Lure of the Eye

For anyone who owns a Mac PowerBook of a more recent incarnation, there is a little white LED on the front, set into the button for opening the laptop screen. This little white light pulses in slow, methodical time when the laptop is sleeping.

It calls.

It is like a siren's song, drawing in the user towards that button.

"Open me," it sings. "I have access to information both interesting and obscure. I can give you knowledge of the world, or entertainments you would only dream of. All you have to do is open the lid."

Wake the Eye, is all it is asking.

It is a vile temptress, a distracter of man, reducing him again to a quivering sieve of information. Like it's sister, Television, that information is fleeting against the brain. It tickles it, teases it, and lulls it into a sense of learning. But the information is fickle. It leaves as easily as it came.

And the user is left hollow. He awakes from the distraction as if from a dream. The information fades back into the Æther from whence it came.

But the Eye sleeps.