Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

At first, there was the web; then, there was a net; and then, there was the web again – only this time, I found myself trapped in it.

As children, we knew of the web only as a network of sticky fibers woven intricately by a spider with the intention of catching its prey. Then came the computers and the internet – technological marvels that gave birth to another web of fibers –this time, electronic – that was even more intricate and required uncountable eccentric spiders to weave it virtually in real-time. What purpose it solved and who ended up as food for the virtual spiders do not qualify as food for thought for me. I would rather sit back and enjoy the phantasmagoric spider-man weave webs of love and heroism on the movie screen and capture my imagination with his super-human animation acts performed with downright magnificence.

An outsider this far in all the web-logic above, I recently stumbled upon quite a bizarre revelation regarding our own social existence – the fact that we are mere cross-fiber junctions in the word wide web of contacts and acquaintances. And this realization gave me a feeling of being trapped in the web. Almost instantly, the meaning of the phrase no string attached became crystal clear to me. A simple mathematical formulation thus emerged - an individual’s presence is felt, in any socio-economic, cultural and political setting, in direct proportion to the sum of his weighted in and out degree in the famed web of acquaintances in addition to his own personal worth determined by the standard barometers of success.

This thought is rather unsettling. What if I want to make a mark for myself? I would require to make as many contacts as I can possibly manage, and way too influential ones at that, so that I can generate enough critical fuel mass in order to escape the gravity of ordinary existence. And even then, I will have strings attached. Given the above scenario, I am almost tempted to be not just any cross-fiber junction, but the web-weaving Spiderman himself.

The only problem being, I don’t know who he is. Any guesses?