Barbara J. Hamby

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Viva the Internet

We writers complain a lot because we don’t get published, or if we do, we don’t make enough money. I groan when I see the prices on paintings and compare them with sale prices of poetry books. Even for most painters, the income doesn’t begin to compare to the money that performers and athletes can make.

Today I Googled the name of a well-known Seattle doctor that I knew in high school and dated a time or two. I could only find one quote of his. In contrast, my “deathless” prose and verse is readily available on the internet. Go figure.

The message is, I guess, that if you want to leave some memory of yourself behind and you’re neither beautiful nor highly skilled at acting, music, painting, or athletics, you must write.

Of course, we have to wonder how permanent any “modern” technology is and how long the vast collections of art and/or trivia in cyberspace will be available. Or, more to the point, how long any one will care.

All this speculation assumes that we will not wipe out this planet any time soon with our ecological greed or our aggressive behavior. A lot of evidence declares otherwise.

AHIP (another dratted acronym), and I am privileged by my age these days, so I feel free to philosophize. You may feel free to ignore my efforts
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