Nowhere man & Elsewhere man

An interesting essay from Pico Iyer, the travel writer, from 1997 called the The Nowhere Man

The transcontinental tribe of wanderers is growing, global souls for whom home is everywhere and nowhere. Pico Iyer, one of the privileged homeless, considers the new kind of person being created by a new kind of life.

and Forbes this month talks about The Elsewhere Man

Millions of Americans have technological dependencies but no time to give them a second thought. Conley, a sociologist and acting dean for social sciences at New York University, spends much of his time thinking about the significance of this sort of thing, often serving as his own lab specimen. The BlackBerry is a symbol of always being beckoned somewhere else. In comes an e-mail from a colleague, a client, an old flame, each asking for a little piece of our attention, which, if granted, only begets more demands on our time. We're pulled by work when we're at home and by home when we're at work, torn by the multiple things we could be getting done.

In his new book, Elsewhere, USA, Conley calls the class of professionals who live this way "intraviduals" ...."a new breed of modern American who struggles to manage multiple data streams and competing impulses and even selves." We are fracturing and multitasking ourselves into--well, that's not clear, but Conley does offer glimpses of the world ahead.

All the above links via Mohit's blog.