Interview with Polish Writer Janusz Leon WiЕ›niewski, who was in Sofia for the presentation the Bulgarian edition of his book, Loneliness on the Net, published by Ciela Soft & Publishing. More information about Janusz Leon WiЕ›niewski please read at http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=102087

Question: How do you think the Internet and the Global Age affect human nature? Do you think they change it in any way?

Answer: Absolutely, the Internet changed also human nature. First of all, the world became closer, the information is flowing like crazy, and it's difficult to keep anything secret in this world. People are communicating, and the distance doesn't play any role at all. Anything that happens somewhere, which has IP address, will be on all IP addresses. Also, the Internet changed the way people communicate not only about politics, Internet is not just the source of information. Very recently Internet became a source of emotions. People are communicating with each other with all the media over the Internet, and people who would never meet in life because of the distance, the economic situation, suddenly they meet and exchange ideas. It's a saying banal for some people but we became a little village, it's really, really true.

Q: Does this mean that a person is already just an IP address?

A: No, not yet, because you still have this opportunity to cut off. You don't have to be on the Internet but people know that they are losing something if they are not online. The idea that everybody will carry an IP address under their skin, as a chip, is not science fiction any more. You know particularly now when they have six-position IP addresses, so all the objects will carry IP addresses. We still have free will - you don't have to - I have time when I want to cut off of the source of information, and the number of bits of information that we process now is a trillion more than we had in the 19th century. But we are already very close to an IP address, you carry an IP address in your telephone. It's a matter of decision now to make ourselves carrying an IP address.

Q: In your book, "Loneliness on the Net", the Internet appears helpful for alleviating loneliness in the contemporary world. Does the dominance of the Internet in today's life create loneliness, or does it help people to overcome loneliness? Which of these effects is more prevalent in your view?

A: I would say it is still helping to overcome loneliness. It's not that we are creating loneliness because we are accustomed to the Internet. There is still a free-will decision to be online. People are going online and exchanging emotions. Falling in love in Internet - because this really happens - it is usually a free will, to that extent that this is our decision. But on the other hand, in this rat race, in this quick very fast world we don't have time for normal relationships, we don't time to go to the restaurant, people used to meet in churches before, and in bars, and in restaurants, used to go to theater, balls, parties... Now they don't have time, they simply want to make careers, they have projects to do, they come home, and still don't want to be alone.

So the easiest way is to log on and communicate with other people, and exchange ideas, and talk about emotions, you know. So in my view Internet does not create yet loneliness, it helps overcome momentarily this loneliness. But for many people cannot imagine the world without Internet. They only believe that something real is on the Internet. The real prove that we exist is if you check the news, or the weather forecast on the Internet. You don't believe the weather forecast you see through the window, you just check online.

In my particular book "Loneliness on the Net", Internet is not making people more lonely, it enables them to get very close to each other. Yet, the main female character does not see the love, which came to exist there as a serious one. She is unable to get close in real life to the male character of my book, because she says the final horrible words: "It's not the real world, it's only Internet. It's not the real stuff, you know, we met only on the Internet." The words they were sending to each other do not have this meaning as if they would exchange them like I am with you sitting in front of you, smalling you, being able to touch you if I wanted...

Q: So do you believe that online or online-generated relationships can be considered real? aren't they deceptive and fake?

A: No, I don't believe so. What you start any relationship on the Internet, this may be very solemn I say now but - on the Internet and the Bible, at the beginning was the word. Not spoken word, written word but it's the same. We create these relationships with words. As a matter of fact, I do believe that each love, more or less is created by words which are spoken. In that sense, we create love and relationships with words. Physical attraction, the way the person looks like, the way they smell, are moving are only a side effects. But the real love, and the real relationship is that what we say. And in the Internet at the beginning was the word - spoken or written, or Skype-spoken or chats written.

There was a research of people who declared they fell in love on the Internet, and there were those who declared they fell in love in normal real relationship. And love is a lot of chemistry in your brain. Love is chemistry. We have certain substances when we are in love and so on, and they scanned the brains of those who fell in love in the Internet, and those who fell in love traditionally, so to say, and they were exactly the same. The same active areas, the same chemistry, the same sort of emotions expressed by chemicals in the brain. I think the portal Yahoo! financed this research. So from physiological point of view, that what we feel, falling in love in Internet and real live does not differ.

I know about it because this book which is very popular in Poland, it's a cult book in Poland, and it is recently a cult book in Russia, I get like 30-40 000 emails from the readers, because they published my email address. I read all of them, I don't answer, because I would have to answer all the time. But I read all of them, and I see that this relationship is true, is real, it's not fake. You know, there is a lot of fake stuff on the Internet, I would say, a lot of bad people who use this anonymity. But they are not looking for love, they look for sex.

But if somebody wants to build a relationship first based on friendship or attraction, then transforming into love, there's lots of people, I have statistical data, people tell me about it. I know many stories. I am invited to weddings of people who met on the Internet, and started to discuss my book, and that was the first subject they discussed, and so on. So I do believe it is possible.

Q: Both your native Poland and Bulgaria jumped from the Communist Era right into the Internet Age. Do you see anything really specific in the way Eastern Europe is affected by the Internet and the other features of the new Global Age?

A: I come from a little bit western Eastern Europe because Poland was always a little bit in this area and also close to the Soviet Union. Soviet influence was not that strong as it was here, you have a different history with the Soviet Union and Russia. They liberated you from the Turks and so on, I do realize that, the different relationship to Russia here. This transformation in this region is going very, very quickly. I see the changes here. We became more capitalistic that the capitalist countries. I've lived for 23 years in Germany so I know both worlds. I have seen my Poland and I live in traditionally capitalist Germany - rich, the powerhouse of the whole European Union, they pay most of the money, so I see how it develops there and how it develops here.

But I understand this fastness - we want to buy the cars we never had the chance to buy, we want to see the places in the world we never had the chance to see. We are going faster, we want to swallow it, you know. It's not like taking a drop of water, we want the whole stream of water. So the changes here are much quicker and its dangerous because this capitalism here is very unfair, sometimes it's 19th century capitalism, a lot of poor people, and lot of rich people.

And what we miss in these countries - Bulgaria, Romania, and also Poland - we miss the middle class. Because the middle class creates wealth, not the rich people, not the poor people. Middle class buys cars, middle class produces, middle class builds houses. But you cannot stop it, because the tendencies to be equal with the richest, and some people think that life is too short to wait. Nobody is thinking about the future generations. I want to have my car, my house, my vacations now, not in the future.

This is why we make a lot of mistakes. But we are on the right way, I see the changes in Poland, I see the changes here. I was here many, many years ago. And the fact that I communicate with everybody in Bulgaria on the Internet, and that my books are here, and that they are similar to books in Germany, Poland, that people drive the same cars, you know, that people listen to the same music, its uniformity, yes, but on the other hand it means we are getting to normal.

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