So, it's true, without argument, that I'm a little nutz. We all are. And, from time to time, it shows more than usual. Yeah it scares the people you don't know, but it just feels great to let it go and indulge your instincts.
Then there are those other times, when you feel the same roar in your chest, but you can't let it out. It's trapped inside your body and if you don't find the cork it's going to explode you. Sometimes it does. We have meltdowns. We lash out at others. We cry, slash tires, break things, and make compulsive decisions. What is it that keeps us from sublimating our emotions? Why do they overwhelm us? Where is the tipping point from enjoying the ride to screaming bloody-murder at the driver?
Maybe we just feel un-heard. What you want is to yell, to scream it all out. When you are with the people you love and trust, you can. We perhaps enjoy the fact of that relationship more than the act of spilling our wildness into society. We spill it out on the streets, splash it onto other people's cars, pick fights that aren't ours and act out because, too often we feel our society pushing that ferocity on us. We feel un-fairly pressured, mis measured, our worth folded up in our wallets. As human beings we want to be more, than a drone in a box, a number on a screen. And if we can't convince ourselves that we are, we corrupt. In the smallest ways of the smallest people we tell the city to shove it. We attack other drones to prove that we are real. Mischief becomes vandalism, becomes hate. Directed at the whole, we think we will be separated, liberated to our individualism. But our individualism is not what earns us freedom, it is what unites us.
To recognize others, and see the human in them, is to see the human in yourself. Act in celebration of our lives, instead of defiance of our collective. I have yet to understand what it means to be an individual, and stand on our own tooth-pick legs. Right now what I try to do is listen, for the answers. But I can barely hear above the roar in my own head.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
College RiffRaft
First Friday
6.29.07
2100
So. Here I am in Nowhere, Oregon. Wait, I didn’t check my sources on that. Roseburg. Roseburg,Oregon. I am working my first full-time, forty hour a week, ironically boring, teeth-pulling, job. I am also spending what could very well be the first weekend all by my lonesome. And, as it was recently pointed out to me by the omnipotent and cruel world, I am college rift-raft.
“Why, Rachel,” you might say, “you are eighteen years old and already becoming a college junior. You are working a full-time job that offers great security. You are the Miss Miss —vice president— of AdSociety. You have a 3.5 college GPA, the UO Women’s Center created a new position in order to accommodate your talents…” etc. But, my dear friends, consider this: I do not have a car. I ride a borrowed bicycle which operates as well as a sixty-five-year-old cutting fire line. I have no friends, and absolutely no social agenda. Essentially, nothing to do outside of work. I don’t have internet service, so I bum it where I can, like behind a wall of the Sleep Inn. There, while sitting on concrete ground, because the world is my comfy car seat, I was hit on by a self-proclaimed meth-head in his late forties.
Apparently he was just fired from his job, as a trucker, who did toot the horn when civilian drivers made the “toot toot” motion. But he had never been a bus driver. He is now burdened with a restraining order from his wife of eighteen years, even though he is not a violent person. He asked me where I live and what I do, which I tried to be vague about. And he instructed that if he was being too nosy I should just bitch-slap him. He wishes he had attended college, but instead moved to the crank capital of the United States, Roseburg. He was clean for a year and a half, but is now doing methamphetamines again. I didn’t throw in that, perhaps, this is why he was fired from his job. No, I couldn’t go grab a bite to eat because I had imaginary dinner reservations with friends who were still out in the field, who might save me from this meth-head, even though they weren’t real. And no, I wasn’t old enough to drink. Yes, you are old enough to be my father. Yes there is “more money” in Western Washington. And I am about done with this conversation. And I hope he doesn’t try to steal my really-nice computer. Good luck finding a new job. Oh dear lord, I am riff-raft.
