Category — Blogiquette or On Blogging

Karen made a very interesting point on my post about the drop in comments.  She writes:

Before blogs, we read newspapers, and we did not write a letter to the editor for every item we read, but we talked about interesting stories at work, school, the dinner table or over the back fence. The conversations were no less rich and even more dispersed than in the digital realm. The advantage of digital conversations is that we have not only the means of gathering those scattered conversations but dropping in and participating in them.

Which raises a really important question: is it healthy to have our words and ideas widely critiqued by everyone and anyone?  Authors and poets know that having your work reviewed is part of the act of publishing; though it isn’t part of the act of writing.  You can write for the joy of writing and even allow people to read it, but never receive feedback on it, which isn’t the case with traditional publishing.  Books that are published by traditional publishers are reviewed, newspaper and magazine articles are discussed in letters to the editor, and the author has the potential to see these thoughts (though you can always avoid reading reviews).  It goes with the territory, much like how report cards are part of teaching, though they may not be the thing most teachers think about when they make the decision to go into education.

But those reviews, a long time ago, were written by professionals.  They had a job and understood the responsibility that came with that job in writing honest critiques of published works.  With the exception of letters to the editor written by people who are passionate enough about the subject to do the work of taking out a piece of paper and writing down their thoughts and slapping a stamp on an envelope — things that discourage those who are not passionate from voicing their opinion — most authors never heard anything about their writing except from reviewers and book sale figures.  Sure, there were letters that trickled in or comments made directly to the writer. (I’m assuming usually gushy since how many people have the ovaries to walk up to a writer and say to their face, “I think your work sucked.”)  But the feedback was slow-coming, usually thoughtful (which doesn’t always mean kind, but at least criticism that is usable), and small in quantity.

And now we have this non-traditional publishing medium — blogs — where people receive feedback on their writing almost instantaneously.  And it’s not from people who write reviews for a living, who are keeping in mind the code of ethics that govern their profession.  The comments are written by me and you, and we’re hardly following a code of ethics except in the most personal sense.  Some of the comments are fantastically helpful; so many moments in life were easier because your words were with me.  And some of the comments are hurtful; even without intending to be.

And it raises the question: is blogging really healthy?  Is it always a good thing to receive this much feedback about your words and thoughts?  Have we taken something that is good in small doses and brought it to an unhealthy level?  I don’t really have an answer: I’m asking you.

It goes further: is it healthy to have our lives critiqued?  To have people not responding to the words on the screen but writing about our beings in general?  It used to be that the people who entered the public’s opinion were mostly celebrities who knew — like teachers and report cards — that critique came as part of the job.  But now there are so many people offering up their opinion on celebrities (who they are as human beings; even though we don’t know them) and on a daily basis, regular people enter into the realm of virtual celebrity from computer shooter Tommy Jordan to breastfeeding cover mum Jamie Lynn Grumet.

Again, I don’t have an answer, but it does give food for thought: in taking the conversation that used to be held at the backyard fence and bringing it onto the Internet not only for other people to eavesdrop in on but for the subject to be privy to as well, have we done more emotional damage than good?  Or is the good enough to balance out the potential emotional damage?

Can we return to the idea of validation?

Josh pointed out one night that the reason the Wolvog had such anxiety over the idea of an Internet blackout on March 31st (was that seriously a month ago?) was that he couldn’t fathom why someone would choose to harm the Internet.  There was no point a person could raise that would be worth it in the Wolvog’s eyes.

Computers are his cake and the Internet is its icing.  The iPad without Internet service is still fun but add in a wifi connection and you will see his tiny body start quivering.

The idea of hurting his favourite thing — even to make a larger point — is unfathomable.  It would be the equivalent of strangling kittens to protest the use of animals in medical experiments or beating people to make a statement about violence against women.

It freaked him out.

*******

I think it’s a human trait to assume that people will like what we like; or while we can understand that people have different tastes, we think to ourselves anyway, “they are really missing out.”  Meat eaters have told me that I “don’t know what I’m missing.” (This is true, I don’t know what I’m missing, but I think the point is also that I don’t care about what I’m missing.  I don’t consider myself missing something.  Whereas someone who likes meat would definitely feel themselves missing something if they were in my shoes.  Though I feel nothing of the sort being me in my shoes.)  And let’s be blunt: we’ve seen it in our own online community in regards to people’s choices in resolving their infertility, especially when it comes to resolving by living child-free after infertility or loss.

And yet, as rational human beings, we also know that just because someone looks at the world in a different way doesn’t mean that it negates our choices or our likes.  You can like vanilla and I can like chocolate, and neither fact makes a statement about the quality of either vanilla or chocolate.  My lack of meat eating doesn’t change your meat-eating world; doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat meat nor does your eating it mean that I should eat meat.  We can each make vastly different choices and not have it be commentary on what we think about the other option.

