The Observer Effect
Can You Hear Me Now?
Here’s a rather timeless question: If a tree falls in a lonely forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? This issue has engaged philosophers for centuries and has given rise to considerable scholarly debate.
Lately I have begun to wonder whether the internet has produced a modern version of a similar philosophical problem, specifically with regard to blogging. If a person writes essays that remain virtually unread, does the blog really exist?
One might imagine that such a question could be addressed, at least somewhat marginally, with data. We live in the age of analytics, after all. Somewhere inside the mysterious machinery of the internet, numbers are quietly crunched: page views, visitor counts, geographic locations, and other tidy bits of data gradually accumulate in the background. Naturally, I occasionally check the available statistics here on Musings.
What I find here can best be described as modest evidence of human life. Sometimes one of my posts appears to have attracted three visitors. Two of those visits are almost certainly me, returning to see whether a typo escaped my notice before I published. The third might represent an actual reader. Or possibly a search engine robot conducting routine surveillance of the digital landscape.
But every now and then the analytics reveal something more mysterious. A recent visitor with an IP address from the Seychelles, for example. I try to imagine this person: someone on a small island in the Indian Ocean who has paused long enough to read a reflective essay about time, memory, or late-life philosophy written by a retired higher-ed guy in Oregon. It is a pleasant thought. Unfortunately, of course, it is most likely a bot.
These observations suggest that the deeper philosophical issue may lie elsewhere. René Descartes famously attempted to anchor human existence in a single undeniable truth: Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. The act of thinking itself confirmed the existence of the thinker.
Modern physics introduces yet another wrinkle. In quantum mechanics, the Uncertainty Principle suggests that the act of observation influences what is being observed. At the smallest scales of reality, the observer and the observed become entangled in curious ways. The observer becomes part of the phenomenon.
All of this raises an unsettling possibility for bloggers: perhaps a post does not fully exist until someone reads it.
For the modern blogger, then, a similar formulation might present itself: Scribo, ergo sum. I write, therefore I am.
But writing on the internet introduces a complication Descartes never had to consider. Descartes lived in an era when publishing assumed an audience. In our era, it is entirely possible to write something, place it carefully on a beautifully designed website — yes, I am talking about TechnoMonk’s Musings here — and discover that the universe has responded with a deafening silence.
This raises a subtle question. If writing is placed before the world but no one encounters it, what exactly has occurred? Is the blog an act of communication, or merely a private journal that just happens to possess a URL?
Perhaps the older philosophical puzzle offers a clue. A tree falling in the forest still disturbs the air, shakes the ground, and settles into the soil whether anyone happens to be standing nearby to hear the sound. The event takes place regardless of observation.
So let’s consider this: Writing may work much the same way. Thoughts take shape. Words accumulate. A small archive of a life gradually forms, essay by essay. Whether the audience is large, small, or occasionally located in the Seychelles may be only an incidental matter.
Descartes had certainty: Cogito, ergo sum.
I think, therefore I am.
Physicists have uncertainty; and so do I. Scribo, ergo sum.
I write, therefore I might be?
Whether anyone can hear me now is another question entirely.
Soundtrack Suggestion
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day
I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day
(“I Can See Clearly Now” — Johnny Nash)
The Monk Persists
I built this blog on Thanksgiving Day, 2005. From scratch. In a single afternoon.
That first version is likely something archaeologists of the early internet might excavate from a dead server farm somewhere. Remember, this was before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before podcasts. Before we were all gently coerced into becoming “content creators,” feeding platforms whose names would eventually become verbs.
Back then blogging was its own ecosystem. Independent. Slightly nerdy. Sometimes thoughtful. Often opinionated. For some weird reason, I wanted in.
On that first day I explained how I came to call myself “TechnoMonk.” The name originated with a friend who once observed that my home furnishings were distinctly Spartan, while my investment in cameras, computers, and sound equipment was anything but. The term stuck; I’m still a gadget enthusiast.
The original blog was hosted by Blogger, and lived on a Comcast server under the domain technomonk.us. It was free, which seemed appropriate for what was then essentially a self-indulgent side project. Over time I discovered that “free” came with aesthetic constraints, sketchy support, and documentation that was likely composed by a tech guy with limited social skills. After almost a year of muttering at the screen, I decided to move on.
