Rambling Rules of Conduct
I have been wondering lately what the rules are? By which I mean this very forum; this
facebook (LiveJournal, Myspace,Blogs,)
thing re-establishes the most minute (and in a lot of cases, non-existent) connections
between co-workers, friends, college drinking buddies and even the people we found solace with in
high school. And yet, before this dread
device, this K'om Pue-tar, most of us had forgotten that these other people had
ever existed. Well, other than a pale
memory, a funny story if you will, a witty anecdote.
But now we are cross polyhybrsilicate companions. Now what?
I mean, it is true, that everyone here has found and connected to new-found old-friends on these conventional systems mainly because we are really excited to have a memory jogged so hard that we cry treacle when that first friend request arrives. “OH my GOD I cannot believe that she is still out there. Living and doing stuff. I wonder what she has been up to all these years?”
And that is great for a week. Maybe two. My question is, what happens after that?
As is apparent, I use this forums to vent ideas, draw comparisons, keep in touch with my friends all across the globe. I love blogs, network sites and what have you. But I am wondering about the simple truth that I simply hadn't even realized existed in administering to my pages: Who are these people now?
Scenario: You get found by a college pal, who met another friend from your fraternity and they both remembered you from a Formal at the neighboring University because you were with the hot red-head, wha'was'er'name? And, dude, he's on my facebook. No way. No kidding, check this out.
Then what?
DO you mention that you attended said Formal because the hot red-head asked you so she wouldn't go stag and look bad cause her girlfriend was going with this guy, who was the son of the people her parents were friends with? That it turned out even better cause you ended the night with him skinny-dipping in the fountain in the Quad and hammering away at each until you passed out under the bleachers on the intramural field?
Or: That you and Rachel (the hot red-head girl) almost got married, especially during the pregnancy scare. But you made each other so miserable that you became an alcoholic and she left you for some jackass who beat her cause he was a better man than you were.
How about your ex-boy-friend from high school, what does his wife look like? Or, I wonder if she ever came out of the closet? I wonder if he ever discovered that his greatest gift was music and everything else his parents drove his intellect and passions into was a lie? Was that rumor about the head cheerleader and the soccer coach true?
An even better question is how would we respond if these people did answer these questions?
Are we brave enough to accept, whatsoever the answers will be? Can we be ourselves with this distant fog-shaded memories of people who do not know us, nor we them? Is a shared goal in hockey 20 years ago enough to gulf the difference between a techno-hippy socialist and an engineero-animal made out of meat made by god conservative without the buffer of years of civil interaction?
I am in the same boat, I am not judging (for once, ) But seriously, I am what I have always been, except for, of course, all of those changes, growths, transformation and alterations to mentality, spirit and perspective. I am a bit heavier, or lighter depending on when we met, darker or paler. I am closely shorn now, as I am getting older, but I laugh more and loudly and long, and I think the trade off is worth it. I am not nearly as secretive as I once was, or as I possess the capacity to be now; but also not as brutally honest and open as I was in the era before that. I am a work in progress, and I am trying, dear gods, ladies, lords (and let us not forget, copper pots) know that I am trying.
Over the years, I have run into many people, only to discover that some part of my psyche is still wounded by a social psychodrama now 20 years forgotten; and it requires all of my skill to remain civil. I have been found and friended by those I would have gladly set on fire and laughed 15 years ago; and now we have things in common that I never would have imagined. I have friends who faded away, as all things do, and drifted back into focus, as a brief, flickering reminder of the joys and happy moments of times gone by. Then, of course, there are those staunch, stalwart flames that have marched in a, roughly, mill-about-smartly manner that have kept us very close over the decades, and only now, beginning to drift apart, again, as all things must. Yet the moments when we are together, it is the culmination of all the moments we have ever spent and always will spend together. So, the distance is pain and strange, but the reunions so bitter-sweet that I would not give them up.
Then there are the new friends, you know, you shiftless layabouts I've only known 10 years or so. Bah, what a nightmare you poured into the beautifully sculptured progression that was my life. Can I ever thank you guys enough? I don't think that I can. I only mourn the time we won't have becoming as close as I have with some of the others. But, this has become maudlin, and that was not the point.
Nay, the point, the POINT: is that technology has begun to show the rest of the sleeping world that which the gods and priests and dreamers of old have always known: we are all connected. Science is beginning its stately progress of the GREAT I AM, or the VENERABLE AWESOME WE ART. The campfire is a flickering bit of fire, air and crystal, and we use it to commune with the divine: and thus each other.
So, we must take some bit of the divine inside of ourselves to commune better with each other in a way true to ourselves and not detrimental to others.
Although, to be honest, if we could do that, there would be no need for me to write this. Mankind would have found and lost Utopia again. No answers here; just rambling questions. Sort of fumbling my way towards some sort of revelation that will strike me mid slumber tonight.
So, what are the rules? DO we dare ask? Why should we answer? Do we bother, or do we allow another crafting of magnificence of mankind’s creativity fade into apathy and adverts? Are we still, so afraid what people will think of us, our lives, our choices? Or how we react to their choices?
