...as we are

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

- Anais Nin

If you knew me more intimately would you intimate yourself to me more? Are you better able to transmit your thoughts and dreams and desires and experiences to me when I'm an abstraction, as physical proximity might disturb such transmissions? Am I more valuable to you from a distance?

This is the contradiction of the internet. It's a Janus face. One side allows communication from different points in the world, bringing us closer and affording opportunities to connect that would otherwise be impossible. The other side is cruel. It exaggerates the geographical interstices, the chasm of hundreds or thousands of miles separating us, which only brings disparity. We can transmit to each other our secrets but it only reminds us how far apart we are that only electronic words can reach us - no facial expressions, no hugs, no touch, no breath, no sensation of warm skin, no aromas from our bodies, no voice, no sound of hearts thumping.

When we deny ourselves outings, experiences, people, various sensations - the heat from the sun, the coolness of the moon, the prickle of spicy peppers on our tongue, the vivacity of spoken gossip from a friend, the bracing sting of the first sip of an icy cold martini, the wind on our face as we drive along the coast - the only things we have to fall back on are thoughts, mind games, inventions - surrogates that further deny us truth, the truth of experiencing.

Our minds begin to fill in the blanks left by such denials of direct experiences. We start to create feelings and thoughts to replace what we hadn't acquired in the first place....in person. I wonder if this is because we were made to be experiential beings and without experiences we scramble to at least have something, anything, to grasp onto, even if they are false and invented and projected. Is it really better than nothing?

photo: Boden Sea, Uttwil, 1993. ©Hiroshi Sugimoto

So, such is my life at the moment. If I wanted to I could turn off this laptop and go out for a walk. I hadn't done much anything this year. I'm broke. I can't work because there are no jobs. I can't travel anywhere. All I can do is wait for things to get better so I can make my move. I'm like a monk in a tower; I have views but they're of things far away, people I can't meet in person, places unreachable to me.

I'm out of the market for romance. My life isn't set up for it, there's no accommodation, especially in this town. Even friendships are tricky to maintain. I have a couple of local friends but it's expensive to go to out with them. Online friendships are even harder. The more we reveal ourselves to each other the harder it gets because we'd rather reveal ourselves to each other in person.

I can never understand people who swear by love affairs online, that they love having a boyfriend/girlfriend who lives in Sydney or Tokyo or Prague and they instant message each other everyday. What the hell kind of love is that? It feels so.....detached. That's not love, that's torture. LOL! It's a relationship you can switch off and walk away from whenever you have disagreements. Like an appliance. How convenient. But you can't take it to bed and make love to it, dine out with it at the bistro, enjoy a lovely conversation with it over cocktails, or lay your head on it and listen to its heartbeat.

I have no one in my life. I accept that. It seems like it would hurt knowing that it's a byproduct of other technicalities I suffer through presently. But strangely enough it doesn't hurt. Maybe it's because I've grown numb, I don't know. What I do know is that my acceptance of it helps; it lessens the pain of loneliness. What would really hurt is if I didn't accept it but at the same time knew that there's nothing I could do about it, either, for as long as it lasts.

Another thing that lessens the pain is knowing that it probably won't be this way forever. Things have ebbed and flowed in my life before. Why should this be any different?

I am the dynamism of my experiences.

e-chain of fools

"Don't even."

LOL! I just got "gently scolded" by people I don't know who work with my oldest sister. She sent me yet another one of those chain emails with really corny sentimental messages in them. You know what I'm talking about, right? They got, say, cute puppy dog pics, animated smileys with "have a nice day" wishes, or heartwarming human interest stories done in PowerPoint with very, VERY, VERY loud elevator music, and of course about a hundred cc's to other recipients. I'm sure you get these 'feel good' chain emails all the time. I delete most of them without even reading, but some I do read (against my better judgment).

I decided to be evil (oh yes, I'm capable of it) and reply not just to my sister but to all the recipients (most likely some of them forwarded it to my sister in the first place) with great sarcasm:

"AWWWWW! This is so excruciatingly corny and trite and whoever put it together with those cheap sofa painting backgrounds and deafeningly loud elevator/shopping mall music should be flogged senseless.

But the message is well taken and I agree. Thanks to all my parachute packers, I love you! May you never have to deal with unbearably corny 1970s style Hallmark greeting card type emails again."

xoxoxooxoxoxoxo

A couple of them wrote me back with an obvious tone of dismay: "Did you get up on the wrong side of bed?" "Who are you?"

Chain emails as such are the equivalent of real world chain mail to me, akin to numbingly annoying ones that clutter up my mailbox and waste good paper. This is how computer viruses and worms are spread, through attachments or links in the emails. At least you can never do that with real world letters. But as it stands, my family and some of my friends keep sending these to me, expecting me to forward it to other people.

Look, I am a good soul, I've survived life threatening crises and other moments of agony in my life, I volunteer my time and money to worthy causes, I love my mother unconditionally, I'm loyal to my friends. But that does NOT mean I do this cruddy Hallmark "perfect world" crap, there's something sickeningly saccharine about it and I will not apologize for it.

I do have my mushy moments but I hate it when emails like this try to force mushiness on me. That's just...revolting.

“I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn.”

Ever read Dorothy Parker much? You should. It's very grounding stuff.