You're right, I was born with the Internet and grew up with it as a constant. Some of my earliest memories are literally of those ugly gray 90's computers.

It's not about quitting the internet to get 'back to basics' (although doing that is incredibly beneficial for me), it's about this weird feeling where you are forced to accept that the enormity of human knowledge is available in your pocket at all times, but it's not going to really change things for you. I know I'm coming off as a cynical, negative person, but I'm just trying to explain, as a person who doesn't remember a time before email, what it feels like trying to be Authentic with a capital A.

It's actually not hard and I think most people really truly are authentically themselves even in this new age, but it's different in a way that's hard to put a finger on. An authentic person who grew up with the Internet can't be authentic in the same way as a person who grew up before the internet.

Maybe I'm projecting, and maybe it's just a generational thing but I don't think it can be stressed enough how different the last 20 years have been

You lucky bastard. I had to use an Apple IIe and walk to school 10 miles in the snow. I didn't even know what the weather was going to be without looking out the window. Hard times. I'm kidding of course, people are people, Internet or no Internet. An Apple and afternoon kung fu movies were sufficient.

I wasn't suggesting a person quit the Internet. No fucking way. You'll take my Internet from my cold, dead hands or Comcast will drop the ball on my connection. I just know people who aren't jacked in all the time, going out hiking in the wilderness, doing Yoga, running long distances, drinking too much, playing pictionary, reading sf, etc.

It's hard to get down to authentic. That's ego death. But I'd say you're yourself always and everywhere, just maybe adjusting to the situation. I'm not really presenting myself the same way discussing politics with a right winger than I am in the grocery store checkout line. So I'd say you're authentic, I'm authentic, even if we don't remember a world before the Internet. Lucky bastard!

Btw, honestly, I still don't understand what authentic means?

What was different now you have me curious. I don't doubt it as every generation is different. Fuck, does this make me old if I ask questions like that? If some of your earliest memories are of those ugly gray computers then I was likely college when you were a small kid or something like that.

For the indoor part of life: Apple IIe, television, and music. That's pretty good. I could only dream about jacking in to cyberspace. I was limited to the other kind of jacking. Just sayin'. Only the Star Trek crew had cell phones. Kung Fu reruns taught me all I needed to know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_(TV_series)

I'd like to hear what it was like to grow up in the age-of-the-sf-fantasy-coming-true-but-with-soul-crushing-side-effects?