Becoming A Neuroscientist - An Experiment With Life

[Pramit]

 

 

[Pramit]

 

Once upon a time, I stumbled upon a website called Cowbird.

It was a website where people put stories, much like any social media like instagram, but with much much more thought and care. People would post a paragraph, sometimes much more, along with a picture, sometimes a audio clip. It was somewhat in between a social media post (from today) and what you would write to your penpal. They were intimate in a way social media rarely is. You don't really get a sense of the human condition anymore from social media, it just feels like mindless consumption and marketing..an addiction machine. This was not that. It was beautiful. I wish we kept it. By the time I discovered this website, it was already closed off for newcomers. You could only view the site, cannot make new posts, reason being competition with facebook, etc. I would visit occasionally, sometimes more frequently, and feel reminded of the human condition. It was my treasure. Until one day, the site went down. Initially, it was down temporarily. This kind of alarmed me, and I decided to archive some of my favorite stories and make a short book out of them. And then, one day, it went down..permanently. At that time, I thought it'd be up again, like all the times before. I think I scoured the web to find out what happened, but there was no news - I doubt anyone knew about this site. So I kept hoping I guess. Part of the problem is that I never visited cowbird.com - the home page. I always visited cowbird.com/stories - a link which didn't work. Therefore, I missed the announcement about the site being closed. Until recently that is.

I suppose, the website, even though it was closed to newcomers, was still like a home to me? 

And now I can finally grieve properly

I think I am in a bit of a weird place in life right now. It's weird enough that I don't really know how to write about it. May be that's the issue, I just don't write enough anymore.

Edited March 25 by Pramit