The Conversation is Everywhere
October 23, 2006
A great message to pay attention to no matter where you are. Taken in Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 2006.
I don’t know why I am surprised when every time I begin to look for certain things I suddenly see what I’m searching for everywhere. "Seek, and you shall find…" Isn’t that how it is supposed to go? This is why I love cliches – they are usually true.
Now that I have blogging – and its potential positive and negative influences on society – on my brain, I am seeing conversations and observations about it all over. A quick peek at a few things I’ve come across in the last few days:
"YouTube’s long-term strength seems to lie in the devoted community of users and bloggers (or ‘broadcasters’, as the company likes to call them)…" From an article on the "anxieties of YouTube fame" in The New Yorker magazine
"The group has become as important to her emotionally as it has socially…since she began posting six years ago." From an article on a game show/trivia fan online community featured in yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Styles section.
"Jan Pronk, a former Dutch government minister who has served as the U.N. special representative in Sudan since 2004, was given 72 hours to leave the country after Sudanese officials accused him of making inappropriate and disruptive comments on his blog." From the LA Times this morning.
"This is the place people go to share their lives." From an article on the YouTube community in today’s LA Times Business section.
It is obvious blogging is having an impact on our world, and I think for the most part we tend to look at it as a positive thing – people around the world can connect, share and be inspired by like-minded souls, thereby feeling less isolated, alone and/or detached from humanity. But what of the negative sides of this? Is it really a positive step towards compassion and understanding for human beings to feel their strongest connections to others through a keyboard and monitor? How many people who have created and nurtured a strong online community know their neighbors, the people they see face to face, perhaps everyday? I have heard more than once the comparison of blogging communities to "coffee klatsches", defined as "a casual social gathering for coffee and conversation." I think this is an appropriate metaphor on a certain level, but for me it begs the question: What if all the time we spent blogging – reading, writing or otherwise – was spent getting to know a neighbor, perhaps by inviting her over for a cup of coffee?
One topic that came up more than once in the comments from last week’s question had to do with the freedom people felt to be able to reach out to these online communities "at any time of day or night". With a blog we have a certain level of control which enables us to communicate and participate on our own terms. If a neighbor stops by unannounced there is a chance we will be interrupted or if the same neighbor calls to arrange a visit it might be challenging to coordinate schedules. With blogging we can all connect to one another whenever and wherever each of us – as individuals – wants to, and not a moment sooner. Is this creating genuine human connection or is it simply reinforcing the notion that we are each ultimately alone in the world and are so busy that our most genuine interactions with other people can only occur in the stolen moments we can spare between errands, children, jobs, dreams, families and other day to day obligations? Are we escaping to our blogs and the blogs of others as a way to avoid real intimacy in our marriages, families and face to face friendships?
My "question" is clearly becoming a barrage of questions, but I am curious to explore the slightly more tarnished side of this blogging coin. What can be done beyond blogging to further the connections we feel with fellow bloggers and nurture more genuine human relations, and how can we use this new type of closeness to build greater intimacy the areas of our lives that need it most, such as within the walls of our own homes?
Blogging could become an addiction for someone who is looking to escape a certain part of their life, but probably if it wasn’t blogging for that individual it would be something else.
Human connection…face to face…eye to eye…hand to hand connection is extremely important for a healthy, well balanced life. If blogging Takes the place of that, I think there is a problem.
But it doesn’t Have to be that way. There can be balance.
I also Know blogging can Foster in-person connecting.
I haven’t met many bloggers personally, but I have read about other women getting together with other bloggers. This is amazing! And of course something I hope other bloggers want to do at justBe…connected.
About getting to know our neighbors… maybe it would be nice if we knew our neighbors more because I don’t know mine. but I have been to many playgroups with my young children and just have not connected with any of the women the way I have with my blogging sisters.(and I have tried. I have had play dates with some women in my home and a girls night out. It just wasn’t for me. You can’t assume a connection will happen just because you live in the same county as someone.) I don’t think one form of connecting is better than the other…just different.
Another not so sunny side of blogging (that happens in person as well) is that some people lie. Some people misrepresent themselves. It is very easy to do in the blog world. Like any other way it takes trust and time and a leap of faith to form a relationship. You can get hurt too. but that is life. Blogging with integrity and trying to connect with other women in a authentic way is worth it. I KNOW!
Loving these questions!
