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Only the Lonely....
At loose ends at the moment. Should make dinner, not overly hungry and don't want to deal with job search or read or even work on my novel - which I'd hoped to do today while on jury duty but did not get the chance to. My poor characters have sat at the same table in Bryant Park, in stasis, for well over two weeks now. They are no doubt wondering if I will ever get back to them. I know the plot of my novel, I just can't hear the words for it, right now. The noise of other things has gotten in the way.
While scanning flist/correspondence, noticed that one of the people, who I read a lot, partly because they wrote three to four entries a day and long entries at that - so I could not miss them, has deleted their journal. The entries, unlike most entries on lj, were often about world events, book reviews, movies, rants on writing, and television shows - occassionally they'd write about themselves or what they did or how they were feeling, but usually it was a long somewhat sarcastic but well written/compelling piece on something else. So, it threw me a little, when I realized it. Even though they'd been threatening off and on for a few weeks about doing just that.
I only bring this up, because, well, I've considered doing the same thing more than once the last couple of months. Deleting the journal. Getting rid of it. In a fit of pique, or just because I feel an odd embarrassment writing personal messages on the internet to folks that if I'm honest with myself, I barely know outside of such postings. I've met approximately 50% of the people on the flist in person, of those, only two have I seen in person and spoken with, face to face, individually, and had an intimate conversation with, more than a handful of times. So it feels odd to throw things out there - personal things, without having any clue how people are relating to them, because you do not really know these people to begin with. Group functions - and there have been a few - don't work well for me. I find myself overwhelmed by them. And not connecting to the people. It feels superficial somehow. Like those old fashioned cocktail parties where everyone tells the same joke over and over and over until you've stopped listening and you just murmer with a pasted smile into your drink. So why bother? I think. Why keep throwing words up on a screen and exposing myself in this way to a bunch of strangers? So, I'll delete a post here, or tell myself that I'll stop writing in it, that I'll be quiet for six months, then I will delete the whole thing in one fell swoop.
Yet.
I change my mind.
The other night my mother was telling me how there was an article in Time Magazine about how much lonelier people are now than they used to be. That many people feel they only have one or two close friends. That careers are taking up so much of people's time, and the insecurity of the workplace, the constant turn-over, competition, stress, and down-sizing has decreased the ability of people to form friendships in the workplace like they once did. People are no longer joinging PTA or clubs in the same way they used to. Church may work for some, but many of us have turned our backs on that outlet as well, or we just go to worship and little else. And more and more people are seeking companionship through, you guessed it, the internet.
Not surprising.
Meetup.com has over a million different clubs, for everything under the sun. The number of emails I've received from people who would like to join a "friends" meetup group or a "movies" meetup group was staggering. Also oddly reassurring. Most of my own friends time is taken up with "family" activities - spouse, parents, children. They have little or no time for single friends and schedules conflict. My own family is spread across the United States and I rarely see them, which is something I only truly notice on holidays that are considered "family" holidays - much like the one coming up.
Here's a quick listing of some of the meetup groups I saw advertised on the site: Western New Jersey Shy Persons Meet Up, Meetup for People with Social Anxiety, Meet-up for Buffy Fans, Meet-up for Sci-Fi fans, Meet-up for NYC Movie Critics, Social Networking Meet-up, Singles Meet-Up, Over 40 Singels Meet-up, NY/NJ Friends Group, The Turkish Travel Club, The Sound of Music Movie Meet Up Club, Adventurers Club, and the list goes on and on. You name it? It's there.
I write in my live journal or blog because I want to feel less alone. I want to connect. Even if it is through the skimpy facade of a computer screen. Yet, the connecting is difficult for some of us.
