In a world deeply influenced by technology

How do YOU define progress?

After all, this is why I am here, right? To dissect our relationship with technology as human beings. To understand the connections that we have amongst ourselves.

After all, this is why I am here, right? To dissect our relationship with technology as human beings. To understand the connections that we have amongst ourselves.

Steve Jobs and his minimalistic-zen, Palo Alto aura. A modern-day legend who took a small bite out of the apple in the Garden of Eden knowing that he could have the entire tree and take Eve with him wherever he damn well pleased.

Steve Jobs and his minimalistic-zen, Palo Alto aura. A modern-day legend who took a small bite out of the apple in the Garden of Eden knowing that he could have the entire tree and take Eve with him wherever he damn well pleased.

BG didn’t have so much starch on his collar. His spectacles were crystal clean – perfect vision. And you wouldn’t find him idling away at an Islanders hockey game or even the World Series. He didn’t own season tickets for anything except changing the

BG didn’t have so much starch on his collar. His spectacles were crystal clean – perfect vision. And you wouldn’t find him idling away at an Islanders hockey game or even the World Series. He didn’t own season tickets for anything except changing the world.

Let’s just call it the dial-up process. It was remarkable. Completely novel. Sounds eternal. You were entering the binary and all your senses were encapsulated into these moments.

Let’s just call it the dial-up process. It was remarkable. Completely novel. Sounds eternal. You were entering the binary and all your senses were encapsulated into these moments.

Pagers were still hanging around on belts, but being relegated to drug dealers and medical professionals. A subculture of mobile devices was gradually emerging, but the answering machine and busy signals were not yet extinct. Call waiting was a premi

Pagers were still hanging around on belts, but being relegated to drug dealers and medical professionals. A subculture of mobile devices was gradually emerging, but the answering machine and busy signals were not yet extinct. Call waiting was a premium add-on.

Jobs penetrated not just the consumer market in a powerful way – he literally shattered our existence…with new technology. It was colorful, too, just like that beautiful logo. You should see the colorful, dome-shaped desktops that followed.

Jobs penetrated not just the consumer market in a powerful way – he literally shattered our existence…with new technology. It was colorful, too, just like that beautiful logo. You should see the colorful, dome-shaped desktops that followed.

So we’re already past the times of rotary dial. In fact, you have speed-dial options. A phonebook with numbers is still important. And the virtuous White and Yellow Pages, delivered right to your doorstep on a bi-annual basis, give you all the necess

So we’re already past the times of rotary dial. In fact, you have speed-dial options. A phonebook with numbers is still important. And the virtuous White and Yellow Pages, delivered right to your doorstep on a bi-annual basis, give you all the necessary channels to maintain a household – from plumbing and fixing the boiler to ordering pizza.

Most of you young punks wouldn’t know what a real thumbs up looks like. It is made of flesh and bone. It is made from chiseled time and struggle. It carries an aurora of energy that is equal to magnetism. It is the thumb of Chuck Norris.

Most of you young punks wouldn’t know what a real thumbs up looks like. It is made of flesh and bone. It is made from chiseled time and struggle. It carries an aurora of energy that is equal to magnetism. It is the thumb of Chuck Norris.

Here is Zuck, brushing his teeth in the bathroom of his Harvard dorm room. He is looking at himself in the mirror and he stops brushing. "I’ve got it," he says out loud with a mouthful of white, foamy toothpaste. "We just need to mash some faces toge

Here is Zuck, brushing his teeth in the bathroom of his Harvard dorm room. He is looking at himself in the mirror and he stops brushing. "I’ve got it," he says out loud with a mouthful of white, foamy toothpaste. "We just need to mash some faces together."

Gaps were filled in subtle forms that emerged from physical hardware. You could find a classmate sneakily playing snake on a Nokia phone, and we would soon be sent off to college with a new invention called the iPod.

Gaps were filled in subtle forms that emerged from physical hardware. You could find a classmate sneakily playing snake on a Nokia phone, and we would soon be sent off to college with a new invention called the iPod.

Hundreds of billions of dollars built on top of the wheel – from exhaust pipes to jet fuel. Look how far these wheels have gotten us – pretty far, right? We can literally drive cross-country without losing an axel along the Oregon Trail.

Hundreds of billions of dollars built on top of the wheel – from exhaust pipes to jet fuel. Look how far these wheels have gotten us – pretty far, right? We can literally drive cross-country without losing an axel along the Oregon Trail.

"Would our founding fathers be happy with our current state of affairs?” I asked, shaking the eight-ball.

"Would our founding fathers be happy with our current state of affairs?” I asked, shaking the eight-ball.

Libraries carved out space for colorful, domed Macintoshes that contrasted beautifully with stacked archives and wooden cabinets holding soon-to-be ancient precepts of the Dewey Decimal System.

Libraries carved out space for colorful, domed Macintoshes that contrasted beautifully with stacked archives and wooden cabinets holding soon-to-be ancient precepts of the Dewey Decimal System.

Let us continue with this presumption that we have no idea how to stop bullets or bend the spoon. We clearly want to – but it is reserved for the rare and ever-mystical human – like that bald kid representing enlightenment.