Thanks Christine
several weeks ago i sat in my therapists office and discussed this very same issue…the issue of how easy it is for me to pour myself out to complete strangers and yet i struggle with intimacy in my ‘real’ life…i think a lot of that, for me anyway, is feeling safer on a blog than in a face to face conversation because, well, i don’t have to face the person. why am i not telling the people in my life what i’m telling the people in blogland…that’s a question i’ve been thinking about for some time.
i can say this for the connections made in the blogland…as a blogger i tend to flock to the same type of blogs, blogs with similiar interests, goals, passions, and missions as mine, and the community i’ve been blessed enough to discover is one that ‘gets me’ and many of us don’t have that in our families, or next door, or with a set of girlfriends. it seems that the ablility to connect is somewhat easier in the blogging world because it’s there, available. where as in the ‘real’ world you may meet a hundred people and not feel a connection to any of them. it has made connecting easier…not that that is an excuse to not nurture physical relationships. i think everybody probably has their reasons for connecting/not connecting in life and in the blogsphere. everyone has a story, filled with hurt and rejection and fear, and that enters every relationship, even blogging relationships. so i don’t exuse or fault anyone for their connection/relationship choices.
i also wonder if our ability to connect with others suffered long before blogging came along. the more atrocious stories we hear in the media the more we stop trusting others–we don’t stop to help that person on the side of the road, we don’t get to know our neighbor, etc. we’re afraid. blogging certainly has it’s risks and those risks may increase with time, but i wonder if our society as a whole has shut down from each other long before blogging and bloggers are just finding an alternate form of connection. i don’t know what kind of impact blogging is having on this issues–if it’s making it worse.
i know my son doesn’t have what i had as a child…i knew the other kids on the block and the neigbors down the street. society has changed and we are often to ‘busy’ to make connections. we seem to pack our schedules full…i suppose blogging is a way to connect within our time constraints and our shifitng priorities.
good question…
Hi Christine,
You said so eloquently the things I’ve been thinking over the past months. Blogging is, as you pointed out, a coin with two sides. Impossible to have one without the other.
On one hand, instant and warm communication with people all over the globe — except for the billion or so people who are less fortunate than we are and can’t think of buying a computer.
I run to my computer when I wake up in the morning, so eager am I to catch up on blogs and to read comments on my own. I feel loved, wanted, respected in my circle of blogging friends. I know for certain that I am in daily communication with people I’d never be friends with in “real” life. They have opened my eyes to so many things.
At the same time, it is a disembodied experience. I see my “real” friends about once a week. I can’t manage more. I love their hugs, their tears, the sound of their voices, their cadence in speaking, their favorite sweater, their new shoes.
I know my neighbors, but keep my distance.
There’s a great book on this topic. It’s called “Turning to One Another.” The author contends that simple, daily, verbal exchange can save the world.
I often consider shutting down my blog and removing myself from my blogging circle. It seems more important to be out walking in nature. And yet, these people change my life, improve my life through their lessons.
I end up with an uncertain question mark.
My daily life was lacking in intimate relationships and conversations before I started blogging. I think that is a big part of what brought me to the blog.
I live in a huge city, where it is difficult to become anything more than a number. I used to have amazing relationships with my very best friends. We went to school, we grew up, we got married, our spouses became friends with each other and then….
everyone had kids. Everyone except for me that is. I love their kids, but my friends’s lives have changed. They can’t/don’t/choose not to embrace these same intimate friendships. Maybe one day, they will realize that they really miss them, I know that I do, more than words can say. But, until then, I’m not sure how to replace these face-to-face relationships.
Blogging is a wonderful way for many of us to connect and be inspired however I think it is also isolating. Balancing the two can be difficult but I feel it is a nececcity.
It is nice to come on to the web and to not feel so alone. To see that other people share some of the same feelings as I do, even when I am afraid to admit these feelings exist inside me.
The problem I think which lies within blogging is “do we really know the person on the end of the words we read?” We get a glimpse into their lives, we see some of their feelings, and we see the side which we want to see. This is not the entire individual. There is more to people then what is posted on their blog. I often wonder if I ran into some of the amazing women whom blogs I read, before I began reading there blogs, would I be friends with them? Or am I able to get so close to these womans feelings because there is a safe guard between us. It is easy for me to break out my feelings on here than it is in person.
The inspiration is great! However the lack of human contact is lonely. There needs to be a sort of balance between a blog connection and a face to face connection. Have a connectionw ith someone when they are right in front of you is extremly different, but is it more powerful?
Do we need both types of connections to balance ourselves out in this busy world or could we be ok with just the connection over the computer?
Life is very fast paced now. We take the time we have and try to cram doing a million things into them. Will slowing down help all of this?
I seemed to have answered your question with more questions….is there really a right answer?
You know, the Internet in general, not JUST blogging, has been a great tool for friendships for me. I am more openly accepted because people get to know ME first, before they see that I’m too young to have children this old, or funky hair, or my big nose
In the real world, if people could turn off appearances like on the WWW, we could all be friends. As it is, too many judge me without knowing me, and I’ve made but one friend since moving here. And that’s not from lack of trying…
Oooohhh… so much to think about.
i will have to come back to this once my mind has wrapped around it a bit:)