Coffee. The mysterious drink over which so some of my most important conversations were held. After padding the already fat pockets of Howard Schultz, words seem easier.

So can you smell the coffee now?

Is this where we'll walk into the gallery of each other's lives and get the answer to "How's it going?"?

Maybe this is the reason I've started my blog. Somehow we're built with the need to share our lives with others.

I've always scorned those that turned to the Web for companionship, and saw the blog as the worst incarnation of that pathetic state of mind. An online diary? For all to read? It was oxymoronic. I thought it was moronic.

And here I am.

I've always been slow to catch on to the trend. I bought my handphone kicking and screaming 2 years ago only because I was to be confined on an island for five and a half days a week.

My friends are far removed from me now. Gone are the days when they were all within ten minutes walk in the same school compound. They spend a lot of their time on the computer and by extension online.

It takes effort to connect.

If you don't want to move ahead (is this really moving ahead?) with them, then you'll have a great view of their backs and the dust they'll leave for you to eat.

Funny.

I've always sneered at the way that people were moving inexorably toward hiding behind screens to talk to people. At the same time, I've always known that words come to me much easier when I write.

Shouldn't I be happy that things are moving my way then?

Somehow, no.

Somehow, I realise that however wired we are, we remain creatures of flesh and mind and spirit.

Words carry the mind with ease. Flesh and spirit can only hope to be stowaways on these electronic highways.

Can you smell the coffee?

I miss the days when things ended with the faint fragrance and quiet tinkling of mugs being washed.

I suppose this will have to do.