To ramble and rove.
(Taken somewhere in the Scottish Highlands around this time last year. flickr.com/photos/protectorothesmall)
Here goes one of those stream-of-consciousness posts where I blather and blither and generally go on and on...
I suck at keeping up with people. Hardcore.
No, I'm not just shitting on myself because I'm nineteen. I'm stating a fact which as of late I've found to be extremely true and it's just a general observation about myself, not some emotional bullpucky I pulled out of the Perks of Being a Wallflower, and it scares me. There are a lot of people I care about all over the world, but I'm so scattered and insane that I can't ever hardly express to those people just how much I care, and in that it probably comes off that I don't care at all. Things like Facebook, Gmail chat, and even LiveJournal make me feel as though I'm falsely connecting with people through the binary world that is the internet, and as a result all real human contact is lost. I recently started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because after years of being pestered for not watching it and considering myself a big Joss Whedon fan, I finally caved in. I'm almost done with season one, and the one thing that has struck me the most besides the fact that Willow is a frighteningly accurate portrayal of me in freshman year of high school, is one of the exchanges between Giles and one of the other teachers at Sunnydale High:
Ms. Calendar: Honestly, what is it about computers that bothers you so much?
Giles: The smell.
Ms. Calendar: Computers don’t smell, Rupert.
Giles: I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell. Musty and, and, and, and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer, is, it … it has no texture, no context. It’s there and then it’s gone. If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible, it should be, um… smelly.
And in a weird sort of way, that hit upon the fact that connecting with people through the internet can end up being extremely superficial if it isn't sprinkled with actual contact from at least some small time to time. (And I could go on about that exchange from Buffy in many other contexts as well, but I'll save it for another long-winded, somewhat-boring post.) While I recognize the fact that the internet holds people together in many positive ways, and binds the world together through the form of instant communication, I find that in the end, when it comes to my friends and what little family I have, I wish I could do more than hit the send button. But I'm scattered. And somewhat insane. That, somehow, leads to lack of communication, not because I don't want to communicate, but because I'm half-way around the world in my heart and my head is up in the clouds in Endor somewhere, which means not even this world.
And how do I fix it? By making more of an effort. Sadly, I realized that this needs to be done just as I'm leaving and going away. Is that too painfully ironic? Or is that part of the lesson, whatever its root may be? Is there a lesson? There's a lesson in everything if you twist and turn it enough to look at it that way -- at least that's what my second grade teacher said, and when you're in second grade anyone who is taller than five feet knows everything, and I mean everything. The only exception to that rule at the time was my sister, who for many years has been literally shorter than me but figuratively much taller than me in more than a thousand ways, and who I maintain still knows everything there is to know to this day. At some point she may have control over the finger that pushes the "LAUNCH" button wired to all of those secret nuclear weapons that should be destroyed by now but aren't, so watch out!
Anyways, I want you all to know, you small group of people who actually read my LiveJournal when I have random bouts of posting inspiration, that I care. I do. I think of all of the people in my life or those who have come into my life on a regular basis, and certainly that means the bulk of you. Know that I care, if you care that I care or not, and that everyone, in some way or another, is somewhere in my heart and mind.
...I'm kind of scared of the fact that I'm not scared of moving to Ireland. Hello, life-changing occurances! How do you do?