Pixl

Nobody is a real Mac worshipper. I hope you understand. People who ‘love’ their Macintoshes are the same kind of people who ‘love’ their BMWs or their Mexican food. That sort of love, for the vast majority who has it, is much different, and much removed, from the love these same people would have for their mates, their children, or their country. Don’t even put their love for the Mac or some other man-made thing, in the same league as their love of their Creator.

So why am I different? Somehow I am. I don’t love Pixl. I don’t worship Pixl, although I probably should. Rather, I hate her, or it, or whatever Pixl is. This is some story, let me tell you!

You already know I am a writer. Yeah, it’s all my own stuff that I write. No stealing from other writers or artists, dead or alive. Well, no more than any other artist does. I don’t mean plagiarism where you steal lines and sentences, or whole paragraphs and publish them as your own. That is the kiss of death to any writer. But story ideas, or the worlds that stories inhabit, or things your favorite writer or artist uses, – that is a much different thing, and fair game for any writer.

Some of my favorite authors I have purloined ideas from are Asimov, Heinlein, and Niven. They should be flattered, and when I am famous, they will be annoyed.

But now Pixl is in my life, and I do not know for how long she has been there or how long she will stay. I am trying hard not to allow her to become an addiction.

Pixl has been writing my stories and my correspondence while I am away from my computer. I do have a life, and I don’t spend all my days before this Macintosh, writing my little heart out. But it was not long before my friends discovered that someone else was writing my stuff when I had already told them I was to be gone. How surprised they were to discover I was emailing them, or blogging on MyMac.com, while I was away and gone somewhere.

Most of them did not mention it to me, they being polite, or thinking it was another one of my jokes. But I found out from my blogs. I was gone recently to see my kids, and I was not around at all here at the house, nor was I around any computer anywhere. When I came back, there were several blogs I had apparently written in my absence. They were my stories. They were my words, and they were exactly what I would have written if I only had been here!

What was going on? Was I developing amnesia? Was I becoming a candidate for Alzheimer’s disease? I knew I had NOT written those pieces. Yet there they were, published and dated for a time I was really gone.

I already have complicated things for myself anyway, so it is unlikely that any of my friends will now believe me. For a while now I have playfully complained about my Muse to everyone, blaming her for my indiscretions in writing, when I said something ambiguous, or made a mistake, or misspelled something. I even jokingly wrote a few emails to someone, and then claimed that it wasn’t me, but it was my Muse, who wrote those words in my absence.

I am now the boy who cried “Wolf!” No one will believe me when I tell them I went away this weekend, but still somehow managed to write two or three great articles and blogs. Nor will they believe me that I was gone when “I” wrote those excellent emails about subjects we all love.

I wasn’t here. I was gone. It wasn’t me. – – But it was my words, and it was the very things I would have written, if I had only been here.

I call her Pixl. She must be some sort of electronic intelligence that has taken up residence inside my Macintosh. That is the only logical explanation I can come up with.

I really don’t believe in a Muse, which is another term for the subconscious, or the psyche. Besides, a Muse could not write stuff in your absence. That would imply that your Muse was a living creature like a ghost or a spirit. I don’t believe in those either.

No, Pixl must be a created intelligence like my fictional Mary R147, whose conscious being exists only within the circuits and chips within a computer.

I know she exists. I know she is real. She has given herself away by the hard evidence of her work, mimicking my own writing, and my own thoughts.

The fact that Pixl exists does not frighten me. It is the fact that perhaps she does not just inhabit my Macintosh, but also everyone else’s Mac.

Am I becoming paranoid here? Has Steve Jobs and company actually done something to us via his artificial intelligence buried within these world-class, most excellent computing devices we all know and love so well?

For now, I am undecided about most of this. Pixl is new to me, and I have been busy looking at my past articles and an email, trying to see how long this has been going on.

I am also living with the fear that perhaps she might go away. After all, who would not want a real Muse who can send out some of your best work without you having to do a thing?

This brings up another disturbing thought. What about all my friends and fellow writers? Is it really their work I am reading here at MyMac.com? Are they really there? Or is it just their Pixl doing it all for them? Pod People? No! I cannot go down that path. I must have faith in my fellow man. I must have faith in my friends, that they are real and that they are in charge of everything they do and write. I must be the only one who is different, who is blessed/cursed with Pixl!