I like to connect to people in the virtual world, exchanging thoughts and ideas, when in the physical world we might never have the opportunity to cross paths.
There is a lot of talk these days about the superficiality of social media - the silly tweets about going shopping or taking a shower or getting caught up in some media/celebrity frenzy that says little of substance about who we are. I've heard some say that virtual relationships are not real - that one cannot trust them because people can assume a persona that is nothing like the person they "really" are. And that's true in some respects. People can pretend to be other than who they really are; people can use social media just as a means of attention-seeking; people can substitute superficial virtual relationships for the real thing because for one reason or another they are detached from the real world. I don't deny any of that.
But there is another truth regarding relationships forged and maintained through social media and a virtual environment. I've commented on it before and several of you have told me that your marriages are a result of "meeting" someone online. I know, too, that some of you have made friendships that have lasted many years and are deeper than some you've had in the "real" world. That is certainly the case for me. Friendship is precious to me - whether it's in the physical world or the virtual one and these days, thanks to technology the line between the two can be very blurry. Skype allows us to see and speak to our "virtual" friends - as does Yahoo voice and video and other such services. I used to speak to a friend in London weekly and I prepared for that in the same way as I might have prepared for her to visit in person - I dressed for company, did my hair and makeup, tidied up the space around me, had my coffee ready to sit down together and be "present" to my friend.
Emerson once wrote an essay on friendship in which he said, "I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time." I feel that way about my "virtual" friends, too. I may choose or be forced into a somewhat isolated life for reasons of health or circumstance, but I honestly believe that my online friends know me, hear me and understand me every bit as well or better than others in the "real" world.
Which brings me to the reason for posting again on a topic I've spoken of before - the shared emotions in those virtual exchanges. One might wonder how you can actually "feel" someone else's pain or sorrow when you can't look upon their face, or when you are simply reading their posts. And yet who among us would deny that we do. I've had friends who have reached out to me when they were terribly depressed and just needed someone to "talk" to and I've done the same. In this past week or so, friends I met on various art sites have posted on Facebook about personal loss - the deaths of beloved parents, the serious illness or frightening surgery they are facing themselves, the discouragement they feel about their job search or art careers, etc. I think we "write" our emotions more carefully in the virtual world - and express more clearly what it is we feel and need from our friends. I think we are even more generous with support, encouragement, prayers and positive thinking than we might be otherwise.
This weekend, members of the art site, BlueCanvas, met in a way we used to meet - in a weekend forum where we shared features, poems, music, awards, congratulated and supported each other, talked about our lives at many levels and deepened our regard and appreciation of one another. That "BLUE Lounge" forum has not taken place for over a year - most of us have pursued other outlets for one reason or another, or our lives have pulled us away from that forum because of work or health or caregiving. And truthfully, the person who created that venue, carried too much of the burden of keeping the forum going - something those of you who host groups on other sites can appreciate, I'm sure. Nonetheless, this weekend, at the request of a number of old regulars, the BLUE Lounge opened again for an extended tribute to a FRIEND we lost recently - a friend almost none of us have ever met personally but whom we all loved and cherished. Our sense of loss is real, our grief is real, our desire to share that emotional response with one another, others whom we have never met either but love equally, is real. Thank you to my FRIENDS Berns, Chris and Foti and especially to Rosie for making this tribute to Aldolfo Hector Penas Alvarado possible and for reminding us of just how precious our virtual friendships are.
For Adolfo:
THE SILENT STONES
The lowering sky is mourning
gray and somber above
the silent stones that mark
your coming and your going.
They speak naught of who
you were and yet still are -
father, son, brother, spouse,
mother, daughter, sister, spouse.
What says the marble slab of
that which only I could know?
The blessing that your were?
The joy that only you could bring?
An eloquent language of silence
drowns out the syntax
of the wind, though it lifts me
upon its transcendent current
to some place above, beyond,
farther still - past all the limits
of time or space or language
itself - past thought or sentience,
in sacred consummation,
in ecstatic communion
with your eternal thou
not bound to ashes now interred
beneath the silent stones
that bear your names.
© Lianne Schneider 2010
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