Facebook and Blogging....

Well, I have to speak my truth.

Facebook just doesn't do it for me. It's been a few months now and while it is nice to see snippet updates from people, it doesn't have the "hook" that draws me in. In general, it appears to be just another shallow social networking site with people competing in a marketplace environment to up their number of friends, parlor games and quippy comments.

Meh. Maybe I'm just too old. I miss substantial conversation over tea, metaphorically speaking, and what occurs on sites like that seems to be a passing wave at best. I want to ask "how are you doing" and get a real answer.

I'm not interested in popularity contests, tagging or quipping. I'm not good at any of that. Perhaps this is a consequence of my own introverted nature ~ or perhaps it's because it fits a trend I don't like seeing develope further; instant food, instant intimacy and disposable people.

I posed the question on Facebook ~ whether it is replacing blogging. If that is the case, I would find that most unfortunate. Blogging is a meal, not a gourmet meal.. not a perfectly healthy meal.. but a meal. Facebook is fast food. It's social McDonald's. Drive up, get it fast and gobble it down while on the way to doing something else.

I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this.


~*

Weekend: Mercury in retrograde...

According to astrologers, communication becomes very difficult when Mercury is retrograde. Miscommunications, lack of understanding, misunderstandings all run rampant during this time.

I don't recall the dates involved offhand but I heard a report somewhere that we are dealing with that now.

And I can attest to it. Just yesterday it seems to have started in earnest. Even with something as simple as this blog. Google Reader didn't update my feed for six hours. And that's just a minor inconvenience. The few conversations I did have (not related to here) felt like an exercise in pounding rock.

Last night I had a conversation with someone and realized "she really doesn't get it" and gave up. By the time I was done trying to get someone to get something that they simply don't get, I had a headache and felt completely wiped out. Unfortunately, I lose my temper. That's my weakness. My temper.

I didn't even get up until 8.30 this morning!

I am finding it very hard to communicate with others right now. Not that I have any trouble talking (God knows!) but being understood. It's times like this when it seems like a rather useless exercise to make my thoughts known, understood, received and heard. I think not being heard is the worst thing.

Maybe Mercury in retrograde is a good time for all of us to take a break, to stop trying to be understood.. but just a time to go into ourselves a bit more, listen to the silence and perhaps come out a bit refreshed. All of these things happen for a reason and there is an ebb and flow in nature that provides all of the things we need, even when we don't recognize it.

Needless to say, I have no intention right now to attempt any meaningful communication. I think I'll finish the book I'm reading, drink lots of tea, eat plenty of grapes and generally hide out until it gets better.

No sense in trying to swim upstream. It's too tiring and I'm not a salmon.

So tell me about you. What do you do when communication seems most difficult? I promise I'll try to get it.
~*

Weekend: Your Silence Will Not Protect You (Audre Lorde)

"I have come to believe, over and over again, that what is important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood."

Another Audre Lorde quote.

I've been thinking about silence lately. How we use silence to protect ourselves. How we use silence to maintain the status quo. How we use silence to express indifference. How we use silence because it's easier than taking a risk. How silence becomes just another expression of laziness.

I have always interpreted silence as indifference or disdain. It is the fastest, surest way to get me to retreat. In my family of origin, silence was punishment. Being ostracized from the group is how we were forced back into line.

It stops everything cold. It chills the soul. It destroys relationships. It serves no purpose. It allows things to go on that should never go on.

Last night I watched a TV show, an investigative journalism thing, where a couple of people got away with murder because no one was willing to speak up. They were afraid. And their fear and their silence made it possible for the violence to continue.

In a more benign sense, silence is what destroys relationships. Things unsaid. And as we use silence in our private interactions, it extrapolates out to the larger world and becomes a way of life.

Not speaking. Not asking. Passivity that comes not from peace but from simple indifference and laziness.

I don't get involved in American politics. Period. But I have definitely seen how silence contributes to the continuation of the path that country is on, and how, just as was predicted by those much wiser than me, it allows the oligarchy (yes, I'll use that word) to gain more and more control over the private lives of citizens. At what point do I use the "f-word" (fascism) which requires a silenced population? I feel safe and accurate to use it now.

Am I the only one who sees it?

So that is an example of silence born of laziness that has now become silence based on fear.

There is a positive silence, the kind of silence that is based on trust. Certain things that don't need to be said because it's all been said before and is an internalized part of the relationship. But that takes time and it takes a level of comfort.

I believe it's true on both a social and personal level.

I am trying to be better about this. I'm trying to be better about how I use my silence as well as using my voice to express the things I believe and feel while being as kind and considerate as possible. There's no doubt that I have much to learn and my words still stumble and fall around like a drunk ~ and my silence still oppresses ~ but I'm trying.

