I was born a free individual but ever so gradually I'm being reduced to a statistic.
I'm confused, not only as to who I am but as to where I am. Am I here or have I been painlessly dissected and placed in a billion computers around the world?
I'm tired of being a statistic, a digit, a stroke, or a vague cyber mark. I feel uncomfortable being the target of studies somewhere. Just one ingredient in a demographic stew ... or worse, a piece of data lost in group marketing.
Is my end only to be pounded into a kind of cyber powder and then fed into a millions of databases throughout the world.
Am I not worth more individually than collectively?
Sadly it seems answer is no.
Like everyone else in this age of disconnect, I hunger to be recognized as an authentic flesh and blood individual with a personal name and of personal value ... actually living here in San Diego with real friends.
I'm not a vague entity content to play out my life vicariously
Looking into my mail box doesn't help much. Letters to me addressed Dear Occupant, Dear Customer, Dear Senior Citizen, or Dear Home Owner. These warm and enduring titles leave me flat.
Or the random mechanical phone calls I get that start with "Are you the head of the household?" If so press one, if not press two.
Who knows me, who knows my name? For that matter who cares?
Oh! But this year the censes is coming and just in time. Cheers! Finally they're looking for real people and I'll be included.
Whoopee!
Well, the censes starts off with me as the star, but as we go farther down the list of questions we painlessly merge into the default mode ... 'marketing!' "Do you have a dishwasher in your home?" "Yes, but she's out shopping!" Again, I find myself being painlessly transformed into data ... living data.
Little by little I'm disappearing by simply being absorbed ... into the world of data!
