Communication
Communication for communication's own sake is rather hollow. This may sound strange coming from a daily blogger. This attempt at communication is part of my own daily practice. Sharing my practice in this blog is meant to share the issues and concerns that come to me in that practice in an attempt to engage others with a personal practice and stimulate a productive exchange of ideas.
Hollow communication, in my opinion, exists in gigabytes on message boards and Facebook walls. Some of it has value as information-sharing, but much of it is not really human engagement. It has replaced flyers taped to telephone poles and graffiti on bathroom walls. Useful, humorous but not personally nourishing.
I used to include multiple links in my blog posts. I eventually realized that I was trying to justify what I was trying to say, when I was simply trying to express my motivations in and reflections on my own life in practice. My practice is not subject to debate. It is my practice. But, so much of hollow communication takes on the semblance of debate on Facebook, for example. I seldom leave those strings of 'likes' and comments feeling I know anything substantially personal about the ribbon of attached faces, some of whom are my Facebook friends.
I have recently become a watcher of Battlestar Gallactica, thanks to Netflix. A character in that sci-fi TV series is a demented synthetic human in an electrified bathtub. She is called The Hybrid. I think tangential her speech is very similar to reading down a long stream of comments under someone's wall posting on Facebook. Is The Hybrid oracle or cyber-nutcase? In the show, she is a bit of both. I will let that simile stand on its own.
I don't reach for profundity here. However, I try to maintain a standard of candor and clarity in expressing thoughts and feelings which are truly mine. This attempt at communication is simply an extension of the communication I try to engage in life with my voice and actions. Sometimes I feel engaged in other attempts at communication I read in blogs and emails. Many times I simply feel like part of an audience at a performance of a rehearsed soliloquy.
Hollow communication, in my opinion, exists in gigabytes on message boards and Facebook walls. Some of it has value as information-sharing, but much of it is not really human engagement. It has replaced flyers taped to telephone poles and graffiti on bathroom walls. Useful, humorous but not personally nourishing.
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| The Hybrid of Battlestar Gallactica |
I have recently become a watcher of Battlestar Gallactica, thanks to Netflix. A character in that sci-fi TV series is a demented synthetic human in an electrified bathtub. She is called The Hybrid. I think tangential her speech is very similar to reading down a long stream of comments under someone's wall posting on Facebook. Is The Hybrid oracle or cyber-nutcase? In the show, she is a bit of both. I will let that simile stand on its own.
I don't reach for profundity here. However, I try to maintain a standard of candor and clarity in expressing thoughts and feelings which are truly mine. This attempt at communication is simply an extension of the communication I try to engage in life with my voice and actions. Sometimes I feel engaged in other attempts at communication I read in blogs and emails. Many times I simply feel like part of an audience at a performance of a rehearsed soliloquy.
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