Some of us, namely myself, don't have the money or the time to hop skip and jump around the countryside meeting folks we've never seen or even spoken to outside of an email. Heck, I don't hop skip and jump around to see my own family. And we also don't always control who connects with us and who doesn't. We want some people to see us, an awful lot, while others, who do see us, we may sort of wish wouldn't. And we feel quilty for that. Or we don't have the words, the digitial photos, the pretty icons, or the computer formatting technigue, so the connection feels lop-sided or clunky. I think at times that online correspondence is depressing. Not always for what is said, but what can't be said. For the gaps. The deleted journals. The long silences. The frequent spams. The manic postings listing everyone in the list. The manic ones listing no one.
[I don't know if I'm even making sense or if I should even post this. There is a thunderstorm going on outside my window and I have always been weather sensitive, so this funk may be a passing storm inside of me.
I want to whine and rant at the universe. Scream at it. Much like the thunder rumbling outside my window, dark clouds ready to burst dumping angry buckets of water - something that has been occurring a lot lately. It's not because any thing earthshattering or melodramatic has happened. I've been laid-off true. But in the human dramedy that is life, that seems relatively minor, I suppose. But then I've learned all human dramas seem minor or major depending on the individuals experiencing them.]
The whole occurrence of blogs online reminds me a lot of the ham-radios people had in my youth, later public-access tv slots, both of which were shown in the films Pump Up the Volumne and Waynes World - movies about young men who had found an outlet to express themselves to a broad audience of souls that they thought were like them or had a common demoniator. It was a way to feel less alone.
I think, regardless of whether you are single, married, have kids or don't, you feel lonely at times. Desperately so. As if no one out there gets you. That if you could just find one person out there, somewhere who would say yes - I get that, it would be alright. A friend of mine told me once that she didn't think it was a good idea to be by yourself too much - at least for her. When she is, she gets stuck in her own head. Own maze of thoughts, sometimes lost inside it. I personally don't mind being by myself. But too much of it, does make me looney. That said - I know I can feel alone with other people and that loneliness is sometimes worse.
Online, posting you have the best of both worlds, I think. You are alone. But also with others. You also have more control. You can delete. You can edit. You can filter. You can lock. You can control who interacts with you. You can't control what others see or read or how they understand it. Also for a moment, when they read, you have the illusion of them inside your head, sans interruptions.
I've learned also that sometimes loneliness is better than forcing relationships that don't work, for whatever reason. Forcing something that just doesn't jive. No one's fault. Just is.
I don't know where this is going....just musing I suppose. I want answers. Because that would make it easier.
I am lonely tonight. But I will be lonelier tomorrow - when I'm in an office filled with people jumping to and throw. I prefer the loneliness of tonight, in my own space, at peace, typing away, while a thunderstorm rumbles across the sky.
[I guess I'll keep this public for now...]
While scanning flist/correspondence, noticed that one of the people, who I read a lot, partly because they wrote three to four entries a day and long entries at that - so I could not miss them, has deleted their journal. The entries, unlike most entries on lj, were often about world events, book reviews, movies, rants on writing, and television shows - occassionally they'd write about themselves or what they did or how they were feeling, but usually it was a long somewhat sarcastic but well written/compelling piece on something else. So, it threw me a little, when I realized it. Even though they'd been threatening off and on for a few weeks about doing just that.
I only bring this up, because, well, I've considered doing the same thing more than once the last couple of months. Deleting the journal. Getting rid of it. In a fit of pique, or just because I feel an odd embarrassment writing personal messages on the internet to folks that if I'm honest with myself, I barely know outside of such postings. I've met approximately 50% of the people on the flist in person, of those, only two have I seen in person and spoken with, face to face, individually, and had an intimate conversation with, more than a handful of times. So it feels odd to throw things out there - personal things, without having any clue how people are relating to them, because you do not really know these people to begin with. Group functions - and there have been a few - don't work well for me. I find myself overwhelmed by them. And not connecting to the people. It feels superficial somehow. Like those old fashioned cocktail parties where everyone tells the same joke over and over and over until you've stopped listening and you just murmer with a pasted smile into your drink. So why bother? I think. Why keep throwing words up on a screen and exposing myself in this way to a bunch of strangers? So, I'll delete a post here, or tell myself that I'll stop writing in it, that I'll be quiet for six months, then I will delete the whole thing in one fell swoop.
