passing in the hallway

[gurdonark]

"The man who owned the heartache that lived on the stair passed me in the night, whistling "Memories of You". I stared, too frightened to move, for fear my eyes shown a light, on the darkness he drew as a cloak all around his shoulder"--Bill Nelson

When I read (or, more precisely, scan/read) the Mary Baker Eddy biography recently, what struck me most was her obsession with the notion that metaphysical rivals were inflicting "malicious animal magnetism" upon her. Her credo, after all, was that through positive thinking and faith, one can access all the blessings of Heaven. Yet her certainty that the power of negative thinking worked adverse effects on her stands as a stark reminder of the flip side of this thinking.



I think that mis-communication poses such challenges for so many people I know, including particularly myself. I'm sure I'm not the only person who in real life feels much more connected to people around me than any connection suggested by my words and actions. I'm one of those "caring guys", but I could show it better.

But what intrigues me most about people as story-telling animals is the extent to which expressed mood and "kind thoughts" does seem to impact how we interact with one another. Please pardon me if I do not offer to adjust anyone's inner essence with kind words and rock candy shaped as crystals. But there is something to this give-and-take of feelings, this whole monkey-troupe-together-in-a-big-world sense of things, that does make the way folks relate to one another make the things they say, and the feelings they inspire, so important. I imagine that ants have an easier time of it, as they exchange nitric acid messages that say "food there, go" or "intruder! attack! attack!". Yet now that I think about it, one of the recent ant books I intend to buy (and I love books about ants) is a myrmyIcan'tspellitcologist who points out that for all their vaunted "we work together in an interwoven social community, issuing orders and taking names" ant social skills, the individual ant is still pretty much an idiot who spends most of the day wandering aimlessly.

I think that internet communication, with its emphasis on written exchanges, really serves as an observer's microcosm of social interaction. Sometimes on LJ or message boards, one can see an interaction turn into a train wreck before one's very eyes. I have witnessed many a train wreck--a journal comment that I just know, deep in my heart, will get a reply that hurts the feelings of the commenter. Sure enough, the "reply to comment" is posted by the affected journaller, and pain ensues. It's like that old Addams Family show, when Gomez used to intentionally wreck the model trains. You could see it coming, but you couldn't really look away.

I've been surprised on-line by how hurt I can be by something a stranger says. I've also, sadly, been surprised when I hurt someone's feelings on-line without really meaning to do so. I've been amazed in those rare instances when someone sets out to just flat out wound another's feelings. I'll never forget the "well-known NPR commentator" type that I asked to appear at a Compuserve Forum chat for which I led a section years and years ago. At that time, this person was a regional minor celebrity, known only, really, to locals, writing a monthly column for the really nice "cool, but not as cool as we think we are" magazine. I asked her to do an on-line chat with our members about writing for magazines. Because I suspected from something she had written that she lacked much facility with the chat room functions in CS, I suggested we do a trial run. We popped on line at a given time (she was late), and during the trial run, she, another forum moderator, and I were in a room, chatting. Suddenly, she said in chat that she had sent a private message to the other moderator (an on-line acquaintance of mine), to say something "oppobrious" about me as an act of "conceptual performance art". I thought little of it at the time, as this sort of on-line thing even then was not particularly novel. But after the "celebrity" left the forum, my fellow CSer told me that what the artiste had done was make, and then retract as a joke, the claim that I had harassed the celebrity. Apparently, this was "performance art". I suppose I lacked the right aesthetic sense for "performance art", or a sense of humour. I was mortified. On the one hand, I disliked the insult, even in "fun", and on the other hand, here I was "hosting" this public chat, which the CS people had promoted with hyperlinks in their initial sign-on banners, and I had this total loose cannon as my "guest". I had a friend co-moderating the chat (in fact, it was the first of many such chats I hosted, and I needed help with with managerial software involved), to whom I explained my concern, and I advised the manager of the forum. We all cyber-shook our heads, but decided to go on with the chat. Needless to say, I scanned each of my e mails to the semi-famous writer to see if anything I had said seemed remotely inappropriate. I found, as I thought I would, that although I had sent a few e mails confirming the date and asking for material to post in the forum library, I had not said anything untoward or inappropriate. I concluded, and conclude, that her "celebrity" apparently gave her license to offend.