I have $50 to live on before my first paycheck rolls in. I stole salt packets from the coffee shop where my Mac couldn’t connect to the Internet. You see, sitting on the ground outside of a third rate hotel was not my first plan. And, by the way, the bench was occupied. I am riff-raft. At the grocery store on Tuesday, I had to choose between olive oil and a spatula. In the end, I decided that I could turn my chicken with a fork, but for the pasta to taste good, I needed the oil. The next day I was invited to the Forest Leadership Team’s barbeque. Because my last name begins with the letter “H” I was requested to bring a salad. I have lettuce, but when I looked at it, I realized that I did not have the resources to bring said dinner item. So, hoping charm and improvisation would count for something, I brought my flute instead. Riff-Raft.
6.29.07
2100
So. Here I am in Nowhere, Oregon. Wait, I didn’t check my sources on that. Roseburg. Roseburg,Oregon. I am working my first full-time, forty hour a week, ironically boring, teeth-pulling, job. I am also spending what could very well be the first weekend all by my lonesome. And, as it was recently pointed out to me by the omnipotent and cruel world, I am college rift-raft.
“Why, Rachel,” you might say, “you are eighteen years old and already becoming a college junior. You are working a full-time job that offers great security. You are the Miss Miss —vice president— of AdSociety. You have a 3.5 college GPA, the UO Women’s Center created a new position in order to accommodate your talents…” etc. But, my dear friends, consider this: I do not have a car. I ride a borrowed bicycle which operates as well as a sixty-five-year-old cutting fire line. I have no friends, and absolutely no social agenda. Essentially, nothing to do outside of work. I don’t have internet service, so I bum it where I can, like behind a wall of the Sleep Inn. There, while sitting on concrete ground, because the world is my comfy car seat, I was hit on by a self-proclaimed meth-head in his late forties.
Apparently he was just fired from his job, as a trucker, who did toot the horn when civilian drivers made the “toot toot” motion. But he had never been a bus driver. He is now burdened with a restraining order from his wife of eighteen years, even though he is not a violent person. He asked me where I live and what I do, which I tried to be vague about. And he instructed that if he was being too nosy I should just bitch-slap him. He wishes he had attended college, but instead moved to the crank capital of the United States, Roseburg. He was clean for a year and a half, but is now doing methamphetamines again. I didn’t throw in that, perhaps, this is why he was fired from his job. No, I couldn’t go grab a bite to eat because I had imaginary dinner reservations with friends who were still out in the field, who might save me from this meth-head, even though they weren’t real. And no, I wasn’t old enough to drink. Yes, you are old enough to be my father. Yes there is “more money” in Western Washington. And I am about done with this conversation. And I hope he doesn’t try to steal my really-nice computer. Good luck finding a new job. Oh dear lord, I am riff-raft.
I have $50 to live on before my first paycheck rolls in. I stole salt packets from the coffee shop where my Mac couldn’t connect to the Internet. You see, sitting on the ground outside of a third rate hotel was not my first plan. And, by the way, the bench was occupied. I am riff-raft. At the grocery store on Tuesday, I had to choose between olive oil and a spatula. In the end, I decided that I could turn my chicken with a fork, but for the pasta to taste good, I needed the oil. The next day I was invited to the Forest Leadership Team’s barbeque. Because my last name begins with the letter “H” I was requested to bring a salad. I have lettuce, but when I looked at it, I realized that I did not have the resources to bring said dinner item. So, hoping charm and improvisation would count for something, I brought my flute instead. Riff-Raft.
Shooter: A Coveted First Person Narrative
This spring I took a mandatory class: Writing 122. I loved my gtf, and the space she gave us for our papers. Our first paper needed to be "something about art. How you think of it, what it is, where you find it, be creative. Or you can write about the Virginia Tech shooting." Well, duh.
20 April 2007
Shooter: A Coveted First Person Narrative
Adam was backed up against the brick wall. He looked frantically from side to side. "What are you doing?” He screamed. “You think you can just solve all of your problems right here!?” In answer, I looked straight down the barrel, steadying my aim. Everything was right; shooting-range grasp, arms braced for the recoil, feet in a broad, resolute stance. I pulled the trigger. Unflinching, I closed my eyes and felt his blood spray onto my face. I exhaled cathartically, and slowly rolled my gaze to the left. The glare of a steeled killer reflected back at me.
