In article <[email protected]>,
Lisa Walton wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>,
>Sweet Poly wrote:
>[...]
>
>>Yes, I agree, based mostly on my own personal experience and that of my
>>friends. For example, I have a really hard time writing offline at this
>>point. I don't know if it's because it's easier to write online because
>>of the sense of the 'audience' on the other end, or something else.
>
>*sigh* Before computers I wrote neatly and eligibly - now its a
>scrawl, and writing on paper seems so tedious and unnecessary. It cost
>me some computerless friends though...
Yeah, I know what you mean. The world is gonna divide along lines of
whether you're a 'computer person', or not -- like whether you're
a smoker, or not... Some months ago, I think .mpa wrote that it was
kinda disconcerting when he realized that the question of computer use
was one of the first things to come up when making new acquaintances, and
if the other person is a non-computer type, the possibility of friendship
is limited... (or something like that -- apologies to Michael if I got
that wrong)
Email is _the_ way to go -
>more immediate and intimate than snail mail, less confrontational and
>demanding than a phone conversation (one-channel real-time).
I agree. I'm gonna try to get my mom into it.
>When you're online, you can add the flourishes that create an illusion
>of multi-channel communication - gestures, carefully crafted verbal
>pictures...
True, but there's another form of being 'online': ytalk. Immediate
real-time communication. I may not have as much time to craft my words
as carefully in ytalk as in email, but a distinct 'culture' does arise
from it -- a "place" is created, and a way of being there is worked out
among the participants. How do you know when somebody is done typing,
for example?
>[...]
>
>>Well, I've never been to a Revival meeting, but I know what you mean.
>>Ross, I am glad you posted this. I agree that there are some
>>"interesting" phenomena taking place, but it's so personal, and difficult
>>to describe, that there is very little (if any) discussion of it in
>>public. Nobody wants to be laughed at. I don't know how deep this thread
>>will go, but I think it's important to talk about this, so here it goes...
>
>Very true. Wish I understood it better, so I'll contribute my .02 even
>though this thread seems to have become a bit turbulent since this
>post...
Didn't it though?
>>nothing was ever the same. Lord only knows how much money I saved myself
>>on therapy , by being here -- it was the strangest thing. Everything
>>about myself that had no room to exist in RL, came pouring out through the
>>connection, as if connecting opened up a little chink in the wall that
>>shut me in.
>
>This sounds like a spiritual awakening (I do not equate spiritualism
>with religion btw). Belief in (or reliance on) the scientific method
>can coexist with an awareness of a different "spiritual" (non-RL)
>reality. People who have only one seem to me to be only half alive.
>Without the former one is lost in ignorance and delusion, without the
>latter one stifles to death in the prosaic banalities of daily
>existance.
>
>Rational thought is necessary, but so (as you once said) are stories.
Yes. We may be entering a time where Rational thought is put into its
proper place, and room for the other half of being human is allowed to
flourish. But I wouldn't divorce "spiritual" from RL, either. I've said
that I don't like making the distinction between "real life", and
cyberspace -- that the distinction is really just for the sake of
conversational convenience...
>We need the creative outpouring of writers, poets and other artists
>and to listen to those urges within ourselves. Participating in the
>collective creation of special "places" such as the ranch, is like
>wending through and gamboling in the dreams of many souls.
People have always used the telling of stories to make sense of the world
around them, of their experience in being alive. Right now, I think that
people are *starved* for the stories they need to help them understand
what we are all going through here at the end of the second millenium of
the common era. We all know that the rate of change is accelerating
exponentially (or it feels like it, at least). Personally, I love
American folk tales (Paul Bunyon, Pecos Bill, etc.) but those stories
don't go very far in helping me understand what it means to have a
physical reaction to text I'm reading on a screen written by somebody
1600 miles away, for example.
>>as being 'real', BTW. I couldn't keep 'Poly' within the bounds of
>>cyberspace, and the chink became a huge gap -- but she was not acceptable
>>at home. Now, that home is gone, and I have all the room I need.
>
>But what do you do if being many people in one (having many personae)
>is the way you feel in RL, and that the appalling tension is that no
>one person seems to be able to deal with all of what you can be? If
>they were masks you could shed them, but if what they really are are
>different facets of the same soul, hidden and revealed in complex and
>subtly shifting patterns, what then?
Well, my solution was to find somebody who is more than capable of
appreciating all of that richness and complexity. I've been blessed,
though... Nobody wears all of their hats at once -- we're all a shifting
kaleidescope of persona, changing over the course of our lives, as well.
I guess that as long as *you* can deal with all of your possible facets,
that's what really matters.
>I understand about expanding beyond the bounds put around you, and
>facing the tensions that arise... From minor things such as being
>irreverently whimsical in a group of "serious intellectuals" to more
>major contentions such as having a 'spirituality' that does not
>conform to any religion or philosophy that is "acceptable" to the
>questionner.
>
>Having 'room' is very necessary. The one time I tried to build a
>'real home' it became a trap. Home is now a space that I create for
>myself, spiraling out from the place I feel most safe at the time,
>extending across time and space to places and people I care about -
>both present and not, both living and dead.
I should try to develop that attitude, then, as I'm pretty homeless at
the moment. I mean, a corner of my sister's living room just isn't what
I think of when I think of "home".
> >
>>At this point, all I know to do is trust my instincts, to trust my inner
>>authority, which grows more confident with each passing month. Nobody
>>has ever been here before, and it is truly uncharted territory -- and we
>>are all so caught up in *experiencing* it that it's difficult to stand
>>back and look at it objectively, to see what is happening here. I'm just
>>taking notes as best as I can, to refer back to when I start to gain some
>>perspective from the passage of time.
>
>Some of us are not so much caught up in experiencing it as caught up
>in trying to understand -it-.
Of course one tries to comprehend experience, to understand what one is
going through, at the time of the event. I'm just saying that being here
is so intense, and happening so fast, that it's just not possible to have
had the amount of experience -- the passage of time required -- to see
what it is that you've just gone through. My RL is like that too. I
can't see where I've been until I'm past it somewhat, although I have an
idea -- only the distance of time can allow me to see a period of my live
clearly.
This forum seems to either be teeming
>with inane or scurrilous drivel, or to have so much going on that
>there is no time to encompass it in time to particiapate. The ones
>that do dive in fully get thoroughly pummeled, at least occasionally
>(some frequently) lose their objectivity, but have a wonderful time.
>
>I do not consider myself to be in that category, because I rarely post
>to anything occurring outside The Ranch - The Roof spirals from my
>Safe Space, and intermingles with the harmony/cacophany that is The
>Ranch.
You've found a way to be here that is comfortable for you. Is that not
enough?
>Speaking of which, Sym and I are about to go visit Zeitgeyser, who is
>in serious need of some PB&Brimstone, on the porch...
Yes, thank you for that. I'm sure it's much appreciated. He got pretty
beat up.
T---A
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A-T Sweet Poly
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T-A et caro factum verbum est
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