dusk at livejournal
A couple days ago idahoswede gave a brief biography to her livejournal friends who might be a bit late to the game. I fell into that category, as I met her in 2009 through engelskjente, whom I haven't seen in a year (through my fault) but who has been my LJ friend for over six years. There isn't much need for me to write a biography to fill in newcomers, because of my 36 livejournal friends (35 of whom still have active accounts--the 36th being Robert, whose journal I keep as a friend on the off-chance he will come to his senses and return to livejournal), I've only added two in the last two years (idahoswede and drunkendeadcat, the latter of whom I've never met in real life), and of those 36, only 6 update regularly (a loose term at this point, although I would consider myself a regular updater despite the distances between updates).
Robert has explained the Russians have moved in and ruined things, like everywhere else. But I also think Facebook has had a lot to do with the deterioration of community here. It's really all about me, and I am just disappointed that I don't have enough to read on my friends page to keep me busy when I should be doing other things.
While I could quantify it if I took the time, my hunch is that 2005 was my busiest livejournal time. I certainly had the most friends at that time, and I commented regularly. I started my livejournal at the end of college, as a result of seeing good journals like Kevin's and Nat's (Nat's now gone off to do bigger and better things, like writing things for which he gets paid), and it helped to get me through an unpleasant time that I've basically tried to forget about and that, with a few exceptions (Robert included), I've lost most ties to. If anything as time has passed, my connections with past chapters, like high school (bring on the ten-year reunion in November) and college (with sitting at a U of C booth at a college fair here in London a few weekends ago), are gaining more prominence in my thoughts and affiliations recently. So, the livejournal at this point is kind of an anomaly, insofar as it is a portal into something I don't want to go back to, and I can't interact with any of the people I used to interact with on it, in a new and more enjoyable chapter/dimension of life, because they've all left.
I don't want to leave and close my account. I don't want to stop paying for the account, even though I don't use any of the pay features. I can afford the $20 dollars/year (no matter what I say about not having any money, I can scrounge $20 annually), and I'll be sad if the site goes under, even though it is already fairly moribund. My own contributions to the community have become lacklustre, and I am disappointed in the stagnation that has occurred in my writing and expressive form. Having a job which is allegedly a career has sapped a lot of my creative spirit and made my writing uninspired and boring. If it seems like all I do is work and think about my debt, it's not exactly right, but the rest of the stuff just doesn't go in here.
A lot of stuff doesn't go in here. I think I've had a really great experience the last few years, and I'm simply not documenting it adequately. It doesn't occur to me till I find something that's a couple years old and recollect the experiences it conjures, and I wonder why I don't have a better record of them. My journal has never been exhaustive--a lot of content or documentation has historically for me been done in the form of e-mail, extensive frantic or occasionally lucid or melancholy missives and reasonable contemplations about my state at any given moment, and I've stopped writing such e-mails now, too: yesterday I sent Kristen the link from cowperthwait's Facebook page of Paula Deen making doughnut hamburgers, and the last e-mail I sent before that was a note to Jims on 24 September.
I don't really have a conclusion. I hope you're all doing well, and I hope the individuals possessing the livejournal usernames in my friends list are doing well, and to the extent those two sets intersect, all the more power to you. Stay ever vigilant-- /B/
Robert has explained the Russians have moved in and ruined things, like everywhere else. But I also think Facebook has had a lot to do with the deterioration of community here. It's really all about me, and I am just disappointed that I don't have enough to read on my friends page to keep me busy when I should be doing other things.
While I could quantify it if I took the time, my hunch is that 2005 was my busiest livejournal time. I certainly had the most friends at that time, and I commented regularly. I started my livejournal at the end of college, as a result of seeing good journals like Kevin's and Nat's (Nat's now gone off to do bigger and better things, like writing things for which he gets paid), and it helped to get me through an unpleasant time that I've basically tried to forget about and that, with a few exceptions (Robert included), I've lost most ties to. If anything as time has passed, my connections with past chapters, like high school (bring on the ten-year reunion in November) and college (with sitting at a U of C booth at a college fair here in London a few weekends ago), are gaining more prominence in my thoughts and affiliations recently. So, the livejournal at this point is kind of an anomaly, insofar as it is a portal into something I don't want to go back to, and I can't interact with any of the people I used to interact with on it, in a new and more enjoyable chapter/dimension of life, because they've all left.
I don't want to leave and close my account. I don't want to stop paying for the account, even though I don't use any of the pay features. I can afford the $20 dollars/year (no matter what I say about not having any money, I can scrounge $20 annually), and I'll be sad if the site goes under, even though it is already fairly moribund. My own contributions to the community have become lacklustre, and I am disappointed in the stagnation that has occurred in my writing and expressive form. Having a job which is allegedly a career has sapped a lot of my creative spirit and made my writing uninspired and boring. If it seems like all I do is work and think about my debt, it's not exactly right, but the rest of the stuff just doesn't go in here.
A lot of stuff doesn't go in here. I think I've had a really great experience the last few years, and I'm simply not documenting it adequately. It doesn't occur to me till I find something that's a couple years old and recollect the experiences it conjures, and I wonder why I don't have a better record of them. My journal has never been exhaustive--a lot of content or documentation has historically for me been done in the form of e-mail, extensive frantic or occasionally lucid or melancholy missives and reasonable contemplations about my state at any given moment, and I've stopped writing such e-mails now, too: yesterday I sent Kristen the link from cowperthwait's Facebook page of Paula Deen making doughnut hamburgers, and the last e-mail I sent before that was a note to Jims on 24 September.
I don't really have a conclusion. I hope you're all doing well, and I hope the individuals possessing the livejournal usernames in my friends list are doing well, and to the extent those two sets intersect, all the more power to you. Stay ever vigilant-- /B/