“Scientists who spend millions of dollars searching the skies for signs of life believe that just finding some tiny signals that there are other intelligent beings would provide the human race with companionship. But would it? (…) It would be just like posting a message at an on-line forum. You know there are other people there because you see their messages. But they never respond to yours. So just knowing there are others there doesn’t make you feel good. You just feel worse than ever because you can’t communicate with them.” (12-year-old Kyle from the novel Happy Kid, by Gail Gauthier)
When I began this blog, I had no idea what a blog even was. I had never read a single one. All I knew was that I wanted to publish my writing and was too lazy to go through the conventional process of sending off an unsolicited manuscript and having it rejected time and time again. If given a free hour, I would rather write than research publishers. I had hoped to stimulate others through my words as Kathleen Norris, Anne Lamott, Nora Gallagher, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Joan Chittister had done for me. However, after a year of “publishing” in this way, I’m pondering pulling down my shingle.
Like Kyle, I’ve posted into the void. Writing these entries has been like peering into the surface of a pond. The process has given me the opportunity to stare at my features, both rippled and still. I know myself more intimately than I did before, but still, all I see is me, and I certainly don’t want to become another Narcissus, in love with my own reflection.
Blogging has been like a widow’s dog. She feeds, walks, and talks to it, but ultimately, she’s alone. The dog is neither her formal nor a potential spouse. It is neither a friend nor a companion. It serves as a hedge against loneliness. Research studies show that elderly pet owners have lower blood pressure and less depression, so perhaps owning a domesticated blog is not all bad. However, it can’t replace human community, and that, supposedly, is where we come to know God.
I have begun to think that blogging resembles prayer. Through it, I have sent my yearnings, musings, creativity, and grievances off into the void—very like clasping my hands and whispering into the Cosmic Ear. I have done so in good faith and with much discipline. Yet, as many spiritual petitioners find, God has remained silent. The effect of my words continues to be mysterious.
Often, when I have read blogs, I’ve been embarrassed to be among their makers. One woman was so forthright as to entitle her blog “Gwen’s petty, judgmental, evil thoughts.” While I commend her self-knowledge, I wonder about her readers. What does it say about any of us who choose to read such a thing? Do we do so with a whiff of superiority--at least we're not that bad? Do we do so for the titillation? Do we do it with a frisson of recognition at finding a soul as small as our own? While I have posted my own entries that could bear this title, I hope I’ve done so apologetically and with genuine intentions of reform. Other bloggers I’ve investigated have thought nothing of posting pictures of their dinner, their palm pilot, their hydrangea, and their belly buttons. What to make of such minutia? Do I really want to be one more contributor to this sea of trivia?
What are we all doing, we who carve out time to tap obsessively at these keys and press “send” day after day? Isn’t this just a way to avoid family and other duties? Perhaps it’s like an addict replacing a more with a less destructive craving. Instead of getting high, he runs ten miles. Instead of binge eating, she walks around the neighborhood for a couple of hours. Without a doubt, the latter is better than the former, but compulsive behavior it remains. The question is what compulsion is the blogger expressing?
I know I yearn to be known and to find others who could say, upon reading my perceptions, “Me too!” I want to feel myself a member of a community, even if it is made up of other marginal, rag tag lookers-on. I yearn to create, to leave something behind me every day like a cairn or a monument. “I was here,” it says. “Here is my Great Wall of China, my pyramid, my handprints at Lascaux.”
A church I’ve just started attending has an on-line forum. People can share prayer requests, theological musing, and book and movie reviews among other things. It has received over 33,000 hits since its inception. Clearly it’s convenient to be able to post at an insomniac three a.m., in the morning when we rise early, during a break at work or during a lonely afternoon. We can’t always be together. Yet I wonder if this doesn’t substitute for “face time.” We feel we’ve communicated with someone even if we have no idea of whom and even if we’ve heard nothing in return. Does this virtual church substitute for calling someone up for coffee or walking with her on God’s green earth?
In a year of posting, I’ve only had two people respond to something I’ve written. It’s hard to say what keeps me going despite such resolute silence. Perhaps my readers have been like me when I’ve thought about writing authors I admire—intimidated or cynical. Once, when I was a suffering college student, I sent off a heartfelt letter of thanks to Kim Chernin for a book she had written and got a long, personal reply. Otherwise, I’ve only received form letters or nothing at all. Perhaps these writers jealously guard their writing time. Perhaps they are deluged by needy fans. However, I imagine that, were it me, I’d be stunned with gratitude to hear that what I said had touched someone. I’d be eager to hear what had moved them or what they’d been inspired to do in response. I imagine that I’d write back.
Who knows? Maybe knowing my readership more intimately would cause me to censor myself. Even now at times, my awareness of the few family and friends who regularly peruse my essays gives me pause. I don’t want to offend my in-laws with my particular and peculiar Christianity or strip quite so naked before a co-worker or the parent of my children’s friends.
I empathize with Gail Gauthier’s Kyle, feeling alone in the universe, feeling “worse than ever” because he can’t really communicate with the beings he knows are out there. Maybe all of us “out there” would be better off not reading or writing these things. Maybe we should pick up the phone, write a letter, or call each other up for a glass of wine or tea instead.
