Tales from the Steppes

2005-01-23

10:24 p.m.
But the lily leaves sink, and she wakes from her dream

Well and truly have I been slacking on my updating. Strangely enough, it is not because I could not think of anything to write about. More that I had several topics to choose from, couldn't decide and therefore wrote nothing. Kind of pathetic but there it is. (Speaking of pathetic, I wonder where the hell my graphics are. The only thing more pathetic than them continuing to be missing would be to start a pool speculating on their return.)

I do find it strange that I started this diary feeling skeptical about both the product and process and now it is often an integral part of my workday. (I usually update at work as I get interrupted less frequently than at home, except after all go to bed.) I had never been much of a "writer", (and I do use that term loosely) preferring other modes of communication to express myself. One raised eyebrow is worth at least 100 words and is often more eloquent. To get a letter out of me, you needed to be hard of hearing, expensive to call or have an annoying accent.

But now I think I have swung too far in the other direction - I do not really call anyone. My main form of communication is now written and usually electronically transmitted, in one form or another. This has both it's positive aspects as well as it's negative ones. On the plus side, the more I write, the easier it becomes. And right now that is fairly important for me. Not much worse than sitting and staring at my computer, willing the words to come.

But the negative aspect is also a fairly profound one. This form lends a false sense of intimacy to everything communicated. The only thing I am conveying are my words, which could easily be lying. With a handwritten letter, you also get the writing itself, which conveys mood and sometimes state of mind along with the words. With a spoken conversation, you get body and facial cues, vocal tone, and a whole host of other nonverbal communications. There is also a sense of ease with electronic communication that makes it feel like less of a committment. If I don't like this, I can merely delete it. If this was a handwritten journal, I would have to tear it out of a book, after going through a lot of effort to write it. I guess in a way, that is a good thing as well. Those of us with committment problems might never write anything if we had to be sure about it.

Still, the issue of false intimacy bothers me. How much do we actually convey about ourselves when we write like this? And perhaps more importantly, is whatever we are conveying actually honest? As always, I am not sure.

SO much for my roundup of activities of the last few days. You never know where your fingers will take you when you sit down at your keyboard to write.

Last night I did watch the movie "Saved" and was both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by it. I was all prepared for a nice skewering of holier-than-thou born-again Christians. I was in the mood for something that was not actually going to engage my brain and was surprised to be wrong in my choice. Oh sure, there was plenty of sanctimoniusness and many things that made me snigger. But dammit, the characters were not cardboard and the issues not unidimensional. Ok, it did end with an unresolved sort of happily everafter, at least for now, thing. And it had a bit much smarm for my taste. But overall, I was quite pleased.