Gimme Real

I have a confession to make.

I'm not really a blogger.

I despised the fundamental concept of blogging when its popularity surged years ago. What a ghastly display of narcissism and selfishness I perceived it to be! That anyone could deem themselves to be so special that others would seek them out and flock en masse to their site, just to read what they had for breakfast, was appalling to me. Even more mortifying was the lack of responsibility and accountability demonstrated by many in the blogosphere. The very word blog conjured up images of something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of my shoe: Hold up a minute, I stepped in some blog.
That said, however, I appreciated the innovation behind those formative weblogs that dealt with locus, more than focus. But online diaries? I found them to be highly offensive to my sensibilities, perhaps because I intimately knew someone who manipulated and abused the trust of his readers.

I have always argued against the ideal of "virtual community". I believe that real community can be enhanced by, but never replaced with, interactions available in the virtual world. The veiled anonymity afforded us within virtual communities spawns stunted social skills and the abandonment of social conscience. Real people, and real relationships, require face to face interaction: body language, discourse, honesty, and accountability.

I think many folks, as they slowly lose their grip on the real world at the hands of technology, substitute virtual interaction in its place, and are inclined to give too much – or the wrong kind of – information in an effort to validate their "real-ness" to people they don't even know, and probably never will. I'm observing that many people have evolved beyond mere co-dependency; rather, they have become universally-dependent, requiring the validation of strangers in order to determine their self-worth.

As I began to tentatively wiggle my toes in the blogosphere, I made a promise to myself that I would not become universally-dependant. I know my worth, and I know that it is ultimately determined by me and my actions, not what some anonymous person thinks or says, or whether I achieve a quota of views in any given day.

I began to write for me. I wrote to understand, more than to be understood. And after a while, I found my voice and adopted a surprisingly affectionate and somewhat tolerant view towards blogging. At the very least, I try to construct meaningful social commentary, and deconstruct changes like the migration to virtual community. As I mentioned in an ancient blog, if anyone else likes what they read here, I consider it a bonus. And if they don't, that's okay, too; they are under no contractual obligation to read what I write.

The contemplative comments spurred by my last post reminded me of a question posed by another friend in response to answers on a survey I posted recently. He wondered why I would consider walking down a street nude, yet not consider posing nude for a magazine.

My unequivocal response? Permanence.

It is a fairly safe bet that if you compromise yourself in a virtual community or relationship, at least one other person has captured the act. As a result, the one-night-stand writing exercise cybersex that so many people indulge in because it's not really cheating (pfffft), or the borderline-pornographic photos that some people like to share with the world, or the slam against a co-worker is on at least one other hard drive somewhere. Folks, that's permanence. The act of preserving something virtual makes it real. Real is truth. Truth doesn't go away when you log off of your computer. My personal rule of thumb is I will not post anything that I wouldn't say to someone's face, or stand up and defend in a court of law.

Meaningful.

Permanence.

Anything else is just virtual graffiti, bytes scratched out in thoughtless haste, verbal or visual spoor forever staining the cache of the virtual world. A caricature of who we really are.

I think of some of the profiles and blogs I have read, posted by females who don't comprehend that they are setting women back for decades for the sake of a little anonymous attention, or posted by males who are incapable of grasping the concept that yeah, it really is cheating. People who believe anything they read or hear, sometimes at the expense of someone they'll never know.

Meaningful permanence . . . the difference between graffiti and art.