If you haven’t already seen it, this talk by Jim Gilliam from this year’s Personal Democracy Forum is really worth a watch. Jim describes his personal journey with faith, from his childhood in a deeply conservative Christian environment, to his discovery of the Internet and the community and impact that it enabled, to multiple battles with cancer, to a resolution that was made possible by people connected via the Internet.
To me, the clearest and most moving line is this:
“God is what happens when humanity is connected”
That’s really powerful, and I really do get an incredible, warm, happy feeling in my belly when I think about it.
And another:
“We all owe every moment of our lives to countless people we will never meet… we are all in debt to each other. The Internet gives us the opportunity to repay just a small part of that debt.”
And part of the beauty of the Internet is that we can repay that debt in many, many, many ways, many of which are tiny. Writing a blog post that explains the answer to an annoying problem, putting a Creative Commons license on a photo, adding an edit to a Wiki, sharing a link, leaving a comment on someone’s blog post. These may seem like trivial acts, but they constitute a new way of living and connecting — outwardly and together - whereby we are building the world (for ourselves and for others) as we experience it.
I think that’s pretty cool. Call me converted.