Let us continue with this presumption that we have no idea how to stop bullets or bend the spoon. We clearly want to – but it is reserved for the rare and ever-mystical human – like that bald kid representing enlightenment.

Letters arrived in the mail that you wanted to read, even anticipated receiving. Pen pals from another country. A lover from your summer camp. You sent letters, too. Through the mail. Licking postage stamps that never tasted good.

Letters arrived in the mail that you wanted to read, even anticipated receiving. Pen pals from another country. A lover from your summer camp. You sent letters, too. Through the mail. Licking postage stamps that never tasted good.

Families gathered around to listen. The radio is placed in the middle of the table. Everyone in the family puts down their forks, even if the chicken dinner will go cold. "Quiet down, Jimmy, the president is about to speak.”

Families gathered around to listen. The radio is placed in the middle of the table. Everyone in the family puts down their forks, even if the chicken dinner will go cold. "Quiet down, Jimmy, the president is about to speak.”

We are still light years behind following a YouTube star in Malaysia. We are confined, right now in our conversation, to playing Tetris, and pinball is still a thing.

We are still light years behind following a YouTube star in Malaysia. We are confined, right now in our conversation, to playing Tetris, and pinball is still a thing.

This malleable, plastic-coated, magnetic floppy disk. Its fate was rapidly being sealed into a more compact hard disk around the same time Reebok Pump shoes were starting to peak. Car phones have arrived as well - typically reserved for the Gatsbys a

This malleable, plastic-coated, magnetic floppy disk. Its fate was rapidly being sealed into a more compact hard disk around the same time Reebok Pump shoes were starting to peak. Car phones have arrived as well - typically reserved for the Gatsbys and Wall Street types – but even those still had cords.

Selfies didn’t exist – but digital cameras satiated a growing on-demand appetite. You could share the images that you took, too – plug in a cord, connect it to your desktop, press upload and five minutes later – voila.

Selfies didn’t exist – but digital cameras satiated a growing on-demand appetite. You could share the images that you took, too – plug in a cord, connect it to your desktop, press upload and five minutes later – voila.

While eating Chinese takeout and drinking a cold beer, I thought I should map out some future lessons in finer detail. I could swing this, I tried to convince myself.

While eating Chinese takeout and drinking a cold beer, I thought I should map out some future lessons in finer detail. I could swing this, I tried to convince myself.

Nobody remembers the struggles of the white-collar worker. Nobody recalls the chemicals advertised to starch out the brown stains that gathered around their necks like a noose.

Nobody remembers the struggles of the white-collar worker. Nobody recalls the chemicals advertised to starch out the brown stains that gathered around their necks like a noose.

Meet the Author - DAVID M. CANTOR
David has served in various professional capacities throughout his non-linear career. He is a lawyer. Financial advisor. Tech-Founder. But most of all, an aspiring writer.  His creative work has appeared across multiple mediums, including a never-released memoir, The Two Apostles (2014), a Coppola family produced  amateur short-film, Doors Open (2008), and  a featured caption published by Sports Illustrated for Kids (1994) portraying Santa Claus surfing on a wave: ‘This sure beats going down chimneys,’ wrote a 10-year old Cantor.
Native New Yorker, born in 1984, David has lived, worked and travelled extensively around the world– from working at corporate high-rises in Beijing as an international lawyer, to visiting fishing villages at the tip of Tierra del Fuego. He overstayed his welcome with a nomadic family deep in the Tibetan grasslands, and claims to be the only Jew to marry a Wenzhou'nese woman that is actually Italian.
David is an avid trekker and seeker of silence. He currently resides in Italy with his wife and two young daughters. I Am Q is his debut fiction that has also never really been released.

“The impact technology has on our lives is a topic I’ve always wrestled with. As a writer, I choose to question. As a parent, I feel anxious. As a human-being, I am responsible.

For these reasons, I consider I Am Q the most important creative work that I have done in my professional career. And while it is a closed book, I can see no end in sight.”

About the book

Sam Noble is an underachieving copywriter, luddite, and part-time stand-up comedian in his early 40s. He carries a beat-up flip-phone, writes in paper marble notebooks, and belongs to the Bridge Generation—the last group of humans who remember what life felt like before the screech of a 56k modem changed everything.
Then comes a mysterious, razor-sharp business card carrying a single letter: Q, followed by three words: Seeking human connections.
Hired at $350 an hour for daily one-hour sessions in a sun-drenched skyscraper high above Lower Manhattan, Sam is tasked with teaching Q—an ethereal, brilliant heiress raised in hyper-monitored corporate isolation by the global monolith Qi Enterprises—how to feel.
As Sam takes Q on an evolutionary journey through pre-digital nostalgia—from rotary phones, floppy disks, and Yellow Pages to the age of screen fatigue—he realizes Q is far more than a wealthy pupil. Overseen by the eccentric visionary Dr. Ishmael, Qi Enterprises is quietly extracting, mapping, and monetizing the raw fabric of human memory. And Q herself is hiding a quiet, devastating secret: a desperate choice to break free from corporate ownership and embrace fragile, unmediated human mortality.
I AM Q is a sharp corporate satire and deeply human existential drama about love, memory, nostalgia, and the fight to stay present in a digitized world.

Sample Chapters