Only days after the Virginia Tech massacre I acted in a film a friend of mine is making. The script was delivered to me shortly before filming, so I didn’t have much time to analyze the overall plot or action in my scenes. Besides, I needed only concern myself with the deliverance of my lines, not the content of his film.
During the filming I was handed a plastic gun, which had been spray-painted black to look convincingly real. Then the stage direction “pulls trigger” made complete sense. My character was responsible for abruptly extinguishing the life of the protagonist. Shooting my friend, Adam, point blank required many takes, after each of which someone wiped the red cornstarch blood off of my face. Earlier we all praised the creator of the stage blood for its realistic color and texture.
Though I act in the University of Oregon’s campus TV show, and have played violent parts, never had I been recruited to perform such an intense role. With it, there was a promised sense of empowerment. The confident handling of a firearm, the not-taking-shit attitude, the calculating precision, all personas were alluring to an amateur actress. I was honestly anticipating my ability to pull of the character of an assassin.
As if anticipating killing another human, in any fashion, wasn’t horrifying enough, I hadn’t realized the grotesqueness of my excitement until days later. The blood looked so real, I looked so sure, and when it finally sunk into my palate, it tasted like bile. Most Americans would describe the taste of blood as metallic, like the cold steel and hot lead bullet that rips a body apart. The taste of blood has been glorified; and we love it.
Days after the biggest school massacre in history I was, completely willingly, perpetuating the culture that thrives on such violence. I am an active part of this culture, destroying itself from the inside out, which is something each and every responsible American needs to recognize for themselves. And then maybe we will understand how we all played a part in the Virginia Tech tragedy.
It is common for people to ask, “Why did he do this? Was he refused treatment? How can we help people like this?” While these questions are coming from a compassionate place, they are examining the wrong side of the issue. By asking, “Why him?” We are also saying, “Him and not us.” We dislocate ourselves, making this a matter of isolated incidents, rather than the obvious symptoms of a diseased culture. The real question is how we could create, and maintain, an environment that fosters this kind of behavior.
After the massacre, threatening and tragic images saturated all forms of media; television, internet, magazines, newspapers. We communicate in images, which is something Cho Seung Hui bet all his marbles on, and rightly so. After committing such an atrocity, he spoon-fed it to us. News agencies thirsted for it. NBC slapped their brand on the propaganda package mailed to them faster than a doctor slaps a newborn. CNN did the same thing with a piece of cell phone footage, filmed by a VT student. Periodicals wallowed in the shock value of the pre-assembled press kit. Our media agencies served as the perfect tool for Cho’s violent message. He used us to hurt us. We let it happen, and we make it happen every day.
Our media distributors provide us with thousands of daily images, which makes them accountable for treating their audience ethically, and setting a standard. It is the very coverage of such incidents that shapes our perception of reality. The more violence we see and hear about, the more there will be. We make it real. We create violence by showing it because the media is a tool for reflecting ourselves. Is this how we want to see ourselves? Is this what we will continue to support?
By circulating images of the killer we thoroughly perpetuate the attitude he created. However, in defense of the average violence and media consuming American, it could be argued that we are burned out on the news, and all the terrible things shown at nine o’clock. People don’t like living in a shadow of violence. They don’t want it in their everyday life. Which must be why God invented movies.
A movie is the glossiest portrayal of life. Here we have the pretty faces, the budgets, the resources, and the most creative intellects in the world, to compose or retell stories for a global audience. With that in mind, what was the best picture this year? Was it a striking film about communication across cultures? How about one of dignity and courage? Maybe it was a heart-warming family film about loving each other for all that we are? It was none of these. It was incredibly violent and harsh: The Departed. It is a shame that a gory, violence oriented film managed to beat out spectacular competition. It’s as if the Oscar board decided, “Well, the creative solutions are cute, but we wish we could just kill our problems instead.” These films are some of the most powerful art forms known to our culture. They speak to us. They are widely available. We, and our macabre fantasies, are the main stars.
