I am a frequent reader of the blog "Breed 'Em and Weep," thanks to the long-ago recommendation of DK. Jen is a flawless writer, and I love her approach to everything, and how keenly she perceives everything.
My guess is that keen perception is particularly hard on her these days. Because I admire her writing and her family so much, and her love of her girls, I am particularly touched and saddened when she is facing crisis, as was the case this week. My thoughts go out to her, and I wish there was something that I can do.
As with any good writing, I find myself deeply caring for the writer, even if I never meet them. When I talk about the people that I read on the blogs to people that I know in "real time" so to speak, I find it as difficult to give them a title as I do with my brother's girlfriend. To me, Serena is more than just "my brother's girlfriend," and when MS proposed it suddenly got easier, as she gave me permission to call her my sister-in-law, even though they aren't married yet.
But the bloggers I read? How to introduce them? With the stigma that some narrow-minded people have of bloggers, I am lost to eye-rolling and the likeness that a 7-year-old has to his or her classmates when an imaginary friend is involved. I'm thinking of the movie "Chocolat" here when Anouk tells her schoolmates about Pontouf, her kangaroo--the children all mock Anouk and Pontouf by hopping around the play-yard at recess and taunting the girl with "Where's your kangaroo NOW?" If you start with the magic formula of an adult that doesn't read, add the fact that they don't visit the internet much, and then add the fact that all they've heard about blogging (if they know what blogging is at all, which happens more than I am prepared for this close to the Silicon Valley) comes from the renegade blogs of overthrowing the government, and soon the person that I'm talking to has forgotten the fascinating idea that I read on concrete or Breed 'Em or MoJo or Treated & Released and they instead think that I get my knowledge from the guy holed up in Idaho with a manifesto and a machete.
These layering worlds offer so much more. I guess I just expect the audience to be adventurers like me, and my real time acquaintances don't feel the need to leave the comfort zone. My not having a large, close family or strong support system means I get more than one world.
And that kangaroo on my left keeps me exploring the world.
:)
4 comments:
Or Cassie and Callie Lou.
And Jenn showed me a downside to the strange world of virtual connections too this week. I cant say to her that I think a mistake is being made. I wouldnt say it in real life either prolly, but it's horrible to stand painfully outside.
Writing from your city yesterday, Adam Rogers offered his perspective on the digital rift.
I rationalize. If, for example, you don't worry all that much about disconnecting from those who are, through chance or choice, far less educated or enlightened than you, then why mourn the lack of understanding between those whose biases or communication and learning styles prevent them from participating in conversations on the Web? There are plenty of people to whom you can more easily relate, and there's a finite capacity for real friendships, if you believe in Dunbar's number.
I think Robin is right.
Yes, I must agree as well. What makes me wrestle with this is a past where a friend once told me to be a good sport and hang out with people who aren't necessarily "like me" in the fact that I read the things I do, in the fact that I play the things that I do, in the fact that I love the things I do.
I was supposed to branch out. That ingrained lecture that I'm supposed to branch out from folks who want me to be more like them and less like me puts me back in the raised eyebrows award.
But I'm learning more and more to trust my gut instincts in that I don't have to be on the deserted island with everyone. I'm allowed to have a say too in picking out confidants who are loving of my opinions even if they don't necessarily agree.
Half the challenge lies in showing up. :)
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