and that's give ourselves time to be awkward with unfamiliar software. it seems like it's been forever since I felt like I could just...take in the computing experience, instead of being wrapped up in this eternal war with the enveloping Machine. there was a time when these things seemed friendly.

that spirit never disappeared exactly, but it's fled from the United States and "the West", which has gotten poisoned with the values of people who think of personal electronics and computer software as something to invest in and brag about, and who don't quite care whether it's any good or not. I've been haunted by all that and still seek to free myself from the noxious influences of decades past, influences which serve to obscure the true value of the marvels that I had seen in childhood.

Computers once did seem *extremely* magical. And then they were sin itself for a while, and I fled the Machine and sought safety in other pursuits, other disciplines. Working at Goodwill was (for a time) preferable to the Machine. I got to see the Sun and the sky and birds and other things, just enough to keep me going, until I got pulled in. I got suckered.

I don't know what I'm doing with my capitals. All I know is...I think something amazing has happened, and I can finally recover what I'd lost. The heartbreaking thing is realizing that all those Twitter people and Elon Musk himself are chasing the very same thing, the very same spark, that I once thought I saw in the possibility of personal computing. They don't know what they're doing, and I don't know what I'm doing either! But I feel like maybe it's within reach at last. I can stop fighting with these machines, who are themselves rarely to blame for the troubles they cause. (The Machine is a different matter.)