disconnection in connection...

i am guilty of the crime of mis-connection, dis-communication, modern technological nurturing of relationships...

i use facebook and e-mails and blogs to express how i feel, to connect my thoughts and beliefs and emotions and expressions to those outside my immediate being....

we do not have full conversations now, we just post a picture or a you tube video about our present state, and that we expect others will see and read on our wall on facebook, and understand... but maybe they do not see it, maybe they do not understand, maybe i did not SAY anything to them...

they did not hear me, they did not understand me, they did not listen and truly feel me... and when you shorten and simplify the deeper beautiful thoughts and emotions that come out through our forms of communication, we are also leaving short the fullness of the feelings behind those shallow short-formed versions....

we start and end relationships through these spheres, we check eachother out no longer in the bars, or via dates.... but through our myspace pages, our blogs, and if our relationship develops, even our facebook pages where eventually we may even come out and change our status to 'in a relationship', where then everybody who are 'shared friends' then discuss how so-and-so's status has changed, they are no longer single!!!

but then, when they break-up, and it is 'officially over' (this time.... again...), the status is then changed to single... this is how we know, a quick press of the button, and relationship, OVER!

these quick fixes, these save-able and delete-able proofs that relationships are now based on. Couples now draw on these stored and saved beautiful and horrible moments of exchange for future use in fights, in gossiping with friends, 'look at what he wrote, can you believe it? What do you think he meant? this..... or maybe this... i cannot tell, it could go either way...'

exactly, and we play now, we have become very clever with our words, and how we use them, so as to not offend, so as to not give the wrong impression, so as to not get stuck on the record, in trace-able proof that- yes, in fact that was said. But wait, how much are we shaping, framing, editing our words, our feelings, our thoughts... how much are we leaving out, how much are we adding in, just so we make sure that our ideally-perceived point gets across?

Do we even know how to have the conversations we claim to have online in real life? At some point in time, our exchanges through modern technology's use of communication becomes unplugged, and we need to carry on those relationships into real life... where we cannot hide behind our words, where we do not have spell check, and those numerous moments to rethink/regret, 'is that really what i want her to understand'? those moments when we move away from the camera, spruce up ourselves, so we 'look better', or delete that sentence, or word, so you don't give the wrong idea?

How about instead you make sure you are giving the right idea, the full complete honest idea? i am wondering, can you do it also in person.. Without any of that… can you do it?

can you not hide behind that screen, that keyboard, your profile, text message, blog updates and say it like it is? and also feel it like it is, and be comfortable with feeling and expressing those feelings 'out loud', actually laughing that laugh out loud?

can you go a day without updating your profile, without obsessively checking your bits of machinery for missed calls, messages, comments, updates.... you're checking so often that i have a feeling that you are missing the real calls, messages, updates.... lessons... of life... of real shared air-breathing, thus life-sustaining moments with another human being...

those things that we see and experience with our nature-given senses, originally placed in our bodies to use, to survive, off of and with the land... we cannot smell what we describe, read, hear, see on the Internet, we cannot feel it...

you can imagine, but you are not truly experiencing and using your senses, you are using your mind... we spend so much of our time on our machinery... that we have lost the ability to fully take in all the sensual, real, complete life experiences... we can get our quick fix easily... we do not yearn anymore for those real life processes, when we know we can avoid the difficult transitions, and aspects of real-time interactions, and efforts, and risks, and comforts… we can just send an e-mail, a fax, a voicemail, a text message, a post or a comment instead!

you want to feel loved, feel appreciated... you feel a bit down, lonely, horny, flirtatious, sad, angry.... just send someone a message somehow, you don't need to say all that you really are feeling, in fact you can completely change it, and express something else completely, put on a front, no one will ever know.... until they see you, in person, in real time... then they will know...

and when they do respond, and you receive a message expressing an emotion that seems to complement or nurture that which you sent to them... you feel better. You received your quick emotional fix, and you can send more and more and more... and receive more and more and more... who needs real life when all of your emotional needs can be received with the 'ting' of an animated bell, ‘message‘!

do you remember, or can you imagine the time, when we, as human species were only able to have deep emotional connections with our fellow human beings, because we were only connecting in real time, face-to-face... where we saw, we felt, we supported the true-ness of our beings? Where we could only develop and nurture so many friendships and relationships at a time, do you remember? Do you remember when we lived off the lan, truly shared and cared with and for the earth that sustained us….. Yes, i remember.

