I Need Stitches, Bitches

No really, this article made me want to cut myself, I think. The intro about Mary Shelley, the author who wrote Frankenstein, set the mood and I couldn’t get the image of Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas out of my head. She is patchwork.

(Keep in mind that I’m trying to ignore the fact that this article was literally painful to read and pay attention too. Even coffee had no power here.)

I’ll admit, about half way through I had to skip to the end to get the moral of the “story.” After that, the purpose of this reading became clear: experience is nonlinear. Although Ms. Jackson found it necessary to confuse her audience to drive this point home, she did make several excellent simile’s. My favorite was the hypertext example: hypertext is non linear and exists everywhere at once.

Overall, I believe Shelly Jackson and I share this same belief. I too believe that experience is best thought of as nonlinear and chaotic in it’s natural state. We (humans) have defined, categorized, constrained and packaged experience to make the world more palatable and manageable for us 6 billion temporary visitors. We invent and build for our own experience, but our inventions are as indifferent as the world. Humans have (linear) objectives, nature does not. As Dr. Finklestein learned, even his invention Sally decided to do what she wanted, despite his intentions for her.