Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,
while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh,
when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;
dou·ble bind
/ˌdəbəl ˈbīnd/
noun
a situation in which a person is confronted with two irreconcilable demands or a choice between two undesirable courses of action.
One can simply state there’s a person behind every post (or maybe not, maybe not!). But even with those maybe-nots, if it’s a coin toss, it’s still a lot. A lot of people behind the thousands of posts I read every few months.
It’s hard to comprehend sometimes – and whether one would want to frame it as opportunity rather than sentencing – but there are a lot of posts to peruse. A lot of wishes too.
Sometimes the posts have innocuous beginnings, discussing favourite puddings. Others are more imploring, hoping for a gang get-together, a “discord” invitation and an always-available-hotline, email tagline – a persistent motion toward connection. Some are bold enough to hope for something more romantic even if all such ventures transform into an extended dialogue with one’s self, the other serving as a dice roll for neurotic paths. Fill in the blots toward the game board if you want! Keeping it neatly tied together in this screen is all that’s required, even if one is playing with something conscious on the other end.
Scrolling through all these posts for some idle entertainment, it’s a stupid way to spend time in-between compiling. Instead of daydreaming – a more fruitful endeavor – so I’ll open a tab and read more posts from forum regulars earnestly seeking, once more, connection or clarification with insight.
Can you blame them? Maybe you can. But maybe not, seeing as one is often taught to consult the other for some verification. Seek the truth in credentials, consensus, etc. Maybe hoping to shortcut some trials ahead. Heuristics can be convenient that way.
There’s this fundamental belief I’m dancing around which I’ll state explicitly: a tendency toward faith in our Internet. A faith in virtual outcomes. I mean, it answers most of one’s questions with enough queries, or does it?
If you’re the optimist then of course it’s best to side with the net-adventurers questing for another person, dialogue. Answer.
Is it pessimistic to find oneself on the other side? No more faith? Perhaps I’m not seeing something only the earnest will. As though one was robbed of this convenient outlet. Robbed to where I’m losing the ability to write! Is it a bad thing?
With an uncomfortable certainty, all I seem to know is there are no people missing, nor answers you couldn’t find in silence. There is rarely a practical conversation that could take place. It puzzles me how others are able to text each other. It’s opaque as to what it’d even be about, or why either party cares what’s being discussed.
It’s either you’re doing interesting things or waiting for interesting things to happen. Conversation rarely falls in the former.
Maybe I was robbed of something. Some sort of ability to share my thoughts and views on things arbitrarily – perhaps I’ve condemned myself to the continual churn and 価値 which is laughable to the Mexican Fisherman! Though I would argue that Mexican Fisherman wouldn’t be writing text messages to faceless entities and would instead still be fishing.
Instead of robbed, maybe one could be viewed as unburdened. Unburdened from the expectation that there was anything valuable waiting for you if you just kept in touch and kept up.
In any case, whether it be this website or text message, objectively there is very little return-on-investment.
You and I both know the truth to the more valuable ventures: we’ll silo ourselves to our own projects, as most teams are overhead. And that’s perfectly fine, I suppose. Maybe one could hope for some reinforcement toward some virtue. But are we reducing ourselves down for Pavlov?
Ultimately, there’s no need to be so hard on yourself.
If you find yourself robbed, maybe enjoy being unburdened, perhaps.