Friendships require time and patience and equal effort... our energy, our life... our emotions and our hearts and soul... when they lack in those, then, what kind of friendship are you claiming here, and would you want to sell yourselves short? How many friends on your profile, on your phonebook, on your friends list are your friends? How many do you see frequently, listen to their lives... as oppose to just reading about it, on a news feed, on their blog, when the truth is, they were not sitting there telling you, they were sitting in front of a screen expressing their thoughts through their fingertips... like i am now... this is not real...

if you asked me to do this in person, i could, slightly.. but it would not come out as clean, as concise... i will come back here to this piece many times and edit it, re-order it, change the words, use the thesaurus, choose the right word, i will reconsider typing in 'horny', i will mull over in my head if my writing will be accessible to many people, i want many people to be able to read this and take-away from this... and they will, if they read it, if they read my blog, if they want to stay in touch with me via my blog... i am sorry i cannot stay in touch with you in person,i am sorry that our relationship has come to this... but i thank you for still drawing on your emotions somewhere to read... i am not sure what your intention is in reading this, but i can tell you, this definitely is not our most natural way that we can possibly connect.

in fact, we now carry on relationships alone, from the 'comfort of our own home', alone.... but wait, doesn't a relationship involve 2 people? how is it that i can physically, be alone, but mentally, spiritually be connected to someone? I mean without the ‘assistance’ of modern technology as a medium?

and yet our methods of communication are consuming our lives, from the checking of the phone to our blog to our facebook to our e-mail to our display pic to our new photo album to our posting to our link to our CC, to our reply, to our aaahhhhh.... and we're addicted! How many people do you know who cannot leave home without their phone, who cannot truly be disconnected? How do you feel when you lose your phone? your blackberry? When your internet is down, or when your computer is sick, and god forbid needs to be sent back to the manufacturer? what will you do? how will u stay in touch? you will lose connection to the outside world....

now you will have to go deal with this... in the real world....

where people talk to people, to their faces... where you cannot hide behind the screen, and those consciously chosen, edited and reformulated sentences...

it is an epidemic, and children are born into it, they have learned the meanings of ‘connection‘ and about relationships in the land of modern technology… when their mom and their dad and their friends are staring at a screens all day long, that they have forgotten what it means and feels like to look into their child's eyes... and then their eyes get neglected…

no more do we use our eyes to look at each other, but to look at a glowing screen...

i am fortunate to have been able to live years of my life without a cell phone, without a laptop, growing up, born in 1983, we only had phone lines, landlines, one in the house, and if you wanted to see a friend, you called them, if the phone line was free, as we all shared, obviously... or you walked over to them to visit..

When you would have a fight- you had them in person, face-to-face…honest and real…

Then you would go home, mull them over, and you would have no choice but to face them in person.... no snooping to see what their updates and posts are, to see what they are and are not saying, who they are talking to, who they are adding as friends... you deal with it in person...

i don't want to have shallow conversations with people i really care about, i really like this idea of staying in touch, but i know, that i am not truly being a good friend to all those that are labelled my 'friend' in internet-land... in the land of modern technology... in the matrix we live our lives through.

Thus this is why I confess, I AM guilty of miscommunication, of disconnection, and i feel it, and we all do, but we cannot escape it... because this is how we communicate now…

So, keep in touch…

However life allows it….

In real-connection…

Au natural