20 | November | 2010 | Existential Ennui

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I guess that sounds ominous, but I don’t mean it to be. I’m just being a bit reflective today. Not pensive, no melancholy. I am guilty of that sometimes.

I once described my mood to the Contrarian as being melancholy with a dash of pensive. It sounded intellectual without being pedantic, yet appropriately pretentious?

I was pleased to note a couple of days ago that I had hit 1000 posts here. There have been few days when I posted more than once, so it’s a fair accomplishment I guess. I never would have thought that I could find so much to say.

Most of it is utterly forgettable, some is worthy of posterity I think. I’m not sure which ones. I have no desire to dig through them. Occasionally when I get a comment on a very old post, I reread it. I’m sometimes surprised. “Did I say that?”

Pope Benedict XVI has had a say about the Internet. I haven’t seen the substance (I heard about it on Stephen Colbert), but I understand he finds has reservations about it. Probably the porn, but probably also the isolation it can lead to.

Roger Ebert wrote on this subject and I linked to it. Sorry, but I can’t give it to you because WordPress just upgraded the linking mechanism, and of course now it doesn’t work at all. Sigh…

Anyway he suggested that for many people who might otherwise be utterly isolated, the Internet serves as a means of communicating with the world. Of course, both options are possible. Everyone understands that kids, and many adults substitute online relationships in lieu of real one.

And that’s not really fair. I have a few online friendships that I truly cherish, and if it were not for the Internet, I would not know these people at all. We live hundreds of miles apart. Whether we ever meet or not is not nearly as important it seems to me as what we feel able to share of ourselves.

What we share can be as broad or as narrow as any relationship. We all know people we see regularly and chat with at work, church, or other activities, yet we know little about them, and we share little with them. Others know us in much deeper ways.

The Internet fails in one large area and that is in conveying tone and inflection. Plenty of bad feelings occur for this reason. Said face to face, we would surely know when someone is teasing, or being serious, whether one is acidic in their comment or mildly chiding. Whether one is deadly serious or pulling our leg. Satire is often mistaken for meanness and intentional mockery.

It happens. We are all guilty of misunderstanding from time to time. I guess we’d be better off using more emoticons if they were available.

But then, great fiction seems to always convey emotional meaning. So I guess it’s more in the caliber of the writer. On that standard, I’ve got a long way to go.

I truly wrote my first post not at all sure what I was doing or why. I figured to get a few things off my chest, and then I expected to shrug and stop. I never expected much in the way of anyone reading my prattering. I never expected to learn how to write better. I’m not sure I have. No doubt I’ve deeply embedded some awful practices. I use too many adjectives I know.

I like adjectives. I like words. The Contrarian’s book was named “Ordinary Words,” and I always thought it a good title. I like certain words better than others, though I’d be hard pressed to tell you which ones off the top of my head.

Anyway, writing is part of who I am now, for better or worse. I suppose it’s always for the better, since no one is stuck with me should I become too predictable and too lame. Lame in the teenage sense of being I think old-fashioned or well predictable, and not unstable as one becomes when they limp. Funny words, used in so many ways.

It’s why Christianity will remain forever divided. Same words, different meanings, different interpretations of the myriad of definitions available. The most dangerous word in the English language is Thesaurus. We learned that lots of words can mean almost the same thing, thus no word means exactly only one. Damn the Eskimos and their dozens of words for snow!

I wonder if sign language allows for all the nuances of spoken language?

Now you know what melancholy with a dash of pensive means, doncha?

Have as good a day as you can!