Chapter 10. Instant Messaging and Chat

I was sitting in my house thinking about the relationship between the dust bunnies in the corner of the room and the layer of dust particles on the TV screen. Some people might just think about cleaning so that the dust would be gone, but then there wouldn't be multiple forms of dust to contemplate.

Philosophically, the different forms of dust begged the question, which came first, the bunny or the particle? Did I even need to know that? Did I need to know anything? I was spinning out of control into a solitary epistemological trap. I had to discuss the bunnies, the particles, the existence with someone. I felt I had made a breakthrough in the previously nonexistent discipline of Dustological Empiricism.

I immediately started talking to Josh, my fellow epistemologist in dusty matters. I elucidated my theory on how dust particles got lonely by themselves. They arranged themselves into layers on the TV screen to have someone to talk to, like a social club. Some dust particles in the layer got tired of the particles next to them. You can talk for only so long to the same dust particle before you get bored. The disquieted dust particles left the dust layer to form dust bunnies with other, like-minded particles. The new dust bunnies enjoyed travel and adventure, which explained how they rolled across the hardwood floor like tumbleweeds at high noon.

I talked and talked, but he never answered. I tried enunciating my words, clarifying my thoughts. I mean, I know I was talking about dust bunnies, but that doesn't mean that he should ignore me. I was annoyed. Didn't he even know I was talking to him? That's when I realized that he wasn't even in the same room that I was in. He couldn't see me or hear me talking to him.

Why would I talk to someone who isn't even in the same room as I am in? Sure, it sounds like I am really stupid, until you realize that is how all the instant-messaging services on the Internet are set up. No one can see or hear anyone on a different service talking to them. Maybe I have a Yahoo! account, and you have an MSN account. None of us can talk to one another.