The general connectedness of all things
May. 29th, 2002 09:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI have MSN Messenger.
I have email.
I have newsgroups.
I have IRC.
I have SMS.
I have telephones.
If the worst comes to the worst, I can actually talk to someone in person.
I find myself hitting Send-Receive, to see if someone is sending me a message. I say hello to people I don't even want to talk to, so that someone else will pay me some attention. I am never, ever alone, because I was once alone for far, far too long, and it scares me. I don't want to go back to being alone again.
In The High Cost of Living, the main character (who's name I forget, my copy being in Kent) says something along the lines of (the specifics I forget, my copy being in Kent) of "I don't believe in Love. I just thinking peple get lonely and horny and tell themselves it's love."
I don't believe that, because I think love is stronger than even a potent combination of horniness and loneliness, but I do think that loneliness is an incredibly powerful spur. I miss people when I'm not around them. If I come in and there's nobody in, I tend to go out and find someone. With MSN, I feel like I'm always kinda in company - if I'm bored or lonely or whatever I can always start chatting to someone else who's almost certainly just as bored and lonely.
The only time I'm really out of communication is on the train, when I'm down to my mobile and SMS, and even they become dramatically erratic for bits of the track. I'm sure the coverage is going to improve though, and when I saw a review recently for the xda, which uses a packet based communication system to make sure that you're always connected and supports MSN messenger, I realised that we're rapidly approaching a future where you are always in contact, where you're only alone if you deliberately choose to be.
Geographical communities don't suit me terribly well, outside of cities there's not a large enough supply of the people I want to hang out with, and even in cities they tend to be spread out. Virtual ones are a lot easier, because I'm always with the people I want to be with (even if it's not very 'with'). I'm just wondering what the psychological effect is going to be on the kids who grow up always with their friends, who are never alone. What kind of communities will they build, what kind of relationships will they form. How much will they differentiate between the people they can touch and those they can only see and hear.
I really am looking forward to seeing where this all ends up.
I have email.
I have newsgroups.
I have IRC.
I have SMS.
I have telephones.
If the worst comes to the worst, I can actually talk to someone in person.
I find myself hitting Send-Receive, to see if someone is sending me a message. I say hello to people I don't even want to talk to, so that someone else will pay me some attention. I am never, ever alone, because I was once alone for far, far too long, and it scares me. I don't want to go back to being alone again.
In The High Cost of Living, the main character (who's name I forget, my copy being in Kent) says something along the lines of (the specifics I forget, my copy being in Kent) of "I don't believe in Love. I just thinking peple get lonely and horny and tell themselves it's love."
I don't believe that, because I think love is stronger than even a potent combination of horniness and loneliness, but I do think that loneliness is an incredibly powerful spur. I miss people when I'm not around them. If I come in and there's nobody in, I tend to go out and find someone. With MSN, I feel like I'm always kinda in company - if I'm bored or lonely or whatever I can always start chatting to someone else who's almost certainly just as bored and lonely.
The only time I'm really out of communication is on the train, when I'm down to my mobile and SMS, and even they become dramatically erratic for bits of the track. I'm sure the coverage is going to improve though, and when I saw a review recently for the xda, which uses a packet based communication system to make sure that you're always connected and supports MSN messenger, I realised that we're rapidly approaching a future where you are always in contact, where you're only alone if you deliberately choose to be.
Geographical communities don't suit me terribly well, outside of cities there's not a large enough supply of the people I want to hang out with, and even in cities they tend to be spread out. Virtual ones are a lot easier, because I'm always with the people I want to be with (even if it's not very 'with'). I'm just wondering what the psychological effect is going to be on the kids who grow up always with their friends, who are never alone. What kind of communities will they build, what kind of relationships will they form. How much will they differentiate between the people they can touch and those they can only see and hear.
I really am looking forward to seeing where this all ends up.
the hole
Date: 2002-05-29 08:36 pm (UTC)I too have had those dark, dark times when you are *alone* but I question now whether this was aloneness or loneliness. I have convinced myself into relationships, flings ,beds through a combination of horniness and loneliness, I have convinced myself to stay in abusive situations through horniness and loneliness telling myself that this is love.
I do take your point that love is more than this and much more potent but how many of us truly feel that and/or perhaps we grow to feel it having put ourselves in a position to feel it for someone but having been driven there through H&L.
In my discussions with people (including myself) I have looked at my desire to be in constant contact, via msn, sms, email, phones etc ( interesting point here that I took myself probably the furthest away I could away from those I love…more on that later)and alot of it is to stop the impending doom of loneliness. The fear that that godawful feeling will come back. What I have realised is that all the amount of contact in the world will not stop that feeling from coming back. It will get you on the quiet and whisper in your ear when your PC has crashed, the battery on your phone is dead and you know that because of time differences most people who could help will be sound asleep and not appreciate a winy "just phoning to see if you loved me? ' call.
We need, or should I say I need my hole to be filled, this is not perverted but I do believe that somewhere inside most of us we have a hole, a big gaping black one that we learn to fill that in various ways, art, work, family, sex, drugs, music, the list is endless, the hole can be filled in various ways and to various levels. It does not remain filled and it can overflow and it can drain out completely depending on what life throws at us. What is important ( and this is just my own learning) is to learn that when that hole gets empty what one can do to fill it and what one can do to fill it in a positive way. IE. going on the piss by myself and partying it up with good craic but meaningless acquaintances will fill me up momentarily but the resulting emptiness the next day is not worth the momentarily fill. Dragging some good looking stranger home for sex will fill me up ( scues the pun) momentarily but the next day…….I am talking about balance here, yes I guess I am. My point is not to live some prudish life where you can't party or have meaningless but good sex with strangers but that it is the feelings behind your choices to do this that are vital to look at.
I tend to check with myself now and ask myself my motivations for doing something, if they are to fill myself up from feeling lonely then maybe I should check out where and why that feeling came from first. The resulting feeling of loneliness will depend on the starting point.
And yes you are quite right the world of constant communication that we are moving to will raise very, very different children. We will have to take them to more mountain tops and more forests and let them walk by themselves to teach them it is ok to be alone.