It is entirely possible to choose one thing without making a value statement about the other choice.

And yet, in our emotional world, we want people on our side, to see the world our way because it validates our choice.  If people choose a different path, it’s very easy to get caught up in wondering about the hidden meaning behind that choice.  Did they choose to not eat meat because they believe meat-eating is bad?  Because they think it’s cruel to animals?  Do they think I’m cruel to animals if I eat meat?  I’ve had people try to convince me to try meat, and it becomes clear very quickly that it has nothing to do with what they believe is best for me, but because they want us to be in agreement, standing on the same side of the meat-eating divide.

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I can’t fathom why people wouldn’t like blogging, though I meet people who say it all the time.  Not that they don’t want to write one, but that they don’t even want to read one.  It’s not a judgment call — they think it’s fine that I blog and that I like to read blogs.  They just can’t imagine spending their time on it much in the same way other activities that people love don’t appeal to me.  I don’t ski, for instance.  I have and didn’t enjoy it, so I haven’t gone in years.  I really only went in the first place to be with my sister and father who both enjoy skiing.

It’s taken well into adulthood to stop doing things for the wrong reasons.  I was that teen who would have jumped off the cliff if others were jumping just because I wanted the connection; even if we already had ten places where we already connected.  I always needed that eleventh place; didn’t want to feel left out or that I was missing something (even if it was just cliff jumping).  I can still sometimes catch myself doing it now, going somewhere I don’t really want to go just for the sake of not missing out.

Sometimes I think we unconsciously go along because we want to validate someone else’s idea.  People like people who support them, who confirm their good ideas.  We rarely wonder why people agree with us though we spend a hell of a lot of time dissecting possibilities for why someone disagrees with us.  So we say yes to the activity even if we don’t like it or we do like it but it doesn’t fit into our schedule at the moment because we want to be that agreeable person; we want to have the other person see our similarities.  We validate them and they validate us at the same time — we were chosen for the activity (They really like you!  Validation!) and they chose the activity (I have great ideas!  Validation!). It’s a great big validation party.

We’ve talked a lot about people being validated, chosen, noticed in the other two posts (Validation and Being Counted) a few weeks ago, but I think it’s equally important that our choices are valued and confirmed.  We want to hear from others that we’re spending our time well.  We’ve chosen worthy activities.  We’ve accomplished something by how we’ve spent our time.  We want people to not only respect our decisions, but to respect us for making those decisions.  To agree with us that the decisions we’ve made are the best ones we could possibly make given the circumstances.

A lack of comments or page views isn’t just about not being noticed.  It makes us wonder if we’re using our time wisely.  Our rational brain can tick off all the things we gain from blogging that are not tied to numbers — a few quality relationships, maybe an interesting opportunity, some information we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.  But then our emotional side kicks in and we start looking at those numbers as validation for time well spent.

If people visit our blog or respond to our words, it’s confirmation that I’m using my time well.  That I am producing something of worth.  Time is spent well on creating things of worth ergo, I’m doing something rockin’.

And I am drawn to other bloggers because they confirm my choice of activity.  They blog which means I’m on the right path if I blog.  If I was the only blogger, I would wonder if I was doing something worthy of time or if this was a complete waste.  But I’m not the only blogger; there are millions of us.  So I look at those millions as being part of my confirmation that I’m doing something that has some value even if the value is not monetary.  The value may be the friendships gained or the self-esteem obtained.  Millions of people can’t be wrong.

It takes a lot of emotional yanking to stop your mind from going to the place of “there is something wrong with my activity choice” when people say they don’t like what you like.  We all know that it’s entirely possible to not enjoy blogging and not have it be a statement on the worth of blogging.  To have it simply be a matter of taste.  Because it feels so personal, this idea of someone not liking what you like.  It doesn’t just have to be our activities.  It’s anything — our ideas, our values, our religion, our political beliefs, the way we have chosen to resolve our infertility — that are an extension of our self, of our being.  The things that make me, Melissa and the things that make you, You.

*******

The Wolvog can’t wrap his mind around the idea that someone could harm his favourite thing.  He can’t wrap his mind around the idea of hackers wreaking havoc.  He can’t wrap his mind around the idea of spammers cluttering up his inbox.  In the same way that an environmentalist can’t fathom why a person would litter and mess up a gorgeous landscape, the Wolvog cannot let go of his belief that the Internet is a wonderful and vast playground that should be treated with reverence.  The boy has been known to stand in front of the modem just smiling at the blinking lights.  He’s the sort who would jump at the chance to cuddle up with a Mifi.

