By: Taban Khajehnassiri
This brief article first published electronically as the editorial of WWN JUL 8 2001.
Denotation of the Latin Term "Carpe diem" is "Seize the day", dictionary says "Make the most of present opportunities" for the meaning of the term in English.
Last week, I thought to myself what the real role of the Internet is in this era of Information technology. Is it the Information, its wealth? Is it the Technology, its advanced aspect? Is it the Communications? Or Computers? Is this Love making the world go 'round? Is this its addiction that hurts? Is this just another virtual possibility or an illusion of the mankind? A dream? A reality? A reality out of dreams? What is this all about? Is this life? Is this safe? Is this useful? Fruitful? Everlasting? Where are we going from here? To the Heaven? Or to the Hell? Is this all the matter of ideas, ideals, and/or inspirations? Is this a science, a profession, a carrier, just a media, a fun, or an art? Is this only a drama for us, the people of the world, for us to play in, to play with, to play and dance in tune with? Is this just a new game? A new form of living within and with all, among others? Is this a new marketplace? A new trading or shopping center worldwide? Is this all about our feelings towards it or towards others from other countries, other civilizations, other societies or in one word, other people? Such a pressure! Under pressure we all live. Under pressure we all play, have fun, go and leave the scene at the end. Under pressure, we have chosen to be and live. We all love to be in it, to play in it, with it but not for it, but for our roles. We all need to get inspired and write. Writing our own destiny with our own hands is the single role we have, in our own mind, for our own body and our own spirit, I believe.
This is what we endure, this is what we seek, for all these years, all these centuries, on this planet, and this is what we continue, we maintain, we develop, with our own next generations throughout the world. Here I am not talking about my own nationality, I am talking about the human beings working with this new media, the Internet by which just another real age has begun from a single thought of someone's mind. It is or it is not in vain. It is or it is not under control, it is or it is not worthy. It is all about Literature. In it we use our texts as the copies for our presence, we use graphics, sound and movies for illustrating our imaginations and revealing our own thoughts. Literature is the whole idea of the net somehow, I believe, we have to use it all, use it the most, and give it a life, out of nothing. We shall keep this thing going, free of any human error and right, right to the end, the end of time, of us in this galaxy.
So we have to be creative and innovative. We have to seize the day, make the most of our own present opportunities, in the real world or in the virtual world. Inspirational teachers are needed to educate us and show the path to our children. Death is real for us, and also for a website, but the net is here to stay, because of its communicational aspect, its widespread use and versatility. At present, we have alive webmasters. Webmasters come and go. They simply die and leave their sites to others, in use or not in use. The show must go on ... And we just have to create useful things out of it, we need to be creative in our own thoughts and imaginations. It must be something inspirational. We need good literature for our own sites, to let them be in use for the rest of our own lives, even for the time after our own death. Good literatures for our sites just like good dramas, good poems, good novels and short stories remain for centuries, remain all in use and in memories. We have to design and re-design, build and re-build, maintain and repair what we have first constructed in our minds as basic imaginations and thoughts.