Multitasking in the Noosphere
by Bob Morse

(This article appeared in the Eureka Times-Standard, June 20, 2001)


I can't wait for the day when wearable, or even implanted computers are commonplace. As it is right now, I wire myself up as well as I can when I go out for my morning jog. I plug in the earphones to my little tape player/radio, and I stick a cell phone in my sweat pants pocket.

If I had a wireless Internet device ready to go and light enough to carry, I'd be booting that up and clamping it to my waist band. The best I can do for now on that score is to make sure my email continues to download while I'm gone.

I don't stretch before I run. I don't warm up. I guzzle coffee and plug myself in. Only when I am suitably geared up do I clip the dog on her leash. If the radio, phone and Internet connections were embedded in my jacket or even stuck into various receptacles in my arm and the base of my neck I would only have to harness the dog to be ready to go. I still wouldn't stretch. I don't have time.

I am at once a beneficiary and a victim of the emerging electrical noosphere being constructed around me. (Noosphere is a concept invented by the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin with which he proposes that life is evolving toward a transcendent unified state of consciousness, a 'mind sphere'. The Internet could be seen as a crude leap toward that future.)

I feel blessed by living in a time when all information is at the tips of my fingers. I am fortunate indeed to have access to news and communications with a click of a mouse or touch of a button.

At the same time I am a victim because I am compelled to stay plugged in to the constant jabber of humanity. There is so much going on all the time, everywhere, I am afraid I will miss something truly cool, amusing or profitable. I can't spare the time to do something so self-consuming as getting a little exercise. Not if that's all I am doing. I must be multitasking!

Multitasking is a technical term describing the ability of computer operating systems to handle multiple discreet sets of instructions and to run them simultaneously. Multitasking has also been appropriated into the popular vernacular for the ability that some teenagers claim to have to watch TV, listen to hip hop, talk on the phone and do homework all at the same time.

The only way I can convince myself to get my fat butt out of the chair and pull my sagging pallid face away from the computer screen is to convince myself I am multitasking. So, I groan into the exercise mode by convincing myself that I am not just wasting a dull 40 minutes of sweat and pain but I am also continuing to work by carrying a cell phone, expanding my knowledge by listening to an instructional tape or catching up on news and, of course, giving the dog her much deserved walk. I have an interest in Real Estate so I check for houses for sale and vacant lots that could be developed.

I also use the time to work on ideas and plans. In fact, the idea for this essay came while I was doing the morning jog a few weeks ago. How's that for an endless loop?

It's all good, I suppose. Since I started working with computers I have gained about 30 pounds. I have to do something. Maybe I can add a heart rate monitor and other devices so I can give myself a physical on the way. Soon that data will be sent directly to my doctor over the Internet.

And if I change my route I can go by that little market and pick up a few things on the way home. That's what I call productive. I'm still not going to stretch.