Last Updated on October 21, 2009 by James Dziezynski
Not last night but the night before, I had one of those nights where it was near impossible to fall asleep. The room was too hot, my body was tired but unwilling to shut down and my brain was on overdrive. As is often the case with me, it was a stupid trigger that spiraled into a whole bunch of thoughts.
Apple computers.
After reading about Apples’ new line of Macs, I got slowly fired up at how Apple has pulled the cyber-wool over the eyes of its fawning fan base. Despite what might be one of most successful marketing campaigns and brand imaging, the raw truth is Apple is a dictator in the realm of personal computing – a platform that is all developed strictly by Apple or else by third party companies that are charged huge licensing fees. PC’s are an open source platform, welcome to new components, operating systems, programs and nearly limitless development. Apple restricts choice and makes doing so seem like a privilege, jacking up prices along the way. The PC platform, originally developed by IBM, is like an open ended equation. Ironically, since 2006 Apple Macs have run on the x486 Intel technology so from a design standpoint, they actually ARE specialized (and restricted) PCs.
It’s a mean a thing do to good people who work hard for their money. But I digress.
From this little flicker came a cauldron of simmering angst, all fueled by the blurry filter of near-sleep. Away my mind went, down various avenues of inequality and injustice. At the climax of all this frenzied reflection was a more serious philosophy.
I have found in times of great change, anxiety has a way of permeating the mind and opening the floodgates to trivial catalysts like my sophomoric inner rant on Apple. From there, like hypnosis, the mind reveals its true fearful colors. In ten years in Colorado, these has been a theme of great gain and great loss and when those thoughts collide inside a sleepy, self-centered brain the results are too many hours spent tossing in bed, watching time crawl mercilessly towards the new dawn.
Eventually, my mind found a way to conclude its wandering and I awoke. I wonder sometimes if sleep is more draining than a marathon when the mind is hyper- actively flailing through the cosmos of imagination. As more blood got to the brain, all those daily filters re-engaged and such blitherings faded out.
And I am left to wonder: do those near-sleep soliloquies open the mind and heart or are they merely the gratuitous ravings of a spirit caught between the waking world and the realm of dreams?