Art is a word connected to vast interpretations. Art means beauty, invention, inspiration, provocation. The advancement of the human race is characterized by the forms of art it produces. Does our art reflect us, or do we reflect our art? Though the answer to this question is debatable, our actions aren’t. It is obvious how we choose to spend our money and time. Why would we call glorified killing “art”? Why do we praise it, feeding it millions of dollars?
The Korean film “Old Boy” artistically inspired Cho’s rampage. Stills of Cho are patterned just like the movie. For a quick fix, it’s easy to place blame on a source that can’t speak for itself, like a movie or video games. Then let the Internet Movie Database describe this film. Some of the plot key words are “Tooth Pulling, Revenge, Suicide, Torture, Hammer, Knife In Back, Scissor Stabbing, Severed Hand, Shot In The Head, Stabbed In The Ear, Murder of Wife”. It won the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
The public speaks clearly about what it wants. For some reason, we don’t want to see people killed in real life, but we do want to see people killed in movies. And we want to point the finger at individuals who act unethically, supposing that they, alone, have a problem and they, alone, need treatment. It has been hotly debated whether or not it was ethical for periodicals to publish the images of Cho pointing a gun at the readers. People found it assaulting and threatening, and they should. We should feel threatened by the culture that we have created. We are a part of this history and we all need to be a part of the solution.
My friend’s film is scheduled to premier in late May. I am still going to see it on opening night, but with newfound reservations, and a burning guilt for my direct contribution to our bloodthirsty society. When I later asked the filmmaker why the protagonist needed to die amidst such gore and malice, he replied, “Because it’s art. It’s contemporary.”
20 April 2007
Shooter: A Coveted First Person Narrative
Adam was backed up against the brick wall. He looked frantically from side to side. "What are you doing?” He screamed. “You think you can just solve all of your problems right here!?” In answer, I looked straight down the barrel, steadying my aim. Everything was right; shooting-range grasp, arms braced for the recoil, feet in a broad, resolute stance. I pulled the trigger. Unflinching, I closed my eyes and felt his blood spray onto my face. I exhaled cathartically, and slowly rolled my gaze to the left. The glare of a steeled killer reflected back at me.
Only days after the Virginia Tech massacre I acted in a film a friend of mine is making. The script was delivered to me shortly before filming, so I didn’t have much time to analyze the overall plot or action in my scenes. Besides, I needed only concern myself with the deliverance of my lines, not the content of his film.
During the filming I was handed a plastic gun, which had been spray-painted black to look convincingly real. Then the stage direction “pulls trigger” made complete sense. My character was responsible for abruptly extinguishing the life of the protagonist. Shooting my friend, Adam, point blank required many takes, after each of which someone wiped the red cornstarch blood off of my face. Earlier we all praised the creator of the stage blood for its realistic color and texture.
Though I act in the University of Oregon’s campus TV show, and have played violent parts, never had I been recruited to perform such an intense role. With it, there was a promised sense of empowerment. The confident handling of a firearm, the not-taking-shit attitude, the calculating precision, all personas were alluring to an amateur actress. I was honestly anticipating my ability to pull of the character of an assassin.
As if anticipating killing another human, in any fashion, wasn’t horrifying enough, I hadn’t realized the grotesqueness of my excitement until days later. The blood looked so real, I looked so sure, and when it finally sunk into my palate, it tasted like bile. Most Americans would describe the taste of blood as metallic, like the cold steel and hot lead bullet that rips a body apart. The taste of blood has been glorified; and we love it.
Days after the biggest school massacre in history I was, completely willingly, perpetuating the culture that thrives on such violence. I am an active part of this culture, destroying itself from the inside out, which is something each and every responsible American needs to recognize for themselves. And then maybe we will understand how we all played a part in the Virginia Tech tragedy.
