the internet and connections

[threeplusfire]

I am free of the tyranny of work, and though I must be up early I am drinking a beer while I type. It is a good thing, and I feel as if I have earned this American right to sit down with a beer after work. Honey Brown is a most excellent beer, after all.

Halfway through the evening I called Cate, one of the first livejournal friends I met in the waking world. I miss having her here, and I'm hoping she will crash at our place when she visits Austin. She has a voice that contains so many shades, that I could close my eyes and use it to paint.

Later on, I saw a comment in the journal of one of the people nearest my heart from someone on her feelings. I made what a thought was a rather restrained reply, and recieved a rather over the top reply in turn. While it did provide an hour's worth of amusement while I pondered flood plains and certified properties, the central issue has been on my mind ever since.

These journals exist for many reasons. A journal's most basic purpose, online or on paper, is to exist as a record of one's thoughts, feelings, impressions and life in general. Here on Livejournal, journals can exist for fictional lives, announcements, comics, communities and many other things.

But what is a journal? Why have one? What can you do with it?

I believe very strongly that one should be able to decide the contents of one's journal, and no one should dictate what subject matter is appropriate for it save the writer. These journals are our voices, for good or ill. Especially in America, where our Constitution declares everyone to have an equal voice and the right to use it. (Caveat: I am not addressing journals created for nefarious purposes, or journals wherein the owner uses it as a weapon against someone else. That's another issue for another day.)

One can write about the most personal and the most mundane, post quiz results, letters to the editor that may or may not get sent, political grandstanding, grocery lists, etc, etc. One can expose the darkest secrets of the heart here, in public or in heavily filtered entries. One can record excruciating minutae. However, at the end of the day, the reader must remember that this is only part of the story.

One's journal is a direct line to the person behind it, and as such it provides a highly specific and biased view. It makes no claim to objectivity. Within this electronic medium, one loses certain things like tones, body language, volume, expression and other contextual clues. One compensates for the loss with more specific vocabulary, emoticons, images, and subtle cues written into the posts. The journal exists as one window into the soul.

I have several close friends that I met on livejournal long before I ever met them in the flesh. I have talked several friends from my day to day life into creating their own journals. I know a lot about them, and so it is easy to fill in the gaps with firsthand knowledge. With so many others, I must remind myself that I don't know their lives. I don't, even if I spend hours every week reading about them.

Walking a mile in another person's shoes is underrated these days. We subsitute virtual experience for the waking world. We live vicariously in so many ways. While there is great good to be said of the internet and all the connections it has wrought, it still can not replace our connections in flesh. One must blend the two into something shining and new, and use both aspects to the limits of their potential.

Travelling is one of the greatest things one can do for one's self. It allows one so many opportunities to expand one's perceptions and acquaintances. One day, I hope to get to know so many of you more. I hope to sit down across a table from you, and see what color the windows into your soul are face to face.

Comments

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I like your thoughts about LiveJournal.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[newbabel.livejournal.com]

One day, I hope to get to know so many of you more. I hope to sit down across a table from you, and see what color the windows into your soul are face to face.

The feeling is entirely mutual.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

The Livejournal World Tour - for when I win the lottery. :D

[a311renegade.livejournal.com]

Livejournal has helped me to be a little more open sometimes, even when there's no one around to be open to. I get mad sometimes when I stop posting.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I am glad to see you here! And you must post! I want to hear about your evil plans for milk and nefarious chemicals, and when are you going to set it all on FIRE? :)

[a311renegade.livejournal.com]

Ah, the milk. I am having a big talk with Dr. Allen about my project on Tuesday and I am starting the cells back up this week. So much shit to do that I have been putting off. I have no doubts that I will be posting of the horrors soon... maybe I can get you a good deal on some ricin :-P

[tinywarrior.livejournal.com]

My world is full because of this place. I still remember sitting in Metro with you the first time we met. I still smoked then and the air smelled of Camels and coffee, a scent that I still very much associate with the best conversations I've ever had. Now so much time has passed and so much has changed, but we've seen each other through almost all of it together. Who would have ever guessed that we'd become such great friends? And that, even without everything else, makes LJ worth its salt. : )

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I still have that little notebook, full of half incomprehensible scribbles from bars and bathrooms all over the Czech Republic.

I agree, LJ has made such an impact in my life and that alone outweighs any other annoyances I might have with it. Your friendship is one of the things I treasure most, and who know clicking a mouse could be such a life changing event?

Alan demands you come down soon, by the way. He very much wants you to stay with us, on the off chance he'll see you topless. :P

[snaxxx.livejournal.com]

"Honey brown?", I thought, as I began reading your entry, "I'd prefer a pale ale myself".
And then I was blown away by the words that followed.
You eloquently put into words many of the thoughts I have on this subject.
I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to peek into both your window and Cate's.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I had not had Honey Brown previously, and it was pretty tasty. I'm all colors beer person myself, everything from the Guinness to the Pilsner. :)

Thank you for your compliments, and I'm glad it was an entry worth reading. I can never tell if what I'm writing at 2am is good or just wacky.

[snaxxx.livejournal.com]

Beers of many colors? Then maybe you and Alan should show up for nucleartacos, and try some homebrew. Next Nuclear Taco Night is this Wednesday, and I think the current selection in the kegerator is a Vienna and a Schwarzbeer. I think decibel45 and I will be racking and brewing tomorrow evening.

Always a good idea to get there early, if you want some of the mild batch. After that, there's no holds barred on the red savina.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Ahh, if only we didn't have to work nights! I thank you muchly for the invitation though, it sounds like a blast.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

I hope to sit down across a table from you, and see what color the windows into your soul are face to face.

A beautiful post with such a beautiful conclusion..I love this image.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Anytime, anytime. Most every day, in fact. ;)

But seriously, I am glad you enjoyed it.

[quietexpression.livejournal.com]

That was so beautiful .. and so true.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Thank you muchly. :D

[serpina.livejournal.com]

I also really appreciate this post.

One thing I've noticed is how my own relationship with my journal fluctuates and changes over time. I imagine that that's a fairly common phenomenon. And you're right about the journal being one window into the soul -- there are so many mistaken assumptions that can be made following from the expectation that one's full story is recorded here and full personality is somehow inscribed and captured in one's livejournal.

For me, a lot of the dumb, mundane stuff I used to talk to with my partner now shows up more in my livejournal . . . I'm aware that it doesn't make for interesting reading, but I also spend such a vast amount of time alone that it's a welcome release to place those thoughts somewhere so that I can move on from them. But imagining that someone might think that that's the sum total of what I think about, and how I think about it . . . well, it's quite ridiculous. I'd prefer to live my life happily and completely and have an incomplete online persona than be an incomplete person and the best livejournal read there ever was. Not to suggest for a moment that people who have entertaining livejournals don't have wonderful lives. I just mean that I agree with you that these relationships between author and journal are very personal and individual.

I didn't see the post you were referring back to a few days ago, and I have a feeling that it's just as well, but I'm glad that your later mention of it led me back here to read this.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

The flame war that led to this post was one of the lamest things I've ever participated in, precisely because the girl on the other end was a hysteric.

Livejournal is at heart a weird social experiment with too few control factors I think. But on the bright side, that allows us all to have such a personal relationship to it. In the end it all works out.