Those of us whose online life began with 2400 bps modems or slower remember what life was like when viewing an image online meant downloading it line by line over a 10- or 15-minute period. One image. The early editions of CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL were all text-based, as were local BBSs. When the real Internet, the kind you access through a browser, or rather through Netscape 1.0, became available, for me in 1996, most of us had 14.4 modems; we quickly upgraded to 28.8 and then 56.6 bps. When things were still super slow, I remember downloading Netscape 2.0 like it was the birth of another child. It was about 6 MB in size, and it took 45 minutes of "NOBODY CAN USE THE PHONE." I paced back and forth outside on my lawn, smoking cigarettes and trying to imagine what the new web would look like. Eventually, web pages became slightly more graphical, but video, usually watched on something called RealPlayer, was still out of the question for all but the most patient or porn-hungry.

We got broadband at work before I had it at home. I'd just moved from the factory floor at a Westinghouse Electric factory to the front office to start a new position as a technical writer with a new Pentium computer, a $5,000 color printer, Corel Draw, and a Kodak digital camera that took photos on a small floppy disk. I also had access to a ZIP drive which featured removable media in the form of 100 MB disks. I bought one for home too so I could take files back and forth. Not business files, but stuff I could download at lightning speed at work.

In 1999, I was one of the first people on the beta installation of broadband in my community, having signed up two years prior on the waiting list. As a reward for waiting, I got my first six months free. At this point, I became the biggest outlaw I have ever been in my life. I lived an existence of pure piracy. Napster was just getting started, and I was in love with it. I downloaded every single one of Rolling Stone's top 500 albums I didn't already own. Then I made sure I got every one of the top 500 songs too. Then I started on discographies. 42 Fleetwood Mac albums. 39 Van Morrison albums. Johnny Cash had close to 75 albums, and I went after them all. It was glorious, the Wild West, and a time we will never see again.

Eventually, Napster got shut down, and its follow-ups, like Limewire, were virus-laden poor imitations of the real thing. With the advent of BitTorrent, downloading movies became easy, as did getting whole runs of shows like The Sopranos or The Wire. A new edition would come out on Sunday night, and Monday night you could download a copy to watch on your DVD player. People with Netflix DVD subscriptions were keeping entire neighborhoods entertained.

Torrents weren't just for movies either. You could get software on them. Back in those days, I didn't know any developers, and companies like Adobe and Microsoft charged hundreds of dollars for their flagship products. I felt fully justified in getting my pirated copy of Photoshop. It took up a third of my hard drive, and I had no idea how to use it, but I had a copy. There was an infamous program for Mac nerds called Serial Box that contained the registration information for hundreds of apps, many of them by independent developers and small companies. I started to feel a little bit slimy at that point.

Then my ISP started sending me letters informing me that someone in my house was illegally downloading copyrighted material. I ignored the letters because I figured they were bluffing. In fact, they were not bluffing, which I found out one Saturday morning in 2006 when my Internet would not work. When I called tech support to complain, I was told to call back on Monday and ask for the folks in the fraud and abuse department. Oh, shit. This was during the time that the RIAA was suing the grandmothers of teenage downloaders for thousands of dollars. I was terrified all weekend that I was going to lose my house.

When Monday came, and I made the call, the stern-sounding lady on the phone told me to go to my computer and read what was on the screen. It basically said, "If I ever download something illegally again, my Internet will be turned off forever." There was one checkbox, and it just said "OK." I had to check it to get my Internet back. Oh, the movie that got me busted? It was Little Miss Sunshine, I found out later.

That was it for me. I uninstalled all my torrent downloading software and deleted the bookmarks to pirate sites. I got a three-disk-at-the-time Netflix DVD subscription to satisfy my movie habit. I started buying the software I wanted, even if things like Eudora email were close to $50.

These days, with the advent of VPNs and other technological advances, it's easier than ever to continue to pirate stuff. I work with techies who never stopped and who have elaborate NAS systems connected to always-on servers that use keyword-activated torrenting software to collect their ever-growing wish list. Despite the proliferation of malware in pirated software and a much better understanding of what piracy does to small companies and indie devs, people are still downloading "free" copies of $15 apps. Not me.

I can live with the guilt of depriving Bruce Springsteen of a few bucks by not paying for some of his albums. I'm sorry, Boss. I'm long reformed, and I have never given anyone advice on how to live the pirate's life. It's not the kind of consulting I want to do. The Internet isn't the Wild West any longer. It's all e-commerce and taxes and such. For a while though, we sailed the seas.

