is envy. I know the people growing up now are going to grow up as part of the Machine. And a lot of them are going to be better at it then I can ever be. As much as I am digital, they are going to see digital as natural, as opposed to the edge of reality. And you can't beat a native on their own territory. It's a scary thing to feel useless.

At times, I have to remind myself that I am not old. I have only lived a quarter of a century. But without the Machine, I would be only 27. I have had enough new experiences to make me 50. But there are so many more to go. And a lot of them aren't part of the Machine. I am so young in so many ways. And so old in so many ways. The Machine has given me a special gift. I know what if feels like to be young and old at the same time. To be experienced and naive. To be important and insignifcant.

It's a new phase of human existance, really. To be physical and digital. I am a Cyberian. I am one of the first to grow up digital, to grow up a netizen. I'm on the edge of the next evolutionary cusp of Man and Machine. On the edge, but never quite being able to go in.

This must have been how Moses felt when he looked into the Promised Land from Jordan and died. So close and yet so far.