The Starry Dynamo in the Machinery of the Night
For the last year I had grown increasingly disillusioned with the social internet, and it's much talked about power to make the world smaller – to connect people. I would often sit late at night high above the seething network, like some kind of reclusive Bruce Wayne figure, watching from a distance. Not really fitting in. Feeling waves of envy as groups of friends coalesced in bright burst of light, pouring life into the churning tumult.
I read a quote some years ago by the beat poet Allen Ginsberg – an excerpt from his poem “Howl” – it has remained the single most fitting description of the people that populate the internet during the early morning hours around the world that I have ever discovered;
Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.
Perhaps sometimes the machinery of the night aligns. The various constellations of the packet switching firmament align for a few moments, and connect two people on opposite sides of the world. Where they silently passed each other countless times in the past, this time they smash into each other- a shower of sparks and blinding light.
When these chance encounters happen we must cling to them with every fibre of our being. Friendships forged across thousands of miles are made through our thoughts, hopes, dreams, and fears. The purity of the connection exposes the superficial nature of the relationships we have forged in the “real world”. It exposes the walls we have built, and the labyrinth we have constructed around ourselves.
Goethe is famously misquoted as having said “be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid”. I can't help wondering if this might be applied to the machinery of the night too – perhaps if we summonthe courage to step outside the door, it causes the machinery to align, leading us onto converging paths.