In October 2006 I adopted the domain technomonksmusings.com and migrated everything to Squarespace, where it has remained ever since. That first transition was not seamless. Files were exported and imported; some did not survive the journey. Lessons were learned. Patience was tested. A few agonizing weeks passed.
Eventually the site settled into Squarespace’s v5 platform, where it has lived for many years. The design remained largely unchanged. I described this to myself as “clean and timeless.” It may also have been “aging quietly.” At this point, my blog is older than many current, well, what-do-you-call-them, “influencers.”
What changed over time was my understanding of what this space represented. What began as a modest vanity project gradually became something more substantial: a personal archive. It now contains reflections on work, institutional politics, relationships, travel, aging, grief, loss, rejection, existential angst, and yes, a fairly steady stream of complaints. I have never curated commentary particularly carefully.
Version 5, however, has reached its twilight. Support is minimal. Editing began to feel like maintaining a museum exhibit devoted to mid-2000s web design. So the options became clear: let it fade away, archive it imperfectly, or migrate again.
But I remembered 2006. The mere thought of another migration made my shoulders tighten. The move to Squarespace 7.1 would preserve the content, but the site itself would need rebuilding. Every post would require reformatting. One. By. One. Add in the predictable dry eyes from too many hours at a screen, and it all began to feel like a full-contact sport.
And yet, here we are.
The transition is complete. The layout is cleaner. The font is slightly larger, which my fellow senior citizens should appreciate. Underneath, the structure is sturdier and far less temperamental.
Two domain names. Three platforms. Twenty years.
Not bad for something launched on a whim in a sparsely furnished home office with just my computer and one crazy idea.
So: thank you for stopping by, whether you’ve been here since 2005 or arrived somewhere along the way. I can’t promise frequency. I can promise that when something feels worth saying, it will appear here.
The Monk persists.
Soundtrack Suggestion
It’s quite apparent
Your grammar’s errant
You’re incoherent
Saw your blog post
It’s really fantastic
That was sarcastic
’Cause you write like a spastic
I hate these Word Crimes
Your prose is dopey
Think you should only
Write in emoji
(“Word Crimes” – “Weird Al” Yankovic)
Between Connection and Distance: A Review of Technomonk’s Musings
What follows below, in collaboration with ChatGPT, is a review of my two decades of work here on this blog. Provided for your amusement and entertainment. And my ego, I suppose.
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To read Technomonk’s Musings is to discover a mind that insists on thinking in full sentences, even when the subject is uncomfortable. The essays — ranging from meditations on aging and love to reflections on politics, memory, and the quiet absurdities of everyday life — form less a blog than an ongoing correspondence between the author and the world.
Jim Arnold’s voice is cultivated yet conversational, curious yet unsentimental. He is equally at home unpacking a fleeting personal moment as he is interrogating the failings of institutions or the fragile scaffolding of social norms. What keeps the writing compelling is its refusal to settle for tidy conclusions. The essays often begin in one emotional key — wistful, amused, irritated — and end in another, as if the act of writing is itself a form of discovery.
A former love interest of Arnold, in what may or may not have been an act of generosity, once described a unifying theme of Musings as “rejection.” It’s not a baseless observation. Across the archives, one finds stories of relationships that drifted apart, ideals that proved brittle, ambitions met with indifference. But rejection here is rarely a wall; it is more often a window. Arnold treats these moments not as defeats but as turning points, scenes in which the self must adapt, recalibrate, and — crucially — remain willing to engage.
Still, to reduce the work to that single lens would miss the vitality of its range. The through-lines are more complex: a search for authenticity in human connection, a fascination with how memory shapes identity, a dry wit that can slice neatly through pretense. In his hands, personal anecdotes double as cultural commentary; a chance encounter or a scrap of overheard dialogue can spiral outward into reflections on the nature of intimacy, the economy of attention, or the slow-motion erosion of public trust.
The style borrows from essayists who value rhythm and structure but resists their tendency toward detachment. There is warmth here, even when the subject is loss. When the tone sharpens, it is not cruel; when it softens, it does so without sentimentality. This balance — between empathy and precision — gives the prose its staying power.
If the blog has an overarching effect, it is the sensation of being let in on someone’s interior weather report: not just the forecast, but the shifting cloud patterns, the brief breaks of light, the gathering storms. That Arnold makes space for rejection is less a fixation than an acknowledgment that to live authentically is to face, again and again, the places where we are not met in kind. What matters, the essays suggest, is what one builds in that aftermath.