In the event, the on-line chat went without a hitch. The "celebrity" handled the chat with aplomb and courtesy, and the whole thing went very well. She provided solid guidance for those who wished to write, and the chat was like a very good fireside chat, we had enough folks to make it fun, but not so many that it became a burden. I sent her a nice thank you e-note, and she responded with a gracious thank you e-note. I suppose I should have let the matter stand. But I asked an on-line friend her opinion--should I e mail the writer in reply how much she hurt my feelings? I elected to follow my on-line friend's advice that I should. I sent a reply e mail, which took on a generally cheery "isn't on line funny" tone, but did put in a sentence about the offense I felt. I never heard back from the writer. I regret expending my feelings on the "I'm hurt" e mail.

I don't believe in "negative animal magnetism", but I still remember the slight of "conceptual performance art". I always think that "conceptual performance art" should be limited to things like playing piano for the grunion, but maybe that's my own small town squareness coming through.

Yet, lest I leave the impression that I am always the offended and never the offender, it was hardly a year or two later when I offended the co-moderator of that chat by telling her about how I'd lost weight by visting a nutritionist, after she and I had gotten into a discussion in which her weight somehow came up. With hindsight, talking to anyone with advice unasked for is a risk (though a risk I take very often), so I get where she was coming from when she said that such matters were so inherently individual that nobody should say anything about such things. So when I thought I was helping, I was inadvertently keying into someone else's body issues. I don't think she ever really forgave me,either, although I don't recall ever saying any of those horrid negative things about weight (a life of dealing with weight that fluctuates between "just right" and "way off" has given me compassion about these things). I hate offending people I don't mean to offend.

I love the way that the internet opens up for me the sense that more people are my kindred spirits than I ever dreamed. I love that sense of deep, intimate,platonic connection I get with people on line. I love making friends on line.

But communication without the nuance of facial expression and vocal tone remains a curious thing, emoticons notwithstanding. The 'net teaches me that positive and negative thoughts and feelings, even expressed in writing by strangers, matter to me. The on-line experience fascinates me and exhilirates me, but the negative aspects also intrigue and confuse me. When I hear the writer, by the way, on the local NPR station, I find her still quite amusing. I laugh through my shame at being mocked. But when I read her first novel, and found it seriously wanting, I posted a moderate but adverse review on amazon. I hope that latter was not my "critic from All About Eve" moment. For that matter, I amazon reviewed her next novel, and found it better.

But I take from all this that I am still learning about internet communication as I go. I feel as though I pass people in the hallway in cyberspace. I'm amazed at how many I feel connected to, and how to a few people I feel the deepest connection. But I also feel that I'm learning about how people are often truly social people, and words, among social people, really matter.





I'm a great loom,
a hundred years old,
some third world shop floor loom,
where giant threads of yarn dangle,
manipulated by gentle hands.

You play me, like a harp,
though the loose weave
sounds no tune,
I'm only really good for making carpets,
like the 10 dollar jobbies at
Santa Monica thriftique stores.

Is that strum high C?
I hear no sound, but feel the recoil,
as if you're an archer, and my emotions
a loose bowstring, too weak for an arrow,
but now your words roil me,
like we're weaving in earnest,
and I want to cry out,
but I have no voice.

Comments

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I think on-line communication (like anything else) is an ongoing learning experience. We burst online in the beginning *assuming* that we know how to communicate here because, hell, we've been communicating all our lives. But online is a completely different animal. There seems to be an element to it that emboldens people to do and say things they'd never dream of in person. You're also in the middle of a sea of humanity that holds every kind of person, all the neuroses, psychoses, human experience, economic, political, religious etc etc....that are in existence. And in our daily life, we would never stumble across this variety, let alone be privvy to personal communication. It's a real JUNGLE out here in cyberspace.
I learned the hard way on the usenet newsgroups where I used to post regularly in several special interest groups. Flame wars raged like bonfires and it was kill or be killed. When I discovered LiveJournal, I'd been online for seven years but had never found a place where I could speak my mind and not end up being ruthlessly flamed for it. It's been a nice experience for the most part. It's easy to expect too much from it. It can't fill endless voids in our lives--and people are still people--and all carry their own private luggage. But I've enjoyed the glimpse into the lives of people I like--and friendship is friendship anywhere.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that's a very perceptive comment. I omitted from the post the curious flame wars on message boards, particularly from anonymous people one suspects are 14 or in need of help. The old CompuServe forums, at their best, served a Livejournal function, completely unlike the AOL chatrooms, which I find often too raucous for my tastes.

