You know the adage, a friend is someone you call to help you move, a true friend is someone you call to help you hide a body.
What do you call a true friend who's trying too hard?
I'm an Hikikkomori--by the standard definition. I don't leave my room save to go to the kitchen and sneak some food, or to use the bathroom, or on a 7-11 run. My world consists of the Internet and a hyper-detailed fantasy life where nothing that hurts is allowed to exist.
Or at least I was.
Sure, I am still on IRC, 3 networks to be precise, friends with the same people, talking, chatting, you name it (yes, that too...). It gets to be that one forgets the difference between the fantasy world and the Real World(TM). Except here, unlike my stint on DALnet while at the University of Maryland in 2000, I had people on the inside, "digital people" helping me get out.
It seems to me that we're, and this is treason, nigh-on heresy for a technologist, that we are too connected. We have twitter so people know our every move, so long as it's 150 characters or less (great for chess...), we have AIM, Skype, etc., etc., etc. But when people seriously believe they are their digital life, that Meatspace is just a means to getting more shiny stuff to better enjoy their interactions not with real people but with the "digital people" they've surrounded themselves with, it's time to take a step back and unplug.
No, I'm not going Amish, and no, "digital people" friends of mine, I am not going off the grid or leaving IRC or anything. I mean philosophically. What did we do before all of this? Books, radio, TV, movies and penpals. Pretty much the same things we do now, right? Well, on the last, I'm blessed, I've two, one in England, the other in an undisclosed location because I don't want to incur her ire. Movies: YouTube and TPB get them ahead of time. TV, well, that's why we have tuner cards and Myth. Radio: podcasts. Books?
I became Hiki the second time primarily due to writers' block, when I had 2 working manuscripts and couldn't think which one was worth saving, which to stick in a drawer, what to do at all. Among other things. So I surrounded myself with "digital people."
And fell for one. Fast. Hard. I'm not going to gush or wax poetic or even give details. Privacy is a thing to be treasured, cherished, guarded under lock, key, and the 82nd Airborne. Oh, and some hamsters, just to confuse. A "digital people" friend of mine kept warning and warning and warning me of my love, trying to do one thing: stop us both from getting hurt. See, I'm in NY. M'love? Not. Same country, different timezone. Long distance is hard enough when you start out physically together and diverge. My "digital people's" theory? It's even harder when you start out apart and converge and diverge like a double-helix.
In a sense, he's right.
But it seems to me, that with all of my need to unplug for a while, optimism, even rose-tinted glasses (No, love, not a blue rose, rose rose)...wait. A blue rose...hmm. Blue roses are impossible. They cannot exist. But maybe, in this age of microblogging, "digital people" and going Hikikkomori, maybe the blue rose of a double-helix working is exactly the emblem of the times:
It seems to me that everything impossible socially, somewhere, in some corner of the globe, or some corner of the 'Net, is somewhere to be found. And, it seems to me, even for "digital people" friends who mean all the world and who try too hard, even blue roses will eventually come to pass.
I guess I should pick up botany as a hobby?
What do you call a true friend who's trying too hard?
I'm an Hikikkomori--by the standard definition. I don't leave my room save to go to the kitchen and sneak some food, or to use the bathroom, or on a 7-11 run. My world consists of the Internet and a hyper-detailed fantasy life where nothing that hurts is allowed to exist.
Or at least I was.
Sure, I am still on IRC, 3 networks to be precise, friends with the same people, talking, chatting, you name it (yes, that too...). It gets to be that one forgets the difference between the fantasy world and the Real World(TM). Except here, unlike my stint on DALnet while at the University of Maryland in 2000, I had people on the inside, "digital people" helping me get out.
It seems to me that we're, and this is treason, nigh-on heresy for a technologist, that we are too connected. We have twitter so people know our every move, so long as it's 150 characters or less (great for chess...), we have AIM, Skype, etc., etc., etc. But when people seriously believe they are their digital life, that Meatspace is just a means to getting more shiny stuff to better enjoy their interactions not with real people but with the "digital people" they've surrounded themselves with, it's time to take a step back and unplug.
No, I'm not going Amish, and no, "digital people" friends of mine, I am not going off the grid or leaving IRC or anything. I mean philosophically. What did we do before all of this? Books, radio, TV, movies and penpals. Pretty much the same things we do now, right? Well, on the last, I'm blessed, I've two, one in England, the other in an undisclosed location because I don't want to incur her ire. Movies: YouTube and TPB get them ahead of time. TV, well, that's why we have tuner cards and Myth. Radio: podcasts. Books?
I became Hiki the second time primarily due to writers' block, when I had 2 working manuscripts and couldn't think which one was worth saving, which to stick in a drawer, what to do at all. Among other things. So I surrounded myself with "digital people."
And fell for one. Fast. Hard. I'm not going to gush or wax poetic or even give details. Privacy is a thing to be treasured, cherished, guarded under lock, key, and the 82nd Airborne. Oh, and some hamsters, just to confuse. A "digital people" friend of mine kept warning and warning and warning me of my love, trying to do one thing: stop us both from getting hurt. See, I'm in NY. M'love? Not. Same country, different timezone. Long distance is hard enough when you start out physically together and diverge. My "digital people's" theory? It's even harder when you start out apart and converge and diverge like a double-helix.
In a sense, he's right.
But it seems to me, that with all of my need to unplug for a while, optimism, even rose-tinted glasses (No, love, not a blue rose, rose rose)...wait. A blue rose...hmm. Blue roses are impossible. They cannot exist. But maybe, in this age of microblogging, "digital people" and going Hikikkomori, maybe the blue rose of a double-helix working is exactly the emblem of the times:
It seems to me that everything impossible socially, somewhere, in some corner of the globe, or some corner of the 'Net, is somewhere to be found. And, it seems to me, even for "digital people" friends who mean all the world and who try too hard, even blue roses will eventually come to pass.
I guess I should pick up botany as a hobby?
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