In the end, Technomonk’s Musings offers neither an idealized self-portrait nor a manifesto. Instead, it is an ongoing ledger of encounters — personal, political, philosophical — kept with a level of care that suggests the act of recording is itself an act of connection. And that, perhaps, is the truer theme: not rejection, but persistence.
What Now?
There are those periods in any lifetime, comprised of hours, days, weeks, or sometimes longer, that lead you to question much of what’s come before. Have you ever noticed that? … for WHAM!, there you are, minding your own business, and suddenly, unexpectedly, this or that happens. And it’s at that point you come to question: Is this my life? Really?
I have a love-hate relationship with these interludes, for as good as they typically turn out, when I’m in the midst of it all, feelings of loss, ambiguity, confusion and pain are frequent visitors. Happily, a sense of excitement and wonderment can be part of it as well. It can be tragic. As well as magic.
Here’s what’s going on right now.
I met a woman online a short time ago. When she sent me a brief note of introduction, and I went to read her profile, I thought: amazing. We met for coffee the first time, and afterwards I wrote her a follow-up email, using that word; when she wrote back she said, yes, our connection for a first meeting was amazing.
After having lunch together for a second date, she discovered this blog. She apparently read quite a few entries and her emailed comments to me included:
… you have shared your personal history, dreams, joys, challenges, disappointments and vulnerabilities. Your words can so resonate that one moment I find myself laughing out loud, the next deeply moved to tears … [and] this is beginning to create a heart connection that is both surprising and much welcomed. As I tried to convey in my online profile, in addition to intellectual and physical compatibility, I’m looking for deep mutual closeness based on emotional intimacy, conscious communication, psychological awareness and spiritual alignment …
All told, we got together five times in two weeks. During the last date, a hike along a local trail, we, for the first time, held hands. At the conclusion of our time outdoors, we went back to her place for a while, at which point she indicated that our relationship would not be going any further. “I cannot give my heart to a man whose heart is in Oregon,” she stated.
Holy crap, I said to myself. And here I thought things were going so well.
But, during those two weeks we spent together, I had taken a quick trip to Portland for a job interview. I had had phone and Skype interviews before she sent me that first note. When I was up there on campus, I know I performed well and that the selection committee liked me. The president of the college, an old friend of mine, called me after the formal process was over to express her support. It seemed I was on a trajectory for a job offer. Of course, I didn’t keep this a secret, as the possibility of my departure was a very big deal. Still, the relationship seemed to be progressing normally, especially as evidenced by the “heart-connection” email. You know, and the whole hand-holding thing that very morning.
However, even before the outcome of the job process was clear, she called it quits, severing the possibility of any romantic relationship, though leaving open the prospect of “friendship.” I passed on that option.
Then, as anticipated, the very next evening, I did receive the job offer (by email, minus any details such as salary). When, after three more days, the terms were clarified, it seemed apparent this was not the place for me. While they said they wanted me, their budget was apparently not flexible enough to back up that claim. And other issues seem to be forbidden topics of conversation as well (e.g., vacation days). All in all: it was very strange and uncomfortable.
You know, it wasn’t that long ago I believed I’d do anything for a ticket back to Oregon. Interestingly, that has turned out not to be the case. I respectfully declined their offer, with only modest hesitation.
And, the truth is, I feel great with this decision. I live in beautiful, sunny, scenic Marin County, California, just ten miles from the Golden Gate. My interview trip to Portland, while a professional success, entailed surviving 40-degree weather and constant rain. It was dismal.
I am coming to realize that I feel at home in the Bay Area. It now seems likely that while I wasn’t paying attention, I was becoming a Californian.
But I was rejected for being an Oregonian.
Apparently, both the person and the college wanted to be just friends. Without the benefit of actual benefits, however.
Dear Universe: honestly. You really kill me sometimes!
Soundtrack Suggestion
Now he lives in the islands, fishes the pilins
And drinks his green label each day
Writing his memoirs, losin’ his hearin’
But he don’t care what most people say.
Through eighty-six years of perpetual motion
If he likes you he’ll smile and he’ll say
“Jimmy, some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all the way.”
(“He Went to Paris” – Jimmy Buffett)
Marking A Monk’s Milestone
