The Coming Failure of Email

Email has replaced phone calls, letters and Fax's.  Email has become the #1 way that people communicate.  The only problem is that email doesn't work - it's a complete failure as a system - Sooo as you can tell I have a problem with email.  It's just a small issue one that sort of snuck up on me over time.  You see I have to spend a great deal of time just checking mine.

My first email account was a yahoo account - I give this account address to anyone who is really trust worthy might send me spam or in general is not a friend.  My yahoo.com was first opened in 1995 - remember 1995? - I was fooling around with it and yahoo thinks I was born in 2002 - which was a problem when I was single and trying to use there dating services.  but I digress...

My second email address is my professional storytelling address the @ericwolf.org address - this is the email you get if I think you are one of my friends, a serious business contact or someone I actually want to talk to.

The problem with both of these primary account is just that they are primary and full to the prim with stuff I don't really want or at least can't keep track of.  @ericwolf.org account is really four email addresses so you can bring the total count up to 6.  I also feed my five other websites into the so you can add 12 more emails and you get the a lot of emails you can send to me from different random places and still end up in my primary box.  Needless to say I am very careful where I send things with one of those emails.

Then I have all the other emails - I have to have lost count.

1 - ATT in there brilliance decided that to get Internet I must have an email account with them - so presto another email I never check.  Earning my hatred for something else I didnt' want but am forced to have.

2 - Facebook gave me an email with out asking me - corporate person hood anyone - if they were a person I would throttle them...

3 - I had to get a Gmail account - because you can't use certain aspects of Google services without Gmail - though I happy I had a choice.

4 - I have decided to attend graduate school next year - so I have an account there as a student I am required to have one - blah.

5 - I am teaching a class at another university - and surprise I am teaching a class there as well!

6 - Does twitter count  - well they do have direct messaging - that's sorta like email

OK here is the score - 24 separate email addresses and 8 separate places I am required to check every day or a least once a week.  Plus really the yahoo account is almost un-useable because of the HUGE amount of traffic and all the presorting that goes on each day.

That's why I think email is broken or at the very least going to completely fail in the next year. - solve this problem and I give you the world.

Art is Service

Life is not filled with television, radio and internet.  Life is filled with stories spread through television, radio and internet.  Where these medias get in trouble is where they forget that they are meant to be life affirming and life sustaining.   Successful art redeems life bringing joy and laughter to life and is essentially human culture reborn to serve that the current generation.

TV and radio are top down forms of media.  The owner of the media gets to decide what the media will broadcast.  The internet has bias too towards those who can purchase talent or ears.  But the internet has it's own potential to serve a different type of storytelling.  With the rise of the internet the middle class has an media engine to match the TV and radio. 

We are all storytellers - but many of us have forgotten that part of the responsibility of the storyteller is which story to tell.  We are used to being told by the TV what are stories we are part of.  Americans are not used to the telling part of storytelling.  We are learning.  Slowly the giant of the future awakes to find that his chains have become string his cage a ginger house.

There are so may people still who do not have access to the internet - this fabulous tool of free expression.  We are awakening from the age of the TV - we are a wakening into the age of the storyteller.  We begin with the most basic question - not what do we want to consume - but what do we want to create?

A Reccomendation

What does it mean to be dyslexic?  How does being labeled a dyslexic become a label or a shield?  These are some of the questions that this blog tackles with a fresh spin and look.

I would like to suggest the spring pragmatist blog - because it dances around dyslexia and writing so nicely.  Recently the author left a comment on this blog.

I enjoyed reading some of her writing.  I think you would too.

Eric Wolf

http://theaspiringpragmatist.blogspot.com.au/