rabid renaissance

Some time in 1998, a friend gave me a copy of Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. As I read page after resonating page, I knew that it was the sort of book that would split my life into “Before Ishmael” and “After Ishmael” eras. I wanted to talk to other people who had read it. I wanted my parents to read it. I started reading the series of sequels. I even went so far as to create an online discussion group for others in my area (I lived in Atlanta at the time) devoted to discussing the book and other works by Daniel Quinn. In spite of my lack of sustained participation, the group really took off and remains quite active to this day, thanks to the folks who put their time and effort into it.

It has been a bittersweet experience for me. On one hand I’m thrilled that an idea of mine (even something as small and obvious as an online discussion group) has evolved into a healthy medium for discourse about what I consider to be important topics. But on the other, more prominent hand, I consider it a complete and total personal failure on my part. All I really did was register for Yahoo! Groups and send out a few invitation emails. When push came to shove I did not back up my idea with effort or support. I rarely contributed to the online discussions, and only attended one of their weekly in-person meetings in the 7 years they were going on that I lived in the area.

Eventually, I relinquished my owner/moderator status that the actual leadership of the group had stubbornly maintained on my behalf, always in the hopes that I’d become more involved again. As I said my goodbyes to the group back in March of this year, prior to relocating from Georgia to California, one of the members recommended a site to me: Global Mindshift. They’re an outfit based in Palo Alto, and as I surfed their site I had the feeling that this is what I’ve been waiting for since discovering the power of the internet. This is the sort of exchange of information, thoughts, and ideas that I had been wanting to create when I registered my Yahoo! group so many years ago. This is what I had hoped the larger (official) Ishmael community site would’ve evolved into. This is the sort of site that I’ve used to rationalize my accidental internet career on those days when I beat myself up about not going to graduate school and doing something constructive in the world of global conservation with my Zoo/Bio background.

So I’ve joined Global Mindshift. I’m off to a bit of a bumpy start, but I’m going to stick with it. The site/community is designed to revolve around structured online message-board-type discussions with 8-12 other members at a time. The first time I tried to join such a discussion, the conversation never got off the ground. Only a handful of people managed to even make introduction posts, and our facilitator went on vacation thinking that everyone had flaked. My second attempt kicks off tomorrow (08/14/07) and ends on the 20th.

Here’s hoping I’ve matured a bit since the last time I tried to change the course of the world for the better, with others of like-mind, using the internet.