Is Anyone Out There?

There's always a time to write.  A thing that you feel.  A point to the pen.  Always.  No matter how small, trivial, personal, dirty or inane.  But...that is...the only "always" in life.  This writing, this statement...is dedicated to how that "always" is a simple and lonely thing indeed.

When I first started writing it was when I was in college, in a computer lab between classes.  Computers have come into their heydey but aren't dispersed in so close proximity that everyone has one.  So many of us come to the computer lab for internet access and we all need it for printing power.  I remember those days, coming to the lab and doing homework then writing...for hours.  I prefer not to write on a keyboard (though this is being directly typed not paper-drafted) because it isn't as portable as my notebook.  That is me at the time, early twenties and desiring an outlet of the thing I'm feeling at that time.

Loneliness.

I remember the hours of poetry, the notebooks that I lost...the words spoken in jest and truth...innocence I'll never have back and that those people can keep, unknowingly ripping the tenderest parts from my heart and giving nothing back.  I remember that because those wounds no longer ache but the damage they have done in shaping me brings me back to where I am now in the typing of this.

The pen listens but...the more lonely a life you live the less there is to write about.  I remember many things...but the older I grow, the dimmer those memories get and creating memories alone is not the same.  The herd creature that the human being is doesn't shine in solitude.  Though I have gotten good at it.  I use the time well.  I am busy constantly, except the times I should be asleep and the times I wish I were sharing a bed.  But that...is most single people, as I've observed and read.

Self-Improvement is a noble path...but a novel idea when the improvement not only has no conclusion but has no visible ends or purpose.  We improve ourselves to reach goals that others grant us accolades for, to reach social milestones and be granted standing for.  Self-Actualization in Maslow's Hierarchy is actually after Social Acceptance! And...sad as it is...that's the case in practice.  So unless solitude is not loneliness for you...you can never have the Actualization while your heart yearns for contact.  It is a screwy but bizarrely logical and simple equation.

No matter how good you are, as a person/worker/professional, you'll never truly experience the pride and joy of it unless others behold it and grant you the elusive validation.  The entire purpose of social media is predicated on validation from what are essentially perfect strangers who follow your profile and grant you validation with emoticons and simple one-liners when you post a duck face photo or bitch about how the last hour at work is dragging.  This is why social media simply cannot be ignored.  It is how you are reading this, irony be it as it may and appropriate references made.

But...where do I go with this narrative?  What am I trying to say?

It is simple.  Unless you share a life with someone outside of the internet or only log off when you're asleep...there's no one there.  People frequently wake up and post on social media.  It's a reflex to get attention.  Instead of going into the next room to talk to someone (or not having that option) they log onto the miracle device that a cellphone has become and demand attention with a status change or a tweet.  Socially, we have actually sunk to a low that faceless concepts of friends almost totally embodied in icons are who we have to rely on in this life.  There is a point to a friend's list and...I do not wish to take away from everyone who uses it in whatever way they need to but...my go to people in real life don't actually coincide with any friend's list I have with one notable exception.  I suspect this is the case for many people.  But that is not addressed or even...thought about, how insincere the "friend's list" concept actually is.

There are many with only a friend's list to their name as far as social contact with the outside world.  For those people...I wonder...is anyone really out there?