Vicious, As It May Seem

Depravity, iniquity, wickedness, or corruption. Infirmity, frailty, imperfection, or simply a bad habit. Whatever you call it, to what vicious extent had cyberlife affected your ‘real’ life?

Gula

It all started with mIRC (Internet Relay Chat). And I am blaming Khaled Mardam-Bey for my Internet addiction!

Honestly, I was a late bloomer. I started chatting thru mIRC in the year 2000, five years after Khaled created the software for Microsoft Windows. In my entire fourth year high school life, I was busy browsing mIRC chatrooms, looking for fellow Filipinos, annoying an aged American chatter, or scavenging rooms just to bully anyone until 2 o’clock in the morning.

I vividly remember an instance when I recognized a name in one local chatroom. The profile says: “dundz f 25.” Curious of whom she was, I asked her, “hi! asl please?”

Homaigood! I was startled. It was my English teacher! It was my English teacher who lives two blocks away from my house.

Cool… isn’t it? A teacher chatting with her student minutes before midnight? (Wait a minute! Now I know why I’m allowing my 6^th grade students to bother me in YM in unholy hours! Gee...)

mIRC is like gluttony. It is an over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste. I was over indulged to the point that I didn’t notice I was wasting my time.

Good thing I’m finally over with mIRC. I downloaded the program last year and tried to relive the good old chatting days. A few months ago, I caught myself deleting the program from my drive after realizing that I need to move on…


Luxuria

In 2001, I graduated in high school, interestingly in mIRC also. By the time I was in college, Yahoo! Messenger (YM) was a hit. My college years wouldn’t be complete without YM. It served as a meeting place for class reports, consolidating facts for a term paper, conveying holiday coursework, and so on… Indeed, it was very helpful in my academic life.

But time came when I religiously open my account to meet other people. I get their accounts from Yahoo! Groups, some from other social networking sites. Lechery became an issue. It was lechery in the sense that I am engrossed with sociological compulsions. I easily fell for those whom I met online. Subconsciously, I submitted myself to Dante’s criterion of “excessive love of others.” Besides, it became an excessive reason to stay online…


Ira

Friendster awed the world when it was launched in March 2002. Nevertheless, it was only in November 2003 when I joined the said Internet social networking service, months before TV Patrol had their primetime news about its phenomenal hit among Filipino netizens.

If I’m not mistaken, blogging in friendster started only in the year 2005, by this time, blogging became the outlet of my angst. I blogged about getting a 4.00 in my Biology class, posted a copy of the lyrics of my theme songs for the one my hypothalamus is crazy with, worst, I even ranted about losing my very first job thru my Friendster blog. Indeed, friendster was a witness on how I manifested a vehement denial of the truth. It became my tool in my inward expression of wrath.


Invidia

Having only one social networking account did not content me. In August 15, 2007, I created my Multiply account. I was so envious of my college friend/housemate who discreetly maintains a personal website thru Multiply.Multiply was overtly better than Friendster. I can post there my narcissistic pictures, attach the videos I love the most, upload the songs that had been running thru my head lately, easily review the last movie I watched or the book I’m trying to finish for the past 15 months, continue to blog about my rants and raves in life, and many more. The best part of this, you can easily filter those whom you want to have connections.

My Multiply is very private. I only connect to my friends, schoolmates, classmates, and some online acquaintances with it. It is not infested by any of my past/present/future students, unlike my Friendster account, which is undeniably spammed by messages from them.

Because of that envy, now I believe that I have a better page in Multiply than my friend.


Superbia

YouTube’s slogan “Broadcast Yourself,” is perfect for anyone who wanted to show his or her excessive love of him/herself.

Last March 30, I created a YouTube account just to upload the short films my students made as their project for my subject. Pride gave me the courage to create an account, and later uploaded their videos. It was not actually my work; it was their fruit of labor. It was a plain act of desire to be more important than others.


Avaritia

Chatting with a high school classmate thru YM opened me to the possibility of gaining extra income thru blogging. With her recommendations, I opened my Blogger account in March 8, 2008. It instantly became the outlet of my overflowing thoughts. I redirected the stress I am giving myself by writing them down. Hence, there are also moments when I purposely stress out myself, especially when I have nothing to write about.

Greedy as it may seem, but the very first reason for me to open a Blogger account was just for personal gain.

But hey! After five months of maintaining a Blogger account, I don’t even have a PayPal account up to this very moment, nor incorporate an AdSense widget on my page.


Acedia

I am blaming Plurk for my blogging hiatus. It had been exactly 35 days since my last post here at blogspot. Since I created a Plurk account last July 13, I had enrolled myself into a full time micro-blogging post-graduate degree. Being a portmanteau of ‘play’ and ‘work,’ Plurking ate most of my valuable time for the past four weeks.

Plurking is not only an outlet of attention deficit people, like me; but also it is a social networking service for attention deficit people, like me. Thru Plurk I’ve met a writer-columnist in a national newspaper, a magician-at-night-DJ-at-late-night, a New York film & music producer and publicist, a photographer, an accountant, a researcher, and other e-celebrities. In other words, geeks who have nothing else to do on a Sunday night (well, aside from blogging).

Despite the fun and excitement of meeting new acquaintances, I admit that I’ve lost track of my own time because of plurking. I am guilty of not doing my work beyond what is required of me. I am very unwilling to do my real work, lazy and indifferent to my real profession. Being a natural born procrastinator, I slept not earlier than 3am for the past 10 days just to finish four exams and Plurk most of the time.

Yes, I know, I am a sloth.








Gluttony. Lust. Wrath. Envy. Pride. Greed. Sloth.


In the end, we go back to the ultimate question whether cyberlife is successful in exterminating real life intimacy. My answer to this query, and basing it on my personal experiences in this ambiguous and ambivalent world of the World Wide Web —is definitely NO. It even led me into treasured real life intimacies —intimacies that are now just part of the memories of a melancholic guru.


Nevertheless, vicious, as it may seem, the cyber world still made me realize that the principles of temperance, chastity, patience, kindness, humility, charity, and diligence are more essential and imperative in this 'real' world full of uncertainties.

This is my entry to the Blog Challenge 06: The Virtual Vice.