Yet.
I change my mind.
The other night my mother was telling me how there was an article in Time Magazine about how much lonelier people are now than they used to be. That many people feel they only have one or two close friends. That careers are taking up so much of people's time, and the insecurity of the workplace, the constant turn-over, competition, stress, and down-sizing has decreased the ability of people to form friendships in the workplace like they once did. People are no longer joinging PTA or clubs in the same way they used to. Church may work for some, but many of us have turned our backs on that outlet as well, or we just go to worship and little else. And more and more people are seeking companionship through, you guessed it, the internet.
Not surprising.
Meetup.com has over a million different clubs, for everything under the sun. The number of emails I've received from people who would like to join a "friends" meetup group or a "movies" meetup group was staggering. Also oddly reassurring. Most of my own friends time is taken up with "family" activities - spouse, parents, children. They have little or no time for single friends and schedules conflict. My own family is spread across the United States and I rarely see them, which is something I only truly notice on holidays that are considered "family" holidays - much like the one coming up.
Here's a quick listing of some of the meetup groups I saw advertised on the site: Western New Jersey Shy Persons Meet Up, Meetup for People with Social Anxiety, Meet-up for Buffy Fans, Meet-up for Sci-Fi fans, Meet-up for NYC Movie Critics, Social Networking Meet-up, Singles Meet-Up, Over 40 Singels Meet-up, NY/NJ Friends Group, The Turkish Travel Club, The Sound of Music Movie Meet Up Club, Adventurers Club, and the list goes on and on. You name it? It's there.
I write in my live journal or blog because I want to feel less alone. I want to connect. Even if it is through the skimpy facade of a computer screen. Yet, the connecting is difficult for some of us.
Some of us, namely myself, don't have the money or the time to hop skip and jump around the countryside meeting folks we've never seen or even spoken to outside of an email. Heck, I don't hop skip and jump around to see my own family. And we also don't always control who connects with us and who doesn't. We want some people to see us, an awful lot, while others, who do see us, we may sort of wish wouldn't. And we feel quilty for that. Or we don't have the words, the digitial photos, the pretty icons, or the computer formatting technigue, so the connection feels lop-sided or clunky. I think at times that online correspondence is depressing. Not always for what is said, but what can't be said. For the gaps. The deleted journals. The long silences. The frequent spams. The manic postings listing everyone in the list. The manic ones listing no one.
[I don't know if I'm even making sense or if I should even post this. There is a thunderstorm going on outside my window and I have always been weather sensitive, so this funk may be a passing storm inside of me.
I want to whine and rant at the universe. Scream at it. Much like the thunder rumbling outside my window, dark clouds ready to burst dumping angry buckets of water - something that has been occurring a lot lately. It's not because any thing earthshattering or melodramatic has happened. I've been laid-off true. But in the human dramedy that is life, that seems relatively minor, I suppose. But then I've learned all human dramas seem minor or major depending on the individuals experiencing them.]
The whole occurrence of blogs online reminds me a lot of the ham-radios people had in my youth, later public-access tv slots, both of which were shown in the films Pump Up the Volumne and Waynes World - movies about young men who had found an outlet to express themselves to a broad audience of souls that they thought were like them or had a common demoniator. It was a way to feel less alone.
I think, regardless of whether you are single, married, have kids or don't, you feel lonely at times. Desperately so. As if no one out there gets you. That if you could just find one person out there, somewhere who would say yes - I get that, it would be alright. A friend of mine told me once that she didn't think it was a good idea to be by yourself too much - at least for her. When she is, she gets stuck in her own head. Own maze of thoughts, sometimes lost inside it. I personally don't mind being by myself. But too much of it, does make me looney. That said - I know I can feel alone with other people and that loneliness is sometimes worse.