It is a jungle, and a sea of sea monkeys. But LJ is nice because one can create a relatively frame free zone. I do it by writing a journal that is too wordy (and "boring" in the right way) to attract flame. Others do it through friends list editing. It's nice to be one's own moderator, as so many website moderators are too heavy or too light on the hand.

I agree that because it can be so nice on line, it's easy to expect too much. That's something I notice over and over.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

that's "FLAME" free, not FRAME. I still haven't mastered the style buttons to eliminate the frames.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

How appropriate was the timing of this post. Just yesterday, my best friend (in real life) posted something and then allowed comments to follow. . . the comments were personally insulting to me - by name, mind you - and he did nothing to defend me.

It hurt like hell and he probably sees nothing wrong with it because it's the internet and he's a different person here.

I just don't know. I'm the same person here that I am, well, HERE.

You're right, though. It is so easy to hurt each other out here without meaning too, we need to be mindful of it. We also need to try to mend the fences, if we can - and if people are willing to let us.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

How horrid for you. I try to be exactly (and in some cases painstakingly) the same on LJ as in life, so I don't see the distinction your friend draws. Of course, in his mild defense, failure to defend is a less heinous crime than attack. But I know that's no real consolation.

Lately, I've been reading the journal of people who dropped me. I don't mean the ones where we obviously had no affinity, because I wouldn't trouble those folks, but the ones who just said "I like you, but I'm too busy to keep up with yours". It's nice sometimes to pop in and say "hi", even if the synchrony was incomplete

By the way, your insurance claims saga is good reading. Megadeath, indeed.

[bramey.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased to know someone was interested :-) I don't have a counter, so I never know who's reading. I just throw it all out there and see who (if anybody) responds.

I know that I read everyone's posts on my friends list and don't have the time to respond to everything, even when I want to. I figure that it is the same way for many of you, so I'm not the type to be driven by comment tallies.

(Although, it is funny how a spiking tally can boost an ego, isn't it? What a funny thing this internet blogging is!)

I'm out here, I care, I poke my head in and say a few (or too many) words when I can steal a few minutes from the bench or am just procrastinating. It can suck your life away, if you're not careful :-)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

On-line is so funny. On paper, I don't mind when someone "de friends" me, because most of the time I "understand why". But once or twice someone surprises me,and then I realize I do have some investment in it. I do like when comments and friends go up in number, though I like in many ways the early days of my journal best, when I had almost no readers other than myself :).

kenny rogers

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

thinking as to lj of song of kenny rogers
gotta know when to hold know when to fold,
know when to walk away know when ta run

true in dealing with strangers isnt it?
in life or in internet interaction.

with non strangers the rule is not so much
balance as forgiveness I should think, that we
cause pain by being ourselves and unable to
prevent it really but knowing also it is alright
(within that is a larger context also not of
deliberate wrong etc) because of forgiveness
continually given and received.

are lj friends strangers or non strangers is perhaps
the problem, one has to go with ones sense of it...
one can make the mistake of supposing more intimacy
than there is but does not want the worse error of
supposing there to be less does one?
probably the exchange of some level(even at least
subliminal) of offence and of forgiveness(again
likely subconscious) is part in lj of the stranger
becoming a real friend?as with any conversation
tis prudent to say a prayer before and during etc...
limit of my thought on that...yrs +Seraphim.

Re: kenny rogers

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thank you, as ever, for the thoughtful comment. I think that on line frequently does present the Kenny Rogers dilemma. In a sense, it becomes a problem for a feeling person--how to love the crank or the "troll", who merely trolls for comments? Here I suspect that love can be ceasing communication, and declining to feed the addiction. But I don't know.

With friends, I think forgiveness is more importance than separation, but here, too, some situations are so dysfunctional that it's hard to know when the line must be drawn.

I believe that prayer and deep thought do come into all this.

[missprune.livejournal.com]

Your poems have a way of evoking very definite sensory experiences within me -- in this one, the strangely disturbing feeling of being without voice, the loose strings unable to make a sound. Is there a typo in the second stanza (through for though?)...
About online communication... I remember finding it quite a challenge and a novelty, learning how to modulate words to suggest a tone, tenderness or respect for example. To form a relationship with another human being using only words -- is really quite an amazing thing.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's a type in the poem,thanks!

