The Plunge
Ok, this is it. I succumb. Kicking and screaming! I love pencils. I love listening to the sound of graphite as it scratches and scrapes across paper. I love paper...sketching paper, print paper, yellow legal pads, pink stickies. I like my handwriting. The sound of my fingers clicking away on a keyboard brings me spiraling down to our digital "connectedness." Our advanced society where you can't know someone's thoughts until you see them on public display on the internet. A friend of mine recently spoke on how technology brings us together. I'm sure it was a great lecture, but sitting here now by myself at my kitchen table with the cold hum of my iBook as my only companion (except for Bijou, she's loyal), I'm not feeling the love. There's no face to smile at me. No voice to sing to my soul. Not even an IM smiley as a response. Just the invisible face of 802.11b (yes, B!) wireless , the voice of TCP/IP to translate my thoughts into packets, and the thousands of miles of fiber connecting me and you.
Thus begins the blog. The great brain dump of our time...our disconnected, post-modern way of connecting. So with the beginning of a new era comes the fury and anguish of the death of a beautiful thing: relationship.
posted by Christy Randalll @ 6:22 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
As Bethany can affirm, I too like writing utensils, paper, and other manual/visual tools. The problem is geography and time. 90% of our friends and family live in different corners of the Earth. They would hardly ever hear from us if we constrained our communication to the lovely scratchings of graphite on wood pulp. I will also be the first to admit that although technology seems to connect us, there is something to be said for the medium in which words are communicated. In speech there is gesture, intonation, and facial expression. In writting there is handwriting with subtle hints to the state of mind, and obvious clues to the personality. In a blog, or other preformatted text communication, the words themselves must carry all the meaning, intent, and subtility on their own. You can see it as either a fatal weakness, or a mad challenge.
I don't think my goal is to truly subdue the muse...she is not "tame lion." I suppose the goal is to get the bit in her mouth enough that I can hold on for those mad gallops across the fields of creativity.
Thanks to both Daniel and Bethany for their comments on the blog's place in relationship and communication. Sometimes I suspect my raging against the blog is my own need for intimacy crying out for more. But seeing it as a tool in the portfolio or a supplement to a healthy diet of face-to-face communication puts it in a better perspective.
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