What do you think about these things? How do you use silence?

~*

Weekend: Shadows of a Tesseract

Well, I've been blog-surfing again.

Quick! Someone take my mouse!

Seriously though, there seems to be a thread running through a lot of the things I've been reading over the past few days. It is "how do I get to be me in a culture that discourages just that, by forcing me to feign happiness all the time?"

That's my paraphrase, of course, but it is a really valid question. Most people carry more secrets than the CIA/KGB/FSB/MI5 (pick your intelligence service of choice).

Whether it is moms who feel they can't get beyond mom conversation with each other or people in workplaces who can't say how they really feel or believe for fear of repercussions, whether it's on our blogs or in our families, even among friends, it's a common thread.

The overriding feeling is that we don't have much opportunity to express our deeper thoughts, our concerns or our beliefs, to share them with others and get authentic feedback. We can't talk about current events because we might offend someone. We can't compliment each other because it might be misunderstood. In schools, kids are not allowed to excel because the one who doesn't excel might feel bad. We censor ourselves all the time.

When I was in the workplace especially, I found a tyranny of political correctness which I understand has gotten even worse over the past few years. We were basically told what we are allowed to discuss and what we are not allowed to discuss.

Something that started as a potentially good thing (none of us want to hear the "n" word or sexually explicit talk outside of a strip club), has become an albatross that has effectively silenced all of us.

Some of you who came by last night might have found that I had some negative comments from a person who believes that my appreciation for and love of Thailand equates to my supporting child rape. I deleted the comments after having been accused of being a .. well... someone not very nice, a person who would do things with children. No further extrapolation needed.

This is the kind of absurdity that's brought about by political correctness. The only way to express disagreement or dissent is to become so outrageous that it goes into the realm of the absurd. For the record, I don't just blame western culture for this. Thailand, as an example, would have to be included in the indictment.

There is no middle ground for disagreement. It is either full-frontal attack or silence.

This is pathetically unfortunate. And it's unhealthy.

I believe we should be able to express our ideas, share thoughts, balance our opinions and reasoning with the reasoning of others. It is how we learn. It is how we grow. Instead, we become insular. We don't speak our truth.

Expressing our truth doesn't have to mean conflict with others. It doesn't have to be a competition and I don't have to be wrong for you to be right. We can both be right. Outside of the obvious absolutes, the sun will rise and it will set, there is a wide continuum of belief. The more we get away from judgment, the more we realize that we are ultimately all in this together, with our varying ideas and thoughts and beliefs.

Instead, we don't feel safe with each other.

And that is such a loss. Through the ages, wisdom has been passed by word of mouth, one generation to the next, one person to the next. Even when we disagree, there is a kernel of learning going on. We are exposed to other ideas, other ways of life, other belief systems. It can only serve to enrich all of us.

What say you?

~*

Finding Our Voices....

At first, I had a bit of a balk at the thought of "empowerment".

I am so not about power.

I am attracted to humility, modesty, gentleness. My sensibilities belong to another place and time.

Power has a different feel. Aggression. Oppression. All sorts of nasty gnarly things. It resonates of the self-help movement which I, generally speaking, despise.

So when the call was put out by BlogRhet (via Slouching Mom) to answer the question as to whether blogging empowers women, or more specifically does my blog empower me, I was going to skip the exercise and wait for the next one.

If I use the term "empower" in its original meaning before it was coopted by politics and the self-help movement, that being "to enable, to authorize", I was able to look at the question differently.

In that respect, yes, my blog enables me. My blog authorizes me to speak by the cultural norms of the wide open Internet, the virtual roundtable where we can all speak our minds.

It's more contemporary version of the soap box.

It is here that I can put my thoughts and ideas out for general consumption, learn new perspectives from the comments of others and tap into the wisdom of the community.

As for the enabling and authorizing me as a woman specifically, I don't think so. The Internet is, in a sense, the great equalizer. It is principles before personality. It is the one place where I can get beyond anyone's snap judgment or perception of this rather eccentric middle-aged woman with an abundance of pounds and too much Thai jewelry. Here is where my brain gets to play. Here's where my ideas are put out on the table, surrounded by people brighter and far more educated from all over the world. My ideas are tested. And I get feedback. And I grow and learn daily.

It offers me contact with people I would otherwise never have the honor of knowing. Geography, social status, demographics and many things divide us. Blogs unite us, men and women alike.

I also want to publicly thank the women of BlogRhet for its inclusivness. If there is such a thing as "empowerment", inclusiveness is the stem cell.

Peace,



~Chani