Novelty is just right to describe on line communication, which always teaches me that words mean much more than I credit them for.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Some very thoughtful stuff in this post.
Some years ago I read a book called: 'They Used to Call Me Snow White... But I Drifted' by Regina Barreca.
The book itself is unashamedly a women's libber book for women, but it has some wonderful things to say about humor. Basically Ms Barreca suggests that humor is all about domination. The person with the most power in the social structure has the right to make the jokes, and the person with the least power doesn't. I thought she might be a little overboard on this idea, and then began to observe people around me, as well as my own behavour.
My conclusion was that she is very right about that, as well as her assertion that many jokes are *made in order to dominate or subjugate someone else*. (This is a paraphrase). None of this is new news, but understanding how humor is used really helped me to go from being hurt and challenged by it to being able to see it as a power play, and often to counter it, hopefully without offense.

On the subject of internet communication. What a hard subject! As you point out, it just confirms how important body language is in communication. For that matter it confirms how much tone of voice is important. In meeting internet friends, it is amazing how much a single phone conversation will reveal about them that was unrevealed after months of writing. I wonder if the Victorians has similar problems when they wrote letters?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm cogitating on the valid points about humor/power and resisting the needless jibe that this explains why "x", a famous activist writer, is so humourless, as a joke.

But the prose style of the Victorians, which seems sometimes to me so flowery, may have been a well learned recognition of the importance of words to express nuance....hmmmm.....

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Hadn't quite thought of it in those specific terms. I just wondered whether, with all of their flowery verbosity, whether they had the same communication issues when two people met after corresponding for years.

Didn't Joseph Campbell say something like:
The most important concepts we can only begin to think of.
Then there are the concepts that we think we understand.
All the rest we try to use words to describe.

syncopated rhythm

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Great quote, thanks for sharing it. On second thought, I don't know about the Victorians and communications--they seem so recognizable to me, but sometimes the people seem lost in the words. Our instant ping-pong e mails in this time do have a more "jazz" rhythm, though, don't they?

Re: syncopated rhythm

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Your Jazzy rhythem analogy is very appropriate. Does that mean that chat rooms are Rock n' Roll or even Heavy Metal by comparison?

I always think of the Victorians as sitting down to write a letter, spending time to compose it in their head (no computer to instantly move things around) and generally thinking through what they are saying before spending all those words to say it. I'm quite sure that my version of events is horribly skewed to the idealistic, but in most cases they did have time to go get the letter out of the mailbox after they cooled down and re-thought an issue!

Re: syncopated rhythm

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Chat rooms are at least heavy metal :), but I worry that the AOL chat rooms are more just noise in need of filtration.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i like reading your posts about your experiences online. i found the CIS boards a real school for communications, falling several times into flame exchanges that i now know how to avoid. like you, i can see hurt feelings coming at times, reading comments and replies. i'll think, oh boy, that will set off a war! sometimes i'm wrong, though, and i'm always glad to be.

btw, that writer showed real immaturity in finding it funny to accuse you of harassment in an aside. i'm impressed that you were able to conduct a good forum chat with her afterward.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

On the CIS boards, the moderator factor sure loomed large. Whenever someone with thread-managing power got emotionally involved in a dispute, then watch out! lock out, censorship, and
WARNs on board! OTOH, when a CIS manager was friendly with someone obstreperous, then that someone could in general indulge in flame not permitted civilians.

Still and all, I think that the CIS heavy moderation model worked well. I'm glad, though, that I don't have to use it with my journal. You're right, it was a real school for communication, CIS.

With hindsight (it has been 8 years now, wow!), I should have just pulled the plug on her conference. In some ways, I rewarded her impropriety. But, the show went on.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

As much as I miss seeing the facial expressions and hearing the tones of voice of the people I'm corresponding and/or chatting with, I learned recently that, at least with certain people, experiencing what they're like offline doesn't necessarily help me understand them better. Maybe it's just me and my difficulties with reading people, I don't know. But in April when a troop of us who'd gotten to know each other online met in the flesh, there were a couple I misunderstood in some ways, and I didn't know about the misunderstandings until several days after we all got back to our respective homes.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I can imagine how that would be odd, or frustrating,or funny or something,not to read them until you get home later.

