I-YOUniverse

The documentation suggests I treat myself by writing a post after upgrading from wp 2.3.3 to 2.5. Who writes this stuff!

According to Martin Buber, the more It, the less You-the more preoccupied you are with technology, the less open to spirit. In the past couple weeks I’ve been working on the computing side of my bog-uh, blog. But I’m spiritual, not a computer person.

 I feel like The Shipping News’s Quoyle, who kept saying “I’m not a water person.” The end credits roll over footage of him expertly manning his sleek craft built by master builder Alvin Yark.

I migrated from blogger (simple, beautiful, working) because people tell horror stories of how bots spammed their site with so much stuff their free host shut them down. I imagined a thousand bots out there looking for my site, to shut it down.

I chose wp 2.3.3. That’s what most of the expert, informed, professional bloggers at CCblogs use. I clicked “give permission,” then “migrate blog,” and watched in astonishment as the counter ran from 1 post migrated to 50 in less than 60 seconds.

Then, wp released 2.5. Matt Mullenweg recorded the demo having just had five teeth pulled. At the top of each antiquated 2.3.3 screen was the plea “please upgrade now.”

Using outdated software poses security risks. Hackers could be lining up to break into my obsolete software. With trepidation I read the upgrade instructions. No way could this be actual English.

But nobody’s gonna tell this boy he can’t do it! Right?

After a couple weeks of fear and trembling that make Kierkegaard look like a Valium zombie, I decide to take the plunge. I upgrade. Ba boom!

Everything goes flawlessly. Breathless with anticipation I open my blog: blank header and first post “Hello, world!”

Seriously fucked up.

I shoulda noticed when the techs at bluehost.com said they haven’t gotten full instructions on 2.5 yet. (They’re great, they answer the phone quickly, and never laugh out loud at my questions which are -1000 on a scale of 1 being most computer-challenged to 10 being most geeky.)

So I spend the next 24 hours using an advanced program to transfer all my posts to the new blog. It’s called “cut and paste.”

I don’t have copies of some. Others exist in various states of undress. But I can’t sleep. I gotta get my blog up and running.

My loyal readers are clamoring. Where’s the guy with the golden tablets!

(Advil.)

Reminds me of presenting at my first case conference. One item in the complete write-up of a client is a diagnosis from the DSM-IV. As far as I knew, DSM stands for Damn Sophisticated Material. It’s actually the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and contains all the diagnoses mental health professionals use in their work.

I felt inadequate because I hadn’t mastered the thing prior to my first presentation. I did the same thing in grad school. Only the subject matter was the Hebrew language. I’m a fast learner.

 Now I devote several weeks adding a plugin so I can add photos and images to my blog. In blogger this was a two click operation. I had three courses at the post-doctoral level in two click operations. I am prepared.

I add zenphoto. It takes a call to bluehost.com. But when I activate the plugin through wp, I get a message accusing me (I think) of hacking in without a password; it sounds ominously like it’s about to crash my computer. The wp documentation may say, if the plugin shuts down your program, delete it from your server.

I can’t tell exactly what it says. So I delete the uploaded items from the server and my computer.

The thing about computing is, the simplest instruction can become a monster, as in the Lord of the Rings I episode, the bridge at Khazzad duhm (I make no assertions of correct spelling). The script read, “they cross the bridge.”

But the CGI animators kept throwing in complications, resulting in a 20-minute sequence that’s one of the most dramatic in the film.

I do all this stuff (I tell myself) to create the most beautiful, witty, spiritually insightful, hugely successful, yet elegantly unself-conscious holy blog in the history of the planet.

As far as It vs. You goes, some days it’s all 1s and 0s. Take a deep breath and try to keep up with the divine Blogos.