When I walked on the Camino, a pilgrimage from north east Spain to the sea of the Atlantic I changed my course. As they say, those who have walked the Camino, your walk will not start before you get home.
At that time, I thought my walk would give me a place in the world of Danish academic, and I hoped for at tiny fleck of attention. Today my path has led me into the wilderness and beyond. With friends in high and low. With a lot of readers on my philosophical blog, a lot enemies in the world, and through so many sacrifices, I believe it strange that I even exist. It defies common logic, I should have been gone, like som many who have walked with me. But by the grace of G-d, my path still seems to fork out, new friends come, old friends are still here, and the Camino that led me to fight for light, has indeed given me a mystical and wondrous existence.
The internet age is different than normal ages. What will happen on the internet is so much faster paced, than what we are used to. So for now, I suppose I am a dinosaur to many new young readers.
I started as a script kiddie thirty years ago, and made my thesis about the internet, when the internet was still something people thought would not really matter to anyone. When it was called Gopher, and you could not find anything. Today, have a look around.
But, then again, in the light of the thinkers we surround ourselves with; Plato, Aristotle, Moses, Abraham. All these towering giants, we are all just still script kiddies.
Leading from the front, as I have done. Takes a toll, but I have a feeling, that this dark and strange world, that the internet really is, will give us, if we are strong and intelligent enough, a better world. Because isn’t it just this we are aiming at, all of us? The shared intelligence, and the progress we can make, the wisdom that is all of sudden available to all, will push man to newer height, to more peace, and more openness. Not closedness.
Open source ideology was coined by a Danish atomic physicist called Niels Bohr. He dreamed of an open world, a world of coherence and peace. And though he fathered the atomic bomb, he still had faith in man. We should remember this, when we fight and when we strive for something. It is about peace and understanding, not just our own egos. But about something greater than ourselves. A higher purpose.
Script kiddies grow up, start a family, get boring and start paying off the mortgage. But inside that older person with all the responsibility on his shoulders, there is still that tiny geek, who went to school with his Amiga 500, impressed with all the wonders he could bring about with that powerful machine. I believe that I have succeed in one thing; not to grow too old, and I still embrace my ideals, to the embitterment of my beautiful wife sometimes, when I speak yet again about all the good I do with my computer. But I believe it, I still do, and G-d forbid that I will ever loose that little geek inside me with the eyes wide open, looking at the world with wonder, hoping to crack that code or find the next level.
G-d bless the will to be yourself in the face of getting old and unwise.
