A Post About Posting

“Posting”  It’s now an utterly ubiquitous verb.  Most of us do it several times a day without thinking about it.  But what does it really mean?  Just a few years ago, it would mean putting up a flyer on a billboard.  It is one-way communication.  It is a declaration.  “This is something that I think people should know.”  It used to be primarily used to facilitate people coming together in person.  “See my play!”  “Check out my band!”  “Attend this rally!”  An impersonal means to a more personal end.

Now it is something very different.  In a lot of ways, posting has replaced in-person communication.  Certainly our “friends” will comment and reply and maybe even “repost,” but this isn’t quite the same as the natural flow of conversation, when give & take blends together as one thing.  Taking in another’s stories, empathizing, relating their experience to your own, disagreeing, offering an alternate perspective.  Picking up on all the associated non-verbal cues that go along with a verbal statement.  Having the opportunity to understand that “I got the job!” might be more of a desperate cry for validation than a celebration, or that “shut up, you big jerk” might really mean “gosh darn it I love you, you cheeky ruffian.”  We miss that.  We’re wired for that.  It’s far more difficult to ignore someone in person, or to offer the kind of noncommittal semi-approval we now associate with the verb to “like.”  (Did you picture the little thumb’s up icon in your head?  I know I did).

Some people have found a way to use our new communication medium well.  I certainly love to read whatever happens to be going on in the head of my extraordinarily creative friend Maximillian.  (With a name like that, he was destined for creativity!)  He’s started countless fun & interesting conversations this way.  But for others of us, or even Max on a particular day or on a certain subject, it’s a more difficult process.  For those of us naturally wired or taught by experience to listen and think and feel and consider more than we speak.  Or any of us at a particularly introspective phase of our lives.  For those of us who tend to overdue the input side of communication while perhaps holding back on the output, this modern communication model breaks down.

Often, the very thing that we most need to communicate is that which is most difficult to actually get out.  The idea is not refined enough for 144 characters, or too personal for 679 people.  We’re tribal creatures.  We gather our understanding about the world around us from people and our culture and the stories we are told.  But in our online world, the sample is skewed.  We don’t see the silence.  At a party, at work, at home, or in a dorm, we’ll notice the person silent in the corner.  We might turn to them and ask their thoughts.  Or perhaps catch them later in the hall and start a more intimate conversation.  Or even simply feel more comfortable with our own silence, knowing we’re not alone.  Online, we don’t see the silence, just the noise.  And the silence is often far more telling, and certainly more interesting.

I am deeply grateful for my fb friends who consistently post interesting, challenging, engaging content that they find on the internet.  We can glean a lot about people from what they do feel comfortable putting out there.  But it’s not the same as really knowing them.  It’s not the same as conversation and real friendship.

I’m not suggesting we all post our deepest insecurities and current life struggles for the world to read.  This medium is not appropriate from that.  But recognize the difference between what you want to say and what you need to say, and find a place to communicate the latter, as well as the former.  And please recognize that it’s the system that’s screwed up, not you.  Find a way to get your thoughts out.  I suppose that’s what this blog is, in a way.  A start.  An attempt to rectify the too much in / not enough out communication imbalance in my own life.  If you’re in a similar place just know this:  It’s not you, it’s the system.  Those of you who spend more time absorbing and processing information are the ones we need to hear from the most.  Your perspective is incredibly valuable.  Plus it’ll be good for you.  It’ll make room for more processing & insight. 

We’re not static creatures.  We are constantly changing, growing, & learning.  If we don’t deal with it, express it as well as process it, we get stuck.  We get caught up in the present, trapped in our current situation.  As my deeply compassionate & wise friend just told me in the midst of my own stuck-ness, “Don't let the time pull you down, you are not your circumstances.”  We are not defined by where we are right now.  And we’re not alone.

The thing about real community, the tribal life for which we are all wired, is that you don’t always have to initiate contact.  You don’t need to have the energy to call someone when you’re depressed.  People will bug you.  They’re all up in your business.  They know your schedule and recognize your patterns and ask what’s up when you seem out of sorts.  You’re forced outside of your own head.  You have plenty of in-between time to accidentally stumble upon that great conversation.  Some of you might be reading this from a full-to-the-brim multigenerational home or a communal house or a small town where everybody knows your business and long for a bit of anonymity.  I get it.  I’ve been there.  But I’m coming from and speaking to people on the other side of the spectrum.  For most of us, 21st century life works against this aspect of our humanity.

So call someone.  Text them.  Just drop by their house when you’re in their neighborhood.  Meeting for 5 minutes will make it easier to meet for an hour later.  You don’t have to make an intricate plan to meet up 3 weeks from now when you’re schedules finally allow it.  Write an email to a compassionate friend instead of journaling.  Call me.  My number is on my facebook page and on my website.  But it’s also probably in your phone.  I miss you.  And you miss me.  And your family.  And your friends.  We’re lonely.  21st century life is lonely.  But waiting to have something uplifting to say that you feel comfortable telling 700 people is just isolating yourself right at the time when we need each other the most.  Trust me, I’m saying this more to myself than anyone, but I suspect (hope?) I’m not alone in this.

*Just as I was finishing up editing this, before anything was posted, Maximillian himself gave me a call out of the blue.  It’s working already.  :)