It scares him to consider this idea of someone not loving the Internet the way he loves the Internet.  Because it’s a commentary on how he spends his time?  Because he doesn’t want something he loves defiled?  Because how could someone not love something so absolutely fantastic and fascinating as the world wide web?

Because if someone can choose something else, especially the inverse of the thing he loves, does that make a statement on the worth of what he loves?  That is a very scary thought — we’re on earth for such a short period of time, no one wants to use their time poorly.  We all want to hear that we’ve made the best choices, that our decisions are cherished since they’re an extension of our selves.  We all want to believe that we’ve picked the best for ourselves given the choices at our disposal.

It’s a hard lesson; that not everyone will agree with you and that by holding a different opinion, it doesn’t mean they’re against you.  It can sometimes just mean that they’ve chosen something different and they are equally struggling with the fact that you aren’t standing with them just as much as you are struggling with the fact that they aren’t standing with you.  It’s a hard lesson to learn that our confirmation and validation needs to come internally rather than externally.  That if we love what we’re doing, we should just keep doing what we’re doing.  And not worry about the rest of the world or what their choices mean in connection to ours.  I don’t know many people who can consistently tune the external world out and merrily go about loving what they love regardless of what anyone else thinks.  I know I certainly can’t.  So I’m not sure how to teach it to the Wolvog.

I curated a great post on BlogHer this week about how you know whether or not you can use an image on your blog.  It’s a must-read if you ever:

• Include pictures in your blog posts
• Used one in your header
• Use them to create badges on your blog
• Upload cartoons you didn’t draw to Facebook
• Right-click and save other people’s images
• Pin images on Pinterest

Actually, it’s a must-read for everyone.  So go over and read it.  And then come back because we probably need to talk some more.

Let’s start with attribution because it’s black-and-white: if you use an image, you need to attribute it.  Just as you wrote your blog post and receive credit for your blog post, people who create images need to have their work credited.  So unless you’re cool with other people taking your work and passing it off as their own, don’t post images without attribution.  A simple note at the bottom of the post listing the photo credit is fine.  If you have multiple images in the post from different sources, attribute beneath the photo.

Now what images can you use?  This is still fairly black-and-white.  Here are acceptable sources:

• Any photo you take within reason (discounting images that the subject would object to being published)
• Any photo you receive permission to use (someone else took it, but they tell you that you can post it)
• Any photo you purchase the rights to use with attribution from a site such as iStockphoto.
• Any photo that people have attached a creative commons license to use*

* How do you find photos with a creative commons license?  Go onto Flickr, put in your search terms, use the “advance search” hyperlink to the right of the search bar, scroll down and check the box that says “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content.”  Additionally, if you have ads on your blog, accept product for review, or make money off your blog in any way, it is best to check off the box that says “Find content to use commercially” to be safe.  If you plan on using the term to create a badge, header, or alter it in any way, check the box marked “Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon.”  Now search again and those are the images you are allowed to use with attribution.

There are sites where photographers can upload their work such as Stock.xchng or Morguefile, and others where people upload photos that would be of use to the public such as Wikimedia Commons and some of these free photo sites are reputable and some are not.  So use with caution.

So what can’t you use?

• An image you find on Google even if you attribute it
• An image you get on another site that you right-click, save, and upload to your own — no, you can’t take that picture of dreamy dreamy Ryan Gosling and upload it to your blog or Facebook or Pinterest in most cases unless you have permission from the original owner of the photograph
• An image you find on Flickr that doesn’t have a creative commons license

And how does fair use apply to photographs or drawings?  Did you read that post I told you to read above?  If you did, you’d know exactly how fair use applies to photographs… cough.  It’s easy to apply fair use to words — I am allowed to pull a small quote from your blog as long as I attribute it to you.  I am never allowed to take your whole blog post or multiple paragraphs of it and reprint it on my blog just because I like it so much, even if I attribute it to you.  You may only use a small portion of the whole.  But it’s impossible to apply that sort of fair use to a photograph — you can’t show a small sliver of the photo — therefore, there are fewer ways you can claim fair use and it’s a very grey area of the law.  For instance, can you use a book cover images when you are doing a book review?  If you are writing a whole post about a photograph, such as the time when Hillary Clinton was photoshopped out of the Situation Room, can you include the two photographs?  These are grey areas, and it’s best to consult someone with legal authority when entering those grey areas.  I’m not a lawyer; I’m just someone who has been taught well (by BlogHer mostly) on how to use images on the Web.

I am this mindful of images because I want people to be this mindful of my words and ideas, especially projects that I have taken a considerable amount of time to formulate and execute.  I believe that 95% of people who misuse images on the Internet do so because they don’t know any better.  But it sort of sucks because if you read this post, now you know.  So use images mindfully, pin images on Pinterest mindfully, and people will hopefully do the same for you.