It is common for people to ask, “Why did he do this? Was he refused treatment? How can we help people like this?” While these questions are coming from a compassionate place, they are examining the wrong side of the issue. By asking, “Why him?” We are also saying, “Him and not us.” We dislocate ourselves, making this a matter of isolated incidents, rather than the obvious symptoms of a diseased culture. The real question is how we could create, and maintain, an environment that fosters this kind of behavior.
After the massacre, threatening and tragic images saturated all forms of media; television, internet, magazines, newspapers. We communicate in images, which is something Cho Seung Hui bet all his marbles on, and rightly so. After committing such an atrocity, he spoon-fed it to us. News agencies thirsted for it. NBC slapped their brand on the propaganda package mailed to them faster than a doctor slaps a newborn. CNN did the same thing with a piece of cell phone footage, filmed by a VT student. Periodicals wallowed in the shock value of the pre-assembled press kit. Our media agencies served as the perfect tool for Cho’s violent message. He used us to hurt us. We let it happen, and we make it happen every day.
Our media distributors provide us with thousands of daily images, which makes them accountable for treating their audience ethically, and setting a standard. It is the very coverage of such incidents that shapes our perception of reality. The more violence we see and hear about, the more there will be. We make it real. We create violence by showing it because the media is a tool for reflecting ourselves. Is this how we want to see ourselves? Is this what we will continue to support?
By circulating images of the killer we thoroughly perpetuate the attitude he created. However, in defense of the average violence and media consuming American, it could be argued that we are burned out on the news, and all the terrible things shown at nine o’clock. People don’t like living in a shadow of violence. They don’t want it in their everyday life. Which must be why God invented movies.
A movie is the glossiest portrayal of life. Here we have the pretty faces, the budgets, the resources, and the most creative intellects in the world, to compose or retell stories for a global audience. With that in mind, what was the best picture this year? Was it a striking film about communication across cultures? How about one of dignity and courage? Maybe it was a heart-warming family film about loving each other for all that we are? It was none of these. It was incredibly violent and harsh: The Departed. It is a shame that a gory, violence oriented film managed to beat out spectacular competition. It’s as if the Oscar board decided, “Well, the creative solutions are cute, but we wish we could just kill our problems instead.” These films are some of the most powerful art forms known to our culture. They speak to us. They are widely available. We, and our macabre fantasies, are the main stars.
Art is a word connected to vast interpretations. Art means beauty, invention, inspiration, provocation. The advancement of the human race is characterized by the forms of art it produces. Does our art reflect us, or do we reflect our art? Though the answer to this question is debatable, our actions aren’t. It is obvious how we choose to spend our money and time. Why would we call glorified killing “art”? Why do we praise it, feeding it millions of dollars?
The Korean film “Old Boy” artistically inspired Cho’s rampage. Stills of Cho are patterned just like the movie. For a quick fix, it’s easy to place blame on a source that can’t speak for itself, like a movie or video games. Then let the Internet Movie Database describe this film. Some of the plot key words are “Tooth Pulling, Revenge, Suicide, Torture, Hammer, Knife In Back, Scissor Stabbing, Severed Hand, Shot In The Head, Stabbed In The Ear, Murder of Wife”. It won the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
The public speaks clearly about what it wants. For some reason, we don’t want to see people killed in real life, but we do want to see people killed in movies. And we want to point the finger at individuals who act unethically, supposing that they, alone, have a problem and they, alone, need treatment. It has been hotly debated whether or not it was ethical for periodicals to publish the images of Cho pointing a gun at the readers. People found it assaulting and threatening, and they should. We should feel threatened by the culture that we have created. We are a part of this history and we all need to be a part of the solution.
My friend’s film is scheduled to premier in late May. I am still going to see it on opening night, but with newfound reservations, and a burning guilt for my direct contribution to our bloodthirsty society. When I later asked the filmmaker why the protagonist needed to die amidst such gore and malice, he replied, “Because it’s art. It’s contemporary.”