I was raised to know that my self-worth lay within my own domain. My accomplishments, triumphs and glories were my own and that my losses, failures and humiliations are also my own. That how I felt was how I felt, and that other people could not make you feel any way in which you did not allow them. I am my own best coach and worst critic Sticks and stones and all that.
But it was a lie.
And a truth that is sublime.
Simultaneously.
And in this, is the answer.
But now we are cross polyhybrsilicate companions. Now what?
I mean, it is true, that everyone here has found and connected to new-found old-friends on these conventional systems mainly because we are really excited to have a memory jogged so hard that we cry treacle when that first friend request arrives. “OH my GOD I cannot believe that she is still out there. Living and doing stuff. I wonder what she has been up to all these years?”
And that is great for a week. Maybe two. My question is, what happens after that?
As is apparent, I use this forums to vent ideas, draw comparisons, keep in touch with my friends all across the globe. I love blogs, network sites and what have you. But I am wondering about the simple truth that I simply hadn't even realized existed in administering to my pages: Who are these people now?
Scenario: You get found by a college pal, who met another friend from your fraternity and they both remembered you from a Formal at the neighboring University because you were with the hot red-head, wha'was'er'name? And, dude, he's on my facebook. No way. No kidding, check this out.
Then what?
DO you mention that you attended said Formal because the hot red-head asked you so she wouldn't go stag and look bad cause her girlfriend was going with this guy, who was the son of the people her parents were friends with? That it turned out even better cause you ended the night with him skinny-dipping in the fountain in the Quad and hammering away at each until you passed out under the bleachers on the intramural field?
Or: That you and Rachel (the hot red-head girl) almost got married, especially during the pregnancy scare. But you made each other so miserable that you became an alcoholic and she left you for some jackass who beat her cause he was a better man than you were.
How about your ex-boy-friend from high school, what does his wife look like? Or, I wonder if she ever came out of the closet? I wonder if he ever discovered that his greatest gift was music and everything else his parents drove his intellect and passions into was a lie? Was that rumor about the head cheerleader and the soccer coach true?
An even better question is how would we respond if these people did answer these questions?
Are we brave enough to accept, whatsoever the answers will be? Can we be ourselves with this distant fog-shaded memories of people who do not know us, nor we them? Is a shared goal in hockey 20 years ago enough to gulf the difference between a techno-hippy socialist and an engineero-animal made out of meat made by god conservative without the buffer of years of civil interaction?
I am in the same boat, I am not judging (for once, ) But seriously, I am what I have always been, except for, of course, all of those changes, growths, transformation and alterations to mentality, spirit and perspective. I am a bit heavier, or lighter depending on when we met, darker or paler. I am closely shorn now, as I am getting older, but I laugh more and loudly and long, and I think the trade off is worth it. I am not nearly as secretive as I once was, or as I possess the capacity to be now; but also not as brutally honest and open as I was in the era before that. I am a work in progress, and I am trying, dear gods, ladies, lords (and let us not forget, copper pots) know that I am trying.
Over the years, I have run into many people, only to discover that some part of my psyche is still wounded by a social psychodrama now 20 years forgotten; and it requires all of my skill to remain civil. I have been found and friended by those I would have gladly set on fire and laughed 15 years ago; and now we have things in common that I never would have imagined. I have friends who faded away, as all things do, and drifted back into focus, as a brief, flickering reminder of the joys and happy moments of times gone by. Then, of course, there are those staunch, stalwart flames that have marched in a, roughly, mill-about-smartly manner that have kept us very close over the decades, and only now, beginning to drift apart, again, as all things must. Yet the moments when we are together, it is the culmination of all the moments we have ever spent and always will spend together. So, the distance is pain and strange, but the reunions so bitter-sweet that I would not give them up.
Then there are the new friends, you know, you shiftless layabouts I've only known 10 years or so. Bah, what a nightmare you poured into the beautifully sculptured progression that was my life. Can I ever thank you guys enough? I don't think that I can. I only mourn the time we won't have becoming as close as I have with some of the others. But, this has become maudlin, and that was not the point.
Nay, the point, the POINT: is that technology has begun to show the rest of the sleeping world that which the gods and priests and dreamers of old have always known: we are all connected. Science is beginning its stately progress of the GREAT I AM, or the VENERABLE AWESOME WE ART. The campfire is a flickering bit of fire, air and crystal, and we use it to commune with the divine: and thus each other.
So, we must take some bit of the divine inside of ourselves to commune better with each other in a way true to ourselves and not detrimental to others.
Although, to be honest, if we could do that, there would be no need for me to write this. Mankind would have found and lost Utopia again. No answers here; just rambling questions. Sort of fumbling my way towards some sort of revelation that will strike me mid slumber tonight.
So, what are the rules? DO we dare ask? Why should we answer? Do we bother, or do we allow another crafting of magnificence of mankind’s creativity fade into apathy and adverts? Are we still, so afraid what people will think of us, our lives, our choices? Or how we react to their choices?
I was raised to know that my self-worth lay within my own domain. My accomplishments, triumphs and glories were my own and that my losses, failures and humiliations are also my own. That how I felt was how I felt, and that other people could not make you feel any way in which you did not allow them. I am my own best coach and worst critic Sticks and stones and all that.
But it was a lie.
And a truth that is sublime.
Simultaneously.
And in this, is the answer.