Online, posting you have the best of both worlds, I think. You are alone. But also with others. You also have more control. You can delete. You can edit. You can filter. You can lock. You can control who interacts with you. You can't control what others see or read or how they understand it. Also for a moment, when they read, you have the illusion of them inside your head, sans interruptions.
I've learned also that sometimes loneliness is better than forcing relationships that don't work, for whatever reason. Forcing something that just doesn't jive. No one's fault. Just is.
I don't know where this is going....just musing I suppose. I want answers. Because that would make it easier.
I am lonely tonight. But I will be lonelier tomorrow - when I'm in an office filled with people jumping to and throw. I prefer the loneliness of tonight, in my own space, at peace, typing away, while a thunderstorm rumbles across the sky.
[I guess I'll keep this public for now...]
no subject
no subject
just a few stray thoughts
I had this discussion a couple of times with a friend, or a like one, about what is real and not. And you know I've had those thoughts about the journal myself, and likewise about the online. I am still not sure about it.. I am leaning more and more to believing it though, the validity of those relationships. Most of the close ones though have a lot of text, or a lot of time in them, and shared experiences.
The journals function differently for different people, and like the Board or as Dorothy said, "people come and go so quickly here." I think it does provide a quick medium for catching people up on your life. I like it for that. I sometimes wish I could get the rest of my friends and family here, if only to save on emails and phone calls.
What really has surprised about the board is not the drift but how many people have stayed connected. My time has changed a lot, and that has been a factor for me as much as the change in format, although I do miss the show for the rich springboard it provided for essays and conversations.
I don't have any answers for you either. I know you've been through a lot in the last couple of years and that (at least for me) seems like it could be as much a factor although the journalling aspect is different.
As far as getting me? I've never really found that. And even with people I know really well, where I am really trying, I still get surprised. I think there's fun in that too; but, I admit to a afscination with trying to understand others, and at the same time, I've had lots of those moments of wishing it were easier.
Thanks for the post C. Amongst other reasons, I'd miss your journal for the chewy wonderings you so often provoke.
no subject
I think there is a desire within people for a kind of mediated relationship, sometimes I don't want the immediate, I want to sit back and compose my thoughts. I was actually thinking the other day when I was at a get-together that it was so nice to have a mix of people, close friends and acquaintances, because with the close friends we sit and discuss the details of our lives, with people I don't know as well, we exchange remarks but also can discuss ideas a bit more abstractly. I guess it's all and always about balance, but obviously there is that urge to communicate through writing, because otherwise why do we do what we do?
Maybe all of this, this grand experiment in communication is like the movie The Commitments - some of the characters ended up famous, some of them ended up busking in the streets, some ended up just where they were going before they joined the band, but for all of them being in that band added something to their lives, something a bit more than what they thought they had in them.
And now I must go to bed, rambly...
no subject
probably has a lot to do with the "random acts of kindness " philosophy I kinda' like.
shrug
no subject
While the thought of living in a village where everyone knows you and your business and regards people who only came to the area 50 years ago as weird incomers makes me shudder...
It's so very easy to romanticise the past. One of my heroines, Katharine Whitehorn, wrote a column once in which she said that the people who were sitting round staring blankly at the telly (there was being a lot of press hoo-haa about that at the time) wouldn't necessarily have been reading, doing crafts, folk-dancing, etc, in the past: they'd have been staring blankly at the walls instead. At least the telly was giving them some kind of input.
no subject
It's both sad and comforting that there are so many like minds out there in the ether; it's comforting that there is nearly ALWAYS someone have the same thoughts and feelings only a few clicks away, and it's sad that even when we meet in cyberspace the loneliness doesn't really dissapate.
no subject
"we don't have the words, the digitial photos, the pretty icons, or the computer formatting technigue, so the connection feels lop-sided or clunky."
personally I think the digital photos, icons, and other bells and whistles, are just distractions and trivia: the ability to write an indepth essay is infinitely more interesting, but isn't something all of us can hope to do.