ahh, embedded videos. i just became even more cyborg. thanks.

Welcome to your ville.

YoVille is a place where you can create your own world, have your own house, your own pet, and a job that’s willing to pay you generously in 6-hour increments. Sure it’s virtual, but it’s yours.

You enter your world with the option to create how you look—long hair, short hair, leather boots, Speedo—whatever your pleasure. The color of your skin is an option as well. In most cases I would assume that most choose a tone that closely resembles their real life flesh. Yet, others may not—maybe curious to see how it feels to live in someone else’s skin. Your body is finished and it’s time to go to work, need to make some money to put some furniture in the bachelor pad. On the way to the Widget Factory you’re welcomed with invitations to play a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors” or “Tic-Tac-Toe.” You gladly accept, collect your coins in victory, and make your way through the crowd gathered around the timecard machine.

Three seconds later you’re finished with work. You stretch your arms and make your way back home. Standing next to your YoVille-issued sofa you stare at the windowless walls, dreaming of what your place will look like someday. Wood floors, Asian wall-hangings, big screen TV, and maybe even some nice windows that come with those winter snowflakes inside—there’s no limit to the possibilities of your world. You realize that someday you may save enough money to move out of your humble place and move up in the world. Buy one of those Cape Cod or Gothic homes you saw brochures for at the Realtor Office. Shoot, dream big or not at all—Contemporary home here you come. But wait, those cost $40 in YoCash. The factory only pays in coins so someday, when the time is right, and you meet the right person to share it with, you’ll have to pull out the credit card and claim your dream. After all, the exchange rate is at $5 YoCash to $1 U.S.—doesn’t get much better than that.

You are immersed in what you have earned and even more immersed in what you yearn to have. You work hard, showing up to collect a paycheck every chance you get (whenever you have access to a computer), and with every new purchase your lips stretch in satisfaction. There is no one to tell you what to do or who you are. You have the greatest life in the world and for some reason feeling virtually good has something real to do with actually feeling good. Nice. Time to turn in for now, six hours until my next shift…I mean your shift.

Being cyborg and the language I speak...

What is (a) cyborg rhetoric? As the good cyborg-in-training I am I turned to some virtual help to get me started on answering this question. According to Dictionary.com and its virtual reference of Random House Dictionary (2009), a “cyborg” is “a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.” I’m certain that this definition refers to a person whose life depends on some kind of machine (e.g. a pacemaker, hearing aid, etc.) or something artificial like my eyeglasses, but I would argue that this definition, especially today, reaches further into our lives. I would have to be the first to admit that much of my well-being, or livelihood, relies heavily on something electronic or some artificial intelligence. My life would be unrecognizably different without my home computer, my microwave oven, and my cell phone. Even the little navigation device that often sends me in circles has changed my life—for the better, I don’t know yet? In this way, I am already a cyborg. Maybe one that clings to remnants of what it was like before, but still helplessly drawn to the technological offerings of what being cyborg is about. If I am cyborg, then rhetoric is the way I communicate, or try to communicate. Not just the words coming out of my mouth, but the ways I communicate as a cyborg. My rhetoric is the computerization of this journal entry turned “blog.” My rhetoric is the response paper I printed out an hour ago. My rhetoric is the “Good morning” text I sent earlier today. My rhetoric is the final paper and presentation I will turn in at the end of the quarter. If I am the cyborg I think I am, then my rhetoric is everything that persuades others and myself that I exist, that I have evolved—no, that I am evolving still.

Cyborg Mind, Body...and Spirit?

There has to be more than just mind manifested through brain, supported by flesh and bone wrapped neatly in multi-colored skin. Sure, as a package, this can seem pretty complex and more than enough to explain the most abstract questions about human life. However, I think human existence goes beyond the conscious mind and the earthly body that gives it life. I think there has to be (at least) a third aspect to the mind/body relationship—a bonding aspect that acts as mediator, communicator, or even translator if you will. As Hayles reports that the mind is nothing without the body (246), I would have to argue that the mind and body are nothing without the human spirit embodied within their corporation. Not to say that we necessarily have a soul to be saved or a spirit that needs enlightening, but just that life is definitely more than just flesh, bones, and functioning thoughts created by a conscious mind. When I am affected by intense emotion, whether it’s positive or negative, it does more than just affect my psyche; instead, it does something on a deeper level. Sorry to say, but those who attribute love, hate, and utter joy to something strictly scientific may be suppressing the idea that a big part of being human may possibly be spiritual.

It seems that this may go beyond the cyborg. It seems that this is what will always differentiate us from the cyborg within. It seems that though the cyborg utilizes our rhetoric and wields technology as its sword of advancement, there is a part of us that is impenetrable, a part of us unseen, unexplainable, but rather felt, believed, known. The cyborg has attached itself to our body, immersed itself in our minds, but cannot affect the spirit it will never understand.

Acting how I wanna be.

According to Hayles, “Embodiment is akin to articulation in that it is inherently perfomative, subject to individual enactments, and therefore always to some extent improvisational” (197). If in fact embodiment is action rather than a state of being, then I am actively trying to be who I am each and every day. Does this mean that I actually don’t know my family, friends, classmates for who they really are? And that the people I know are just active representations of the kind of people they hope to be? Am I this person because of a conscious decision I make each morning when I get out of bed? If so, then what of us who feel uncomfortable with who we are? Why is it that we sometimes choose to be someone we’re not that too fond of ourselves? Obviously, this is a question that is best answered with more questions. I feel like I am so many different people at different corners of my life. A brother and a son at one corner, then a friend and classmate at another—not to mention the other corners in between and along the way. Am I one of these more than the others? Or am I all of them presented in separate packages? If embodiment is an action then I am afraid that I am none of them—they’re all just how I “act” in certain aspects of my life. My apologies for all the questions, but the questions seem to be the clearest thing to me—if in fact we act rather than be.