Addendum - I wrote this in the summer of 2024. In the spring of 2025, I decided to become one of those techies with an always on NAS automatically downloading my wishlist of movies and TV shows. After nearly two decades of subscribing to streaming services, the relentless price increases coupled with record profits and all manners of anti-competitive behavior drove me to it. At this point, I think it's more morally pure to deprive billionaires of income than it is to watch pirated copies of a TV show. I still shy away from software, for security reasons and because I think more of developers than I do of media conglomerates.

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You are surrounded by courageous people. The chances are you probably display and exemplify courage more than you can imagine. Some people associate the word with Marines charging a pillbox at Iwo Jima, but of course that's not always the case. Often it is just regular people living their lives, doing the things they're called to do. You may feel that you don't have a choice in life, but if you're not curled up into the fetal position, lying on the floor, unable to move, you're making choices every day.

It takes a certain kind of courage to live in the twenty-first century. This is true for everyone, even for old white guys like me who've been playing the game on easy mode most of our lives. Women have to summon courage more often than men do because let's face it guys, we just don't have to think about things like sexual assault, do we? People of color have to start summoning their courage every time white people (or cops) show up in a given location. A lot of us thought that our brothers and sisters and non-binary friends in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities were going to be able to live without displaying the bravery they'd been using forever, but we were wrong. Current malevolent forces require them to be braver than ever.

What is there to fear, you ask? Well, it's not the things that the government or Fox News would have you believe. It's not the boogeyman who's going to break into your house or a brown person who's going to take away your job. It's not terrorists or anyone who should cause you to start stocking up on guns and ammunition. The people who give us the most to fear are the people around us who have the most privilege. It's the people who would take away your child's health care so they could afford a bigger boat for their beach house. The cruelty of the majority seemingly has no limits. People who have burned through two or three marriages without having a happy one are the same people who would take away the right for committed same-sex couples to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage.

The opportunities for courage are unique to us as individuals. The most frightening thing I ever confronted was sixteen years ago when I spent my first day without alcohol. I had not done that in years and years, and the prospect of going twenty-four hours without the comfort of a drink absolutely terrified me. Of course, I was also terrified by the prospect of dying a miserable, alcoholic death. So I decided to try one more time to get sober, and it finally worked.

Other opportunities for courage include starting or ending a relationship, moving to a new town, leaving one job for another, having children, and making large financial decisions. The fact that millions of people do those things every day shouldn't take away from the reality that they require each of us to move forward into the unknown. Courage is infectious, and the best thing that I can do for myself is to participate in communities whenever possible, whether it's a twelve-step organization or just the kind people I know on the internet. Few things have to be endured alone.

Face whatever you have to face today. All of the terrible things that have ever happened to you in your entire life combined haven't killed you, so it's highly unlikely that anything that happens today will kill you either. Remember that you are not alone and that community is available if you look for it.

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The last two months have been a ride on a very slow moving roller coaster. Living with health challenges has taken an adjustment no one asked if I was ready to make. Thankfully, I'm a quick study and I'm finding out what my current capabilities allow me to do. I'm sleeping like a baby, meaning that I can't make it through the night and I need frequent naps. I'm usually fine as long as I am still. Moving around too much takes my breath away and man oh man, am I slow. One of my grandson uses a wheelchair most of the time but he can get out of it and beat me in a foot race right now.

Forty years of living with bi-polar disorder has taught me a thing or two about mood and energy swings. I accept that they happen and when they do, I don't freak out or whine about it. I had a long, long stretch of productive time from January 2024 through this spring when I managed to write 20 or more blog posts every week, Right now I am only writing one or two a week, but as things stabilize, I hope to pick up the pace a bit. I have managed to stay active on Mastodon, mostly because interacting with the people I have come to know there energizes me.

I’ve developed true compassion for anyone who goes through health challenges alone. I count my blessings every day because Wonder Woman supports me in every way, especially emotionally. She acknowledges my concerns but doesn’t let me wallow in them. She’s kept me incredibly busy by planning multiple trips out of town, mostly to do things with our grandchildren. I’m writing this while we are traveling home from a weekend with three teenage boys spent in SW Virginia, one of the most beautiful places on earth. I might not be able to climb mountains right now, but I still enjoy being surrounded by them.

I really appreciate the many emails and messages I’ve gotten. Don’t ever forget that there are many kind and caring people in the world. The slice of the Internet where I hang out lacks the toxicity that many folks experience when they venture into corporate owned spaces. Give me the small web in every way. I don’t miss billionaire-owned privacy invasion machines.

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