Posted by:
popolvuh
(
)
Date: February 28, 2013 06:01PM
I've spent the day walking endlessly in the rain, thinking about xyz, such a jumble of thoughts and emotions. Lots of tears, I guess its good that its wet outside, a bit of camouflage. Now I'm cold and wet and tired, and so very very sad.
Any of you who have read my posts know what a Luddite I tend to be, I'm suspicious and even hostile to much of the 'new social media'. It often seems to me to be an easy way to create the illusion of connection, but without the risks, responsibilities and rewards that friendship bring in the meat world. Its often just another way of self-promotion too, or the means of creating a false persona that takes the place of a real life and real character and real experience. And as too many have learned, it can also make it all too easy to bring out the sociopathic sides of people. It seems that many in our society enjoy the prospect of creating false identities, manipulating and taking advantage of trust, stalking and harassing and intensifying cruelty, all at a safe distance and mostly free from consequences. Those on the receiving of such behavior suffer in the real world, physically and emotionally. I still remember clearly how deeply shocked I was to read the threads here about the sense of betrayal that swept through this community at times, when it turned out someone was not who they said they were.
And yet. Why did I end up at RfM at all? Because in the real world, people we love hurt us too, deeply. A person I thought of as my best friend of many years betrayed me, destroyed long standing plans, events that sent me into hibernation. For many months I felt rather insane, depressed, angry, lost, defeated, disoriented. I suppose I drifted unthinkingly towards 'something' online, as millions if not billions of people do now, a sign of just how desperate I was, if I had thought about it at all. I left the church 20 years ago, I rarely choose to think about it except in the traumatic and miserable context of my family and politics, something I hardly enjoy and certainly would NOT do when feeling as terrible as I was feeling. And still, perhaps in some unconscious way, some part of me must have felt it was worth a gamble, lurking in the exmo world, somehow thinking this particular bond (or curse) offered some possibility of comfort with others, even if I really had no idea what it could be.
I read and followed many of you long before I ever posted, and xyz was probably at the top of the list. When I did finally take that step, he was welcoming and encouraging, even when I got a less than positive response from a few others (but with time I came to understand the reasons for that). I didn't know until now that he was flattop, but it makes sense, I quickly came to feel that he was one of the 'anchor' personalities here, and in a good way, someone who had been around for a long time. To be encouraged by him made me stick around, made me feel safe and included, especially when at first I was so up and down about the whole experience.
As unexpected as it might have been to me consciously, I found over time something I wasn't even sure I believed in, that I was even skeptical could exist. And that was a connection with people in this nebulous internet world that felt real enough, that brought comfort, without the risk and stress of real world connections, the very ones that I mostly wanted to run from. It was xyz and a few others who did that for me, as I am sure they have for many many others.
I often timed my lurking and posting on RfM to coincide with when I thought he'd be around. I often thought of him in particular when I posted, I wanted him to read what I wrote and of course like it. I can remember weekends when I hoped to find him logged in, late into the night. He had a way of creating a groove, where he and others would exchange riffs, clips, jokes, stories, you could spend way too many hours just riding along and feeling as happy and carefree as you might ever want to feel. You all have read the grumbles about the technological and connective limitations here, you know how hard it is to create what I'm talking about! And yet, I am sure many of you know exactly what I mean about a being caught up in a sense of real intimicy here at times, in real time (okay, with a delay). I hardly think I was the only one who hoped he'd be online and wanted to join his party for a while, even if I didn't always participate.
In time, I took the noobie naive risk of reaching out to a few of you as a real person; there are those here who know my name, have seen my picture, know where I live, know things about me. The more online experience that I've gained, the more I understand just how risky that is, on both sides, reaching out and receiving. I've been lucky, its been a very good thing for me. But there are plenty of those out there who have been burned, and burned bad. I know more about that now.
But I so regret that I never took that risk with xyz. I suppose it is partly because I was such a fan, I worried about coming across as 'stalker-ish', I didn't want to seem too eager, when in fact I was eager and anxious that he would like me. I composed letters to him where I tried to be witty and charming and write about books I thought he'd like, or link to articles I thought we could snark about. I wanted to know more about his time in SF, I thought there was a good chance our lives had intersected, we might even have met. But I didn't send them. I never got to see his picture until today and under such tragic circumstances, or know his name, or see his art. I never got the chance to exist as a real life person for him either, whatever that would have meant. I guess I kept telling myself, he's 'savvy', he's beyond needing to make new friends through the intertubes, he probably has more fans than he'd like already.