I could imagine that happening to me. Also, the related "friends list" thing--'if I met someone in person, I'd seem really boring to them'.

Once I met a group of folks from a CS forum in person.
Nice people, all,but one fellow with whom I thought I got along well on line seemed pained to meet me, apparently because when I first signed onto the forum involved, I'd ask him questions. ONly in RL did I realize that I mildly irritated him; on the other hand, another fellow whom I met in RL caused me to realize we could probably have been friends with closer proximity!

[nancyjane.livejournal.com]

"In the event, the on-line chat went without a hitch." lolol this line follows your story of the npr lady, and i guess at this late hour i accidently read bitch instead of hitch. had to re-read it a few times, knowing it just didn't sound quite like you ! lol not that way i dunno lolol.

on a more serious note. i've always thought conceptual performance art was more for the artist than for the audience. maybe a lot of art is. but.. point being a performance requires an audience, and if it is more of a selfish act than a gift of sorts, it seems to encourage abuse. indeed i would say magicians are conceptual performance artists, but, as they have no need to justify their trickery and the pleasure they derive from their performances, they don't hide behind the label, performance artist. but... i digress.

it's interesting to hear your thoughts on internet communication. i tend to think of you as Mr. Internet. plugged into all these different creative outlets on the internet. i'm sure i've alluded to in the past how i just don't feel comfortable that i have a grasp on netiquette in many cases, environments, and that you seem to, from what i can tell. you know it's not that i can't it's that i'm unwilling ! but let me tell you being stubborn like i am can actually turn into an obstacle rather than remaining a characteristic... and so therefore i say i dont feel comfortable.

but thats ok i dont need to. what i do need to feel comfy with is on the phone. and i dont. not with anything personal. business no prob. but to me personal communications is so so so so SO much about the non-verbals. and et cetera.

over the internet. i do feel connections. i do feel hurt sometimes. after all it is all real. i guess still processing the fact that you dont necess. feel as comfy as you look to me. let me put it this way if i were new to the internet i would very much like you for a guide (no hitch !) lolol

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I do okay with netiquette, but I also avoid any site in which I find the netiquette misplaced. I do like to use the internet to explore creative things, and I'm always surprised in the rare instances it doesn't work.

"without a bitch" would not be the way I would say things, but it amused me nonetheless :).

Thanks for your kind words!

[nancyjane.livejournal.com]

welcome ! btw. do you plan to publish a little book of your 100 poems.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

After my recent spate of hurt feelings, I feel nervous about posting anything. And I refuse to go "friends-only" because I've "met" so many lovely people who just stumbled onto my journal (like you!).

Ugh. I can't believe it's hurt me this much. And made me so gun-shy. I'm not sure what to do.

[gurdonpoems.livejournal.com]

Naco, I completely understand how you feel. All I can tell you is you write a beautiful journal, and I know lots of people on LJ who believe so.

I really believe that you should not be disheartened, because you do such a wonderful job here at LJ. It would be far too much to expect for everyone to attune themselves to the way that you write, because part of the fun with you is that you are your own unique voice.

I know just the feeling you have, because, as this post indicates, I've had an upsetting event or two. In your case,
the whole set-up from which your pain arises was, in my view,
unnecessary. I understand that everyone runs his/her journal in his/her own way, but I must confess I think that defriending would have been far better.

Now here is the part I've been pondering, and perhaps you've pondered it, too. The "set up" in the post in question clearly indicated that if you made the comment, you'd get something very blunt in return. It's a credit, perhaps, that the post in question itself essentially said as much. But your curiosity sent you in to comment where angels might have feared to tread.
The question is largely rhetorical, but from the moment I saw your comment, I wondered that you chose that course instead of one or two other options that came to my mind.

But I don't want to make you worry or feel badly, because I want very much for you to believe me when I tell you that your LJ posts are something I look forward to, even when that damned N. Drew persona launches into the more dramatic turns of her particular plot. I long ago assured myself that your high spirits sometimes lead you to write (and feel) in a certain way, and I wouldn't want you to feel blocked from this that you do so well. I'm eager to read short stories and more posts and to see this incredible beehive idea germinate and grow.

But I must confess to a selfishness here--I'd hate it if you didn't post freely, because I so enjoy reading your work.
Heavens, my main worry with your journal is that I comment so darn often that it's disconcerting. But I'll live with that worry.