I would like to be able to record my thoughts and experiences easily and passively. At any time I want to be able to start or stop recording my vision (or an analog), my speech and what I can hear, my keystrokes, or other sorts of data, directly into some kind of system where it can be organized, queried, and shared.

I would like to be able to instantly query and access and share those things while I’m mobile, or sitting at my desk, or disconnected from all large-scale communication infrastructure like the cellular network.

I would like to be able to master the glue. Which is to say, I would like to be able to quickly take data in format X and transform it into format Y, without having to write a program to do it. So much work seems to be getting information from one system into another system, which requires slight formatting, order, value-type changes, or perhaps just simply stripping data out or doing some basic analysis like taking a sum or an average. I would like to be able to take a pile of data and restructure it at a whim. To read from whatever format I have access to, transform it on the fly, and write to whatever format I might like.

I would like to have my ideas and thoughts floating around me at all times, organized organically or at the push of a button — they’re just data. I want to be able to divide and order them, place them in piles, see them floating in the air and walk among them.

I would like to offload my thought-state and allow mental processes to complete. To resume that state whenever I want, update little bits or check in on the progress of things, and then toss it back away again.

I would like to be in constant contact with my loved ones and friends, whenever I want to be — not solely by reading their words on a screen, but by hearing, by seeing them, by sensing them. I want the distinction between voice and text and vision and thought to disappear.

I would like to be able to ask the world any question, and get an answer.

Despite some of that above — I would like to retain the freedom to be alone. The freedom to come and go as I please. The freedom to think and say as I please, even if another person finds it to be offensive, wrong, or destructive. I would still like to retain the freedom to communicate without having that communication eavesdropped upon. I would like the freedom to access any visible information I’m interested to learn. I would like the freedom to act without fear of retribution from a fickle overlord. I would like the freedom to assemble and protest, and remove from a position of power those who seek to remove my freedoms.

I may be misguided, I may be wrong, and I’m definitely all over the place, but I know what I want, for now. I would like to start building, seeing, and using things that make computers extend our minds and souls — without giving up our personalities or falling under something oppressive.

I wonder how hard it is to make these things happen, and how wrong I am, or how stupid I sound? Time will tell.