The connections and benefits I gained from even being a rather marginal participant here brought me out of hibernation. I went back out into meat world, spending less time online overall, taking risks with people and new challenges. I'm loving my fitness kick, I look and feel great, I've reconnected with real people from my past, I've tackled some difficult family issues, things are a world better than they were not so long ago. I've come back to life.
And all this took place without that much regard for anybody at RfM and what was happening with them, except occasionally with those with whom I correspond outside RfM. When I lurked here randomly and not all that often, I always started by searching for posts by my favorite people and quickly saw xyz wasn't around as much. I missed him but assumed he was just taking a break. I told myself he'd be back, as I would too, as others come back, even seemingly against their will.
But this online way of connecting makes some things too easy, including things that should NOT be easy. Like: just moving away from the screen, disconnecting from the actual real people at the other end of the modems without consequence, when its convenient and for whatever pretext, no matter how innocent. In real life, I could never just 'take a break' from my friends, carry on without a care in the world, not check in, not have a clue that they may be facing something unexpected, or tough, or even good. This is partly why I so distrust this electronic sort of connection; sending a quick text or email isn't the same thing as calling or dropping by or making sure you actually speak to the person you care for or see their face in real life/time. But no matter how effortless the shift in our gaze and the standing up from the chair is, I have to remember that those people who can seem incredibly real to me as I type away don't just stop existing when I move on to something else. Its wrong to think so, even if its just so easy. My disregard wasn't malicious, it just happened without even thinking about it. But that doesn't make it feel right, I don't feel right about it at all, especially now.
Its just so heartbreaking to learn how this beautiful person came to his end. I'm not against suicide, I plan on doing it myself at some point, but hopefully a few decades down the line. But even as I say that, I have yet to truly tackle the dilemma of what to do about my friends, how to say goodbye and how to allow them the same option, how to do my best to make sure we've all had a chance to say things we mostly don't say, to avoid regrets. This feels like a responsibility and I'm not sure how to go about it, if its even possible. But I don't mean this as judgment at all, I suspect that whatever xyz did or didn't do weighed on his mind a lot. I can't help but believe strongly that the kind and humane person I admired so much online was anything less than deeply concerned about the well-being of those in his meatworld life who loved him. I don't know what really happened, most of us may never know, and it doesn't really matter. I can only hope his choice made some sense to him and didn't just come from a place of despair.
I just so wish that I'd taken the risk to send that little request to Susan and ask him to contact me if he liked, so that perhaps we could have exchanged even a few personal emails, and moved from the virtual world into the real world for me. I wish I could have told him what an impact he and RfM had had on me, the skeptic about the value of this whole online way of interacting. I wish I could have sent him my picture and enjoyed some harmless flirting. I wish he would have known that there were actually many many days when reading his posts, or exchanging posts with him, were the best parts of my day and very needed.
Somehow virtual comfort feels very real, its spooky that way, and he did that for me, even if he had no idea. I don't know if there would ever have been opportunity to give something back, but I didn't even create the chance for that. I used the distance provided by the ether to stay safe, but also to stay clueless. I suppose that is the intelligent default mode in these tumultuous days, but it carries a cost, one I'm feeling very much aware of today.
I've meditated on death ever since my buddhist grandmother introduced me to the concept, and yet perhaps the only death I can really think about calmly is my own. I remain quite unprepared for the death of others. I'm one of the atheists here, there is no magical afterlife for me or for those I care about. I find it beautiful to think that the very stuff of them remains here in this world, to be part of a cycle of life that began in exploding stars. But the end of a particular being, that is hard, there is no real comfort for that.
When I'm up for it, I can at least spend some time reading his back posts and remembering him in this way, and I can bookmark his picture and see some of his art. Little electronic pieces of him still remain, I suppose that is something for those of us who only knew him in this way. Right now, there is just so much sadness and rather useless questions, ones that really can't really be answered in any case.
I have no real wisdom to share, I just felt in some way I needed to confess more than just my quick post earlier, when I was reeling from the news. The person I knew as xyz will be so greatly missed, and I wish I'd had the courage to thank him for all he did for me at a time when it mattered, more than I knew and certainly more than he knew. I see that others too feel this, I'm glad we can at least pay some tribute to him here in this place where we came to love him.