| I take it all back Once upon a time a curious little girl was prompted to venture out into the big wide world of internet living. On her travels she discovered this here address and decided she would set up shot, plant roots, and stick around for awhile. That discovery happened, believe it or not, years ago! I've since finished high school, travelled, lived away from home and then come crawling back when money got too tight, worked, lived, loved a little and been loved a little in return.
This hasn’t always been my first port of call and I can safely say that I have neglected xanga greatly. (Facebook somehow stole my heart). But the benefits that other systems have offered beyond xanga are now, ironically, amongst the major reasons that have driven me back here, to this spot. You see, there is something about writing here that I don’t get from wielding pen and paper or talking it all out loud for somebody else’s ears. This forum provides a place that is private and where I can be unedited, as well as being a public forum that produces that sense of self nominated freedom- the 'I can say what I like and nobody can do a thing about it' policy. As I said, not so conspicuously in brackets earlier, facebook was/is my cyber drug of choice. Its major pulling power is that it provides access to such a massive cross-section of people that it’s hard not to keep in touch.
It’s funny how the tools we use to connect with people and that we intend to use to further our social nature as much as possible tends to, in the end, be the thing that we edit most heavily and purposefully screen. I am now at a point where I fully recognise the reality of not wanting every tom, dick and Harry to know my daily status. This tool that I intended to use to connect is prompting me to disconnect. Especially when there is a mix of people who I love and would really like to know where im at and what im really doing, as opposed to the rest whom I couldn’t really give a fiddlers fart about. Its work, meets uni, meets old school friends, random friends, friends of friends, youth kids, parents of youth kids, parents in general, teachers, family friends... you name it really. Sometimes to be genuinely and constructively open you need to be a little closed. Pouring your soul out to the general public and wearing your heart on your sleeve... even if it be behind the relative safety of a computer screen is... well...straight up unwise. It almost seems as though we need to sabotage our selves in order to constructively promote ourselves. Honesty can’t be pure otherwise people wouldn’t know what to do with it. That’s why here; I can throw about stupidity, honesty (in a pure form) and complex crap without fear of back lash. Being away from the public stage and submitting truth into obscurity seems... somehow, safer. Not that every man and his dog doesn’t have direct access to this anyway. But the general public aren't looking for what they can’t already see. Why bother to look for something that might not provide the goods they are already being fed. We sabotage ourselves despite ourselves.
We all do it and all know that everybody else does it.
Funnily enough, this is what we have come to expect from each other. To tell the full, honest, dirty, unedited truth is something that we all point the illusion of but don’t ever really dish out to each other. We, by nature, always hold back. Even when we don’t think we are... we are. It’s a norm. It’s a social convention. Very few people really want to know how you’re doing when they ask you how you are. And if you told them regardless... what would that do? It rocks the boat. And nobody likes a boat rocker. That makes ripples on the surface of the social created lake and if there are ripples then the setting it ruined. Calm, normal, social acceptable seas are what we provide without even noticing we are creating them. We encourage our children to follow in our footsteps. And the result... the great 'Edit'. Im not sure what this means for us, or for me. All im sure of is that it feels good to be back here and to feel safe enough to admit that, today, life doesnt seem to be living up to the hype. Its kind of like that blockbuster movie you waited months to see, paid an arm and a leg for a ticket to and then sat there for an hour and a half watching the clock and feeling your left ass cheek slowley go to sleep, wake up, get pins and needles in and then fall back asleep again. So, mr xanga man, good as this time apart has been...I take it all back.
The great edit is through... at least, it is at this address. |
