You're Not a Zero or a One
In the past six months I've been deleted. Multiple times. Wiped, so it would seem, from the hard drive of another person's life as though I were that MP3 track they had to have on an impulse but then realized wasn't worth taking up space. And, to be honest, I've done the same thing to others.
The difference, of course, is that I and by further extension you are not a Go-Go's song or a video clip that went viral that made us laugh so hard today but we forget about by next week.
We're not grocery bags. Well, unless we're the re-usable kind. After all, I reside near Portland and it would be un-PDX of me to not make THAT distinction.
But I think or at least I hope I think that my point remains. I'm not made up of zeroes and ones. I have a soul and when my soul gets discarded as though it never mattered it's a reminder that our collective humanity is diminishing because we're becoming digital. We're not the entities we were.
I don't mean this as some kind of notion that the good old days were better than now, that our children were once above average, all our women were good looking and all our men were strong. I accept that society and the human connections we make within it are ever-evolving. It's not a qualitative thing. I'm just saying it's different and sometimes these changes are not as good as they could be.
So today, for the sake of keeping promises to myself, I'm not going to do it anymore. Sometimes when you see things going one way -- a way that you disagree with -- you have to make a conscious decision or a declaration that says, "I don't agree with this. I'm not going to be part of this change."
In this vow or this promise or this conscious choice I'm going to remember that an in age where we have more tools for human to human contact than ever before and yet have by some weird dichotomy become increasingly isolated from each other that the people I claim to know exist on the same plane. I am ending the distinction between IRL -- "In real life", for those not down with the lingo -- and this alternate reality of Facebook connections and digital friendships that, again, often feel like they're about as substantial as the next Words with Friends move I make in an ongoing game.
Put another way, if I don't want to be treated like a string of zeroes and ones then I need to live that out. In every way possible. If I go on an a date via someone I met online and the chemistry wasn't there or there was some sort of mysterious gray area where there could be questions unanswered I'm going to find a way to tell that person why we're not a match. I'm going to respect that they're a person and even when I am sure they're probably not feeling it either I'm going to thank them for their time for that coffee or drink. I'm going to say, "It was good to meet you and even though I don't think we have a connection I appreciate the time you took to get to know me, even if it was just some messages online and an hour of your life in person." For those who haven't had the experience of online dating it really does go down like this sometimes: You meet someone, there is no chemistry, and you can literally see them deleting you from their phone as they walk away. And there is nothing wrong with not seeing someone again, because that is just the way of things. But then I imagine how one small act of kindness or acknowledgment of another person being human could do a world of good. In a tiny way.
I'm done "collecting" connections or friendships. We're no more baseball cards than we are digital fingerprints. And, no, that doesn't mean every one of my FB friends have to become people I actually have deep friendships with. We all have these connections that are one part nostalgia, one part living and breathing yearbooks, and another part a simple glimpse into the lives of friends who are near and far away. There is nothing wrong with our social media or the increasing methods of online interaction and even introductions. It's what we DO with the tools at hand. It's how much of what makes us human that we hold on to and how much we remember that anything we're typing or posting or saying or not saying are an extension of us. Our hearts, our DNA, our flesh, our blood.
If you're reading this you mean something to me. Not always in the biggest way or the deepest way but I can promise you're real in my eyes. You're not a digital code. I was never good at that field of study anyway. I think I focused on the humanities for a damn good reason.
J
The difference, of course, is that I and by further extension you are not a Go-Go's song or a video clip that went viral that made us laugh so hard today but we forget about by next week.
We're not grocery bags. Well, unless we're the re-usable kind. After all, I reside near Portland and it would be un-PDX of me to not make THAT distinction.
But I think or at least I hope I think that my point remains. I'm not made up of zeroes and ones. I have a soul and when my soul gets discarded as though it never mattered it's a reminder that our collective humanity is diminishing because we're becoming digital. We're not the entities we were.
I don't mean this as some kind of notion that the good old days were better than now, that our children were once above average, all our women were good looking and all our men were strong. I accept that society and the human connections we make within it are ever-evolving. It's not a qualitative thing. I'm just saying it's different and sometimes these changes are not as good as they could be.
So today, for the sake of keeping promises to myself, I'm not going to do it anymore. Sometimes when you see things going one way -- a way that you disagree with -- you have to make a conscious decision or a declaration that says, "I don't agree with this. I'm not going to be part of this change."
In this vow or this promise or this conscious choice I'm going to remember that an in age where we have more tools for human to human contact than ever before and yet have by some weird dichotomy become increasingly isolated from each other that the people I claim to know exist on the same plane. I am ending the distinction between IRL -- "In real life", for those not down with the lingo -- and this alternate reality of Facebook connections and digital friendships that, again, often feel like they're about as substantial as the next Words with Friends move I make in an ongoing game.
Put another way, if I don't want to be treated like a string of zeroes and ones then I need to live that out. In every way possible. If I go on an a date via someone I met online and the chemistry wasn't there or there was some sort of mysterious gray area where there could be questions unanswered I'm going to find a way to tell that person why we're not a match. I'm going to respect that they're a person and even when I am sure they're probably not feeling it either I'm going to thank them for their time for that coffee or drink. I'm going to say, "It was good to meet you and even though I don't think we have a connection I appreciate the time you took to get to know me, even if it was just some messages online and an hour of your life in person." For those who haven't had the experience of online dating it really does go down like this sometimes: You meet someone, there is no chemistry, and you can literally see them deleting you from their phone as they walk away. And there is nothing wrong with not seeing someone again, because that is just the way of things. But then I imagine how one small act of kindness or acknowledgment of another person being human could do a world of good. In a tiny way.
I'm done "collecting" connections or friendships. We're no more baseball cards than we are digital fingerprints. And, no, that doesn't mean every one of my FB friends have to become people I actually have deep friendships with. We all have these connections that are one part nostalgia, one part living and breathing yearbooks, and another part a simple glimpse into the lives of friends who are near and far away. There is nothing wrong with our social media or the increasing methods of online interaction and even introductions. It's what we DO with the tools at hand. It's how much of what makes us human that we hold on to and how much we remember that anything we're typing or posting or saying or not saying are an extension of us. Our hearts, our DNA, our flesh, our blood.
If you're reading this you mean something to me. Not always in the biggest way or the deepest way but I can promise you're real in my eyes. You're not a digital code. I was never good at that field of study anyway. I think I focused on the humanities for a damn good reason.
J