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Daffodil Damnation
Speaking of flowers, I have recently noticed patches of daffodils popping up all over the place. And this bothers me. "But why, Rachel, should the glorious tidings of spring irritate you delicate moral senses?" Yes, I am a chronic sufferer of hayfever, but this is not why. I find the daffodils very suspicious, for the following reasons:
They are all the same size, which appears to be fully grown.
They have the same number of flowers in each cluster.
They sprung up at the beginning of this week.
They are all the same.
I never saw them growing, nor anyone planting them.
They're perky and perfect, and I despise them like other things that are perky and perfect but made of silicone. (Not really, plastic boobs attract plastic minds. Haha... They don't bother me as much as these flowers.) It's as if they magically appeared, locked and loaded, ready to bring a splash of yellow into a dreary March.
Okay, they've been planted fully grown, in little clusters around campus to look nice. I'll get over it. Their life here is fake. They are intended to look nice for students and visitors and squirrels and whoever. I just find it a little surprising that the spontaneous, natural beauty of spring has been cultivated to please us.
Not even the perfect beauty of the cycle of life is beautiful enough for a college campus. Apparently, when it is "time" for flowers, there will be flowers. Bam, flowers. "Like it. They have natural beauty. It will make you feel serene and connected."
There isn't much more to point out about this, except how we cultivate beauty for aesthetic reasons, and therefore lose the deeper, essential meaning of such things... But really, that's all.
They are all the same size, which appears to be fully grown.
They have the same number of flowers in each cluster.
They sprung up at the beginning of this week.
They are all the same.
I never saw them growing, nor anyone planting them.
They're perky and perfect, and I despise them like other things that are perky and perfect but made of silicone. (Not really, plastic boobs attract plastic minds. Haha... They don't bother me as much as these flowers.) It's as if they magically appeared, locked and loaded, ready to bring a splash of yellow into a dreary March.
Okay, they've been planted fully grown, in little clusters around campus to look nice. I'll get over it. Their life here is fake. They are intended to look nice for students and visitors and squirrels and whoever. I just find it a little surprising that the spontaneous, natural beauty of spring has been cultivated to please us.
Not even the perfect beauty of the cycle of life is beautiful enough for a college campus. Apparently, when it is "time" for flowers, there will be flowers. Bam, flowers. "Like it. They have natural beauty. It will make you feel serene and connected."
There isn't much more to point out about this, except how we cultivate beauty for aesthetic reasons, and therefore lose the deeper, essential meaning of such things... But really, that's all.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
How to: Press Friendships in a Facebook
We are the inhabitants of the 21st century. We have amazing technology that allows us to do things that are impossible in nature. And though we are able to alter the course of nature, one must ask if we are simply fooling ourselves. Sure, we are able to deny organic or biological order, but what about the indisputable way of things? Take, for a very small scale example, keeping friendships with digital tools like “MySpace,” and “Facebook”.
Such tools make it easy for us to communicate and keep in touch with people that we might otherwise never hear from again; who are not a priority. We can keep up with that friend from elementary school, the random hookup from your freshman year in college, the first young love, that girl you met at the grocery store, and potentially, everyone you ever encountered.
But what about new people, or friends who are most important? Can we realistically make enough room for the old and new alike? Are we expected to network and network until our social webs are nebulous and we walk by a blonde and say, "hi Ashley!” when her name is actually Sarah, because her profile picture looks just like another blonde's? Or, is there a critical mass, a maximum capacity of humans in our life?
Are these new social tools appropriate for our use? Maybe there just isn’t enough room. What if our minds and our hearts only have 5 positions to fill (dependent on individual emotive capacity)? Can we fit all the people we ever liked inside of us: in our heads, on our hard drives? And how many friends do you need? The best ones will always be a part of your life, like friendships before digital networking.
It is gluttonous for us to want to keep it all. Relationships can suffer while someone is still on your "friends list” but you never "write on their wall." People are “friends” with hundreds, thousands of other people. I doubt anyone keeps in touch with all of those people on a daily basis. It would be the only thing they do. So, if we can't possibly or consistently show that we care about all the people we’ve met, should we act like we can?
