Sunday Sermon [Isolation vs. Solitude]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Today, I’m looking forward to meeting with some of my 360/ ‘Ply friends.

We all come here for different reasons. For me, politics is not just about some bullshite opinion or ideology -- it's part of what i do and who I am. The personal is poltical. Whatever! No one can tell you WTF to post or not post, or how to behave. If you’re busy being an online “arbitrageur,” then WTF is going on in your life? Don’t like my blogs? There’s an easy solution: don’t read them!

I wrote the following the last time my blog was deleted (less than a year ago. LOL!). It still stands…

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-=[ Isolation vs. Solitude ]=-

“The whole point of Jesus' life was not that we should become exactly like him, but that we should become ourselves in the same way he became himself. Jesus was not the exception but the great example.”

-- Carl G. Jung

Some people really do need to develop a support network outside of Yahoo/ the internet. This shouldn’t be the sole, or even the major, form of human interaction. Apparently, for some people it is and I find that troubling. I could understand if one is living in, let’s say, the Tundra, or some other remote area, or if someone has severe physical limitations. However, if this is how you connect to other human beings, then I am saddened because it’s an indication of that most virulent of human afflictions: self-imposed isolation.

Personally, I can identify with the urge to isolate, because I’m great at it. I have learned over the years, however, that there’s a difference between isolation and solitude. Isolation is the primal anxiety-ridden sense of feeling apart from others, whereas solitude is time spent realizing how you are a part of others.

Too much time alone for me is dangerous because I tend to be persuaded by my inner committee. Perhaps you’re familiar with the committee I speak of here? It’s that committee that somehow rationalizes you doing some stupid-assed crazy shit like going off verbally on another 360 blogger (and even reporting them! LOL!), or the voices telling you to be jealous because s/he has to be playing you dirty though you have no real proof aside from the psychotic ranting of your inner voices.

I can’t be with my committee too long without doing something that fucks up my serenity and balance. That’s why I have a support network in the real world who will tell me that some of my ideas are plain crazy. I need that especially when my committee takes over. I have a friend who will tell me, “Are you stark raving mad?!!” and laugh about it. My support network is the voice of reason that will tell me that spending hours and hours in front of computer screen and imagining that could ever take the place of real human interaction is crazy.

It is insane…

Well, actually, it’s not insane, but I find it’s a subtle form of avoiding the real issue. It’s easy to confide in a stranger, or someone you’ve never met. I have a friend who does that all the time when it comes to the women he dates. He won’t, however, vent with me because I know that oftentimes his problems with women are more about his shortcomings than theirs. He won’t come to me because he knows I won’t co-sign his bullshit. However, when he gets into enough pain, I’m one of the few people he will share with because he knows that, while I won’t put up with the bullshit, I will be there to reflect for him a different aspect of a reality we all sometimes have a problem grasping fully.

You really can’t do that here – at least not effectively. Communication is 70-80% nonverbal. That means that, as close and intimate you may feel with someone here, you’re still missing a huge part of the emotional, physical, and psychological message. Where is the tactile sense of another person? What about the nonverbal cues? How can my neuropsychological needs connect with your neurobiology so that we can create that all-important mammalian for touch, connection, and understanding?

The hard part is that the ‘net can be very seductive in giving you the false sense of the intimacy/ friendship you desire.

It’s not the same.

You need to go out there and get involved in life and be unafraid of your imperfections and whether people will accept you or not. Creating an online persona and making that your “self” is an affliction, people.

Finally, when there is so much invested in this created virtual personality any perceived attack is seen as almost life-threatening and your reactions seem almost psychotic to others.

I guess this is how people get to reporting others, because they have no real lives and they have so much invested in this virtual life? Go out there and get involved. Jeeez!

It’s a funny thing, this thing we call life: you gotta be in it, to live it.

Love,

Eddie