{{{
  "title": "Borders of Cyberspace",
  "planted": "1/16/2026",
  "status": "seedling"
}}}

I've recently found myself spending a lot of time curating the space I exist in. I recently moved across the country into my first solo apartment, so I've had a lot of work to do to build a nest for myself. Alongside fleshing out my *physical* space, I've also begun to do some amateur "homelab" style projects--setting up a craigslist-sourced desktop as a server and an old laptop as a media center. I've also been putting work into configuring these to work together with my main PC smoothly over a customized network. It's probably safe to say that I've spent as much time on my "cyberspace" in the past few months as I have on my physical space.

In Sarah Davis Baker's [The Internet Used to be a Place](https://youtu.be/oYlcUbLAFmw) she discusses how the boundaries we built around computers, and by extension the internet, gave the early web the feeling of a physical *location*--one you could shut the door on. With the advent of internet-connected mobile phones, the modern web is always present. Even if you abstain, leave your phone at home, disable data, or disconnect in some other way, the internet is in the pockets of everyone around you. I'm less interested in discussing that now--instead, I'd like to dive into the feelings of building my virtual space in tandem with the physical.

I'll occasionally tour my space while on a video call with someone--distant friends, family--highlighting what I've paid special attention to (and conveniently keeping what I haven't out of frame). Whenever I pass over my TV or desk, I get an urge to describe everything I've set up and how it all works together, just like I'd zoom in on paintings I've hung or show off my kitchen. This usually isn't because the other person would be especially interested. My mind has just picked up and categorized my virtual spaces as an extension of my apartment.

Humans are wired for tool use. I'm always amazed at how smoothly my body adapts to driving a car, viewing its dimensions as extensions of my own. I can *feel* where the wheels of the car should be, how close I'll be trying to merge into another lane. I think my computer setup has entrenched itself into the proprioception I feel for my apartment. I can visualize, no *feel* the connections between my computers as I walk around. The internet used to be a place, and now it's everywhere. This doesn't give me the same anxiety that simply carrying my phone--being constantly accessible--does. In my apartment, I've curated where the boundaries are and aren't. With my phone, I don't get the same luxury.

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As a postscript, VR has an interesting effect on how the internet feels. I tried to set up my original Oculus Quest a few months ago after a few years of not using it only to find Facebook had deleted my original account and wouldn't let me run any of my *locally downloaded* games without logging into a new one. I ended up having to factory reset and redownload my games onto a new account. Interestingly, this didn't feel like resetting a password or redownloading Steam games. I felt like part of my physical reality had been barred from me, and I had to rebuild it in a new place, with new restrictions. 

Maybe I'm insane, maybe I'm mythologizing my experience, but I thought it was worth writing up.

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Cyberspace is the psychic superset of the matrix -[Netiquette by Virginia Shea](http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/0963702513p15.html)
*this isn't the actual quote, but how it was quoted to me by a friend. Check the terminology section for the real quote/context*