Why line them all up in front of us? You will hear about your cyber, quasi friends every day, whether or not you like them. And they will just be friend number 340 on a list of 500. They will continue to take up space in your life long after you have stopped interacting. We are trying to make social connections into a material thing that lasts, removing the ephemeral beauty of serendipitous encounters. You keep them around because you’re greedy and not because you actually value the experience you had. Because friendships are now material, people want to show them off, like jewelry. And, like our other possessions, our commitment to them, which is in public writing, will burden us. These material relationships will clutter our lives just like all the other junk sitting on the kitchen counter.
Friendships are not, and shouldn’t be made a material thing. Think of the commitment and the clutter, and the desire. Taking a page out of the Therevada Buddhist philosophy, it is our desire that causes suffering. We are only heightening our suffering by entertaining the fantasy, the desire to possess friendships, which are just one of many beautiful things we wish could last. When they are material then we can possess them, and the more we think we can, the more it will hurt when we realize we can’t.
The emotional conundrum comes not in the technology, but in what it really means to us. The technology isn’t a problem; it has practical, expansive, potential and application. But it is also convincing us that everything that was ever important can be permanent.
So thank you, creators of “MySpace” and “Facebook”, for also indulging our fantasy that friendships can be pressed like flowers. Just press the Faces and images and text into a cyber book, and it will all last forever.
Such tools make it easy for us to communicate and keep in touch with people that we might otherwise never hear from again; who are not a priority. We can keep up with that friend from elementary school, the random hookup from your freshman year in college, the first young love, that girl you met at the grocery store, and potentially, everyone you ever encountered.
But what about new people, or friends who are most important? Can we realistically make enough room for the old and new alike? Are we expected to network and network until our social webs are nebulous and we walk by a blonde and say, "hi Ashley!” when her name is actually Sarah, because her profile picture looks just like another blonde's? Or, is there a critical mass, a maximum capacity of humans in our life?
Are these new social tools appropriate for our use? Maybe there just isn’t enough room. What if our minds and our hearts only have 5 positions to fill (dependent on individual emotive capacity)? Can we fit all the people we ever liked inside of us: in our heads, on our hard drives? And how many friends do you need? The best ones will always be a part of your life, like friendships before digital networking.
It is gluttonous for us to want to keep it all. Relationships can suffer while someone is still on your "friends list” but you never "write on their wall." People are “friends” with hundreds, thousands of other people. I doubt anyone keeps in touch with all of those people on a daily basis. It would be the only thing they do. So, if we can't possibly or consistently show that we care about all the people we’ve met, should we act like we can?
Why line them all up in front of us? You will hear about your cyber, quasi friends every day, whether or not you like them. And they will just be friend number 340 on a list of 500. They will continue to take up space in your life long after you have stopped interacting. We are trying to make social connections into a material thing that lasts, removing the ephemeral beauty of serendipitous encounters. You keep them around because you’re greedy and not because you actually value the experience you had. Because friendships are now material, people want to show them off, like jewelry. And, like our other possessions, our commitment to them, which is in public writing, will burden us. These material relationships will clutter our lives just like all the other junk sitting on the kitchen counter.
Friendships are not, and shouldn’t be made a material thing. Think of the commitment and the clutter, and the desire. Taking a page out of the Therevada Buddhist philosophy, it is our desire that causes suffering. We are only heightening our suffering by entertaining the fantasy, the desire to possess friendships, which are just one of many beautiful things we wish could last. When they are material then we can possess them, and the more we think we can, the more it will hurt when we realize we can’t.
The emotional conundrum comes not in the technology, but in what it really means to us. The technology isn’t a problem; it has practical, expansive, potential and application. But it is also convincing us that everything that was ever important can be permanent.
So thank you, creators of “MySpace” and “Facebook”, for also indulging our fantasy that friendships can be pressed like flowers. Just press the Faces and images and text into a cyber book, and it will all last forever.
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