Communication or Something Else?

We in the West have been involved with personal computers now for over thirty years.  All of the developed world and even many parts of the developing one have also discovered, and not just recently, the attraction and now (in many cases) the psychological dependence on this transformative mode of communication.  This blogger joined the participants and pilgrims along the Information Superhighway little more than three years ago (and in late middle age) after balking like many an old fuddy-duddy when confronted with a new fangled entity.  Fear was overcome with the usual societal tools: a bit of peer pressure and the seductive rewards of a fantastic invention that is truly akin to a magic carpet ride.

Today my use of the computer may honestly be characterized as bordering on that of an addict's, and though I am not fearful of such a possible state of affairs, now seems a proper time to examine what may be profitable and what may be of no use or genuine value about this tremendously omnipresent phenomenon in our society.  Two things that I learned rather quickly when first learning to send messages, particularly e-mail "letters", were that folks are disinclined to elaborate on their communiques and that any fantasy that I nurtured about the "Art of Letter Writing" enjoying a renaissance with this electronic and highly convenient machine would remain just that: an unrealized dream. Also, my life- long proclivity to revel in "chatterboxing" on paper as well as in person, I have discovered, needn't be thwarted, but that I must not delude myself that anything but a monologue or a long winded blog entry like this one and the others I have generated for the last two years or so, are the forums available for my "cries in the wilderness."  It is really not such a bad arrangement.  I can (and do) pontificate to my heart's content and no one is offended or even ever reads my "scribblings", save for the few unknown souls around the globe who stumble upon my blog or other comments in cyberspace.  It is largely, a hopefully safe and innocuous enough endeavor.  But communication?  That is a two-way street, and interactive features of my big grown-up's toy seem to not excel as satisfying devices to facilitate this very human and profound need.  What of "chat rooms" one might ask?  Am leery of this world wherein anonymity is naturally built into its structure and this in fact, may be said of all communications on the mighty internet.

Misunderstandings can abound on the "web" if one is predisposed to vent one's spleen or criticize, however constructively, especially when engaging a stranger, with an honest but brief remark.  I have been guilty, while motivated by again frankly, a great hunger to engage a kindred spirit and intellect, of making statements that were neither vapid nor dutifully cheerful and encouraging.  Several were, admittedly, by the standards of the "don't be controversial" unwritten rules of etiquette, provocative (merely thought provoking I would contend) or even acerbic.  For example, recently a person in a "group" or sub-site of the enormously popular social network Facebook posted a photograph of the aftermath of the 1920 bombing on Wall street.  A fellow member of the site indicated that she "liked" this image by "clicking" on the "thumbs-up" icon.  Thousands, nay millions of times daily, persons express their approval of most anything on the "net" by voting as it were, with this method.  Normally, images, photos, videos, manifestos, poems, etc. are aesthetically pleasing, entertaining or mirth giving and thus a sign of approval is expected, much like the clapping of hands by an appreciative audience.  But because of the subject matter of this particular photo, i.e. violent deaths of people, horses and destruction of property, a "thumb's up" seemed an intriguing reaction and one that merited some sort of elaboration or the following question that I posed in the "Comments" section: "Why, precisely, do you like this?"  Well, mine was apparently an impertinent interrogative as measured by the eager responses from others who seemed to rush to the defense of this "liker" of a documentation of a disaster.  Hers was an easily explained point about the composition of the photo and the historically important event depicted, but the "like" icon was not sufficient to make her views clear. For my part, I felt compelled to elaborate as well and to assure all that I was not "attacking" the lady involved.  It seemed as if I were perceived as a disruptive party all because I sought some honest discussion and expansion of a point of view that a "like" indicator could not adequately provide.  The pressure for concision and the apparently preferred conformity of digesting information with a certain rapidity and an eagerness to deal with myriad stimulations, etc. are dictates of the modern computer age that I find deeply unsatisfying.  This pace of life where items, ideas and reflective ways of cogitating and communicating are instead telescoped and subject to an inevitable skimming and superficial treatment, cause me to doubt whether all the kudos heaped upon the P.C. and its allied gadgetry are truly deserved and to consider whether or not meetings "in the flesh" and other traditional methods of social engagement are the purest and finest ones to further understanding and good will.  McLuhan said  many years ago that the "medium is the message."  It would be most unfortunate if messages sent or received were somehow subtly but irreparably garbled by intrinsic modifications of cyber space and its filtering essence.

Post Graduate Party Pooper

The end of the Christmas season is nigh.  Tomorrow is the feast of Epiphany and soon ornaments, lights, displayed greeting cards, a creche and other tokens of the holidays will be stored away until the "rolling year" has completed another roll.  There is something ineffably sad about these tasks, the pangs made perhaps a bit more piercing because of the failure to begin the process of decorating nearer to the days immediately after Thanksgiving than to the days just prior to Christmas day itself.

The melancholy, it must be made clear, begins to intrude even before the old year is chased into the shadows of immutable history along with the unwanted piles of used up wrapping paper, tossed confetti and lipstick stained champagne glasses.  Too many strikings of the clock at midnight and too many ambivalent stirrings about the old year and the uncertain new one, conjoined with more than a few unpleasant events in the wee hours of the first day of more than a few Januarys, have afforded, if not wisdom, then a certain great reserve and prudence about embracing the giddiness almost demanded by twenty-something revelers who, oblivious to their bladders and arthritis free limbs, fear not their choices or their even already rutted paths, as they stand for many an hour jammed along The Great White Way to note deliriously a manmade delineation between our past and our hopes for what may or may not come.

There is no good reason to dismiss these youthful bands as misguided or foolish.  May as well separate frolicking puppies and scold them for their antics.  Play is for the young and their celebration is for life itself.  There is no need to darken their light.  They will discover the clouds on their own and a contemplative mindset may not necessarily dim their ardor for childlike joy and merriment, nor should it.  But for we of a more somber nature, demarcations between commencement and cessation somehow remind that finiteness is the commander of the universe, much like the summer solstice announces the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer while it simultaneously yet declares the unstoppable waning of summer's sway. Or as a pre-Vatican II priest of my early youth proclaimed the title of more than one of his homilies: "Every Cradle Is a Coffin".