Every ten years, there is a census taken in America.  The last one was in 2010.  The next one will be in 2020.

The census is just a tool to gather information.  You can look up your state afterward and see what percentage of your population falls under the age of 5, is a Native American, has been living in the same house for more than one year.  It certainly isn’t the only way we count people: there is the issuing of birth certificates and death certificates.

But once I learned about the census, I always thought about the six years of my life that weren’t counted.  I was born in 1974, and the next census wasn’t until 1980.  If I had died in 1979, I would have slipped through the enormous cracks between censuses.  I always pictured it like wooden slats, with gaps between them where miniature human beings were tumbling into blackness.  Because it would only be children who would experience this — the lack of counting.  You would need to be under ten years old to never become a number in one of the censuses.

*******

And yet, all those children clearly existed.  They don’t in terms of this one government tool, but they clearly existed for every family who lost their child.  One only needs to read a loss blog for a few entries to get a sense of how much that child is missed.

*******

The story of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke starts with a census (so says the little Jewish girl).  The census of Quirinius was taken at regular intervals for tax purposes.  All people needed to travel back to their ancestral city to be counted, regardless of where they lived in the moment, so Joseph and Mary went from Nazareth to Bethlehem, which is about 96 miles according to Google Maps.  Since that is by car and Joseph could have shaved off some time by traveling straight on camel, let’s put it at around an 80 mile trip.  I don’t know if you’ve ever rode a camel — I have — but 80 miles is a long way to ride atop a camel through the desert.  Without ice cream kiosks by the side of the road and an Egged bus to hitch if it gets a little to warm for comfort.  Nazareth is in the northern section of Israel, by Lake Kinneret, and Bethlehem is in central Israel, a little south of Jerusalem.

Other Gospels differ from this account of Jesus’s beginnings, but this is the one I always latched onto because it played into my visualization of our census, of people falling between.  It’s not as if people had a choice; Joseph and Mary were traveling because it was sanctioned by Rome.  But to me, that 80 mile journey shows how deeply we also want to be counted.  We want to count others and we want to be counted ourselves.  This part of the story appeals to me because it is such a human moment; the desire to mark down every single person under your domain.  To know them by numbering them.

 *******

In Judaism, you are not supposed to count people.  It’s minhag (which means “tradition” as opposed to halacha which means “law”) to not count people before they’re born — no baby showers or purchasing items for the baby, for instance.  But it’s halacha to not count people in general.  The main idea is that we aren’t supposed to count people just for the sake of counting people; to satiate our own curiosity.  It’s okay — according to some rabbis — to count the people in the room to make sure you have the required minyan (ten people you need for prayers) because you’re counting people for a good reason.  But it’s never okay to count just to know the number; for instance, to count your guests at a party.

There are different ways around this; for instance, King Saul collected a shard of pottery from each soldier and counted the pieces of ceramic.  As a camp counselor, we used to make sure we had our whole group when we went on field trips by counting them as “not one, not two, not three…”  Even though those two examples would both fit into counting for a good reason — to see if you have enough soldiers, to make sure you’re not leaving a child behind.  Counting the kids in the camp just to see if you have more kids this summer vs. last summer and if that advertising campaign is working would not fit in as a good reason.

So where do blog comments fit into this concept?  Every comment is representative of an actual person; they’re written by real people with real feelings and not robots.  So if we count them, are we inadvertently counting people for all the wrong reasons?  Are we getting hung-up on a number?  And what about stats?  If we look at our stats daily — numbers that count all the individuals who look at our blogs — are we counting to satiate our own ego?  Because there really isn’t a good reason why you would need to see that number beyond how it makes you feel.  That it’s a measure of progress, of feedback as to what resonates.  What doesn’t.

*******

I was folding laundry while sitting on the living room floor.  The twins were playing on this computer programming social media site for kids that they both geek out on daily.  The kids program their own games and app-like things, upload them to their account, and then they can leave comments/questions on each other’s projects.  Yes, I am well aware that my children have more computer skills than I do.

ChickieNob was logged in, checking comments on one of her projects and the Wolvog was standing next to her, running through his usual monologue.

(He is always her greatest cheerleader; he likes to stand by her chair while she works and murmur encouraging things: “You are the smartest girl in the world!  That was such a fantastic idea!  I am so proud of you for doing that math in your head!  This project is going to be wonderful!”  Seriously, I sometimes wish we could bottle him and send him to every person in the world, especially when he stands next to me as I cook and says: “Mommy, you are the best cook in the world!  You are so creative with food!  You make the best pizza!”)

I was in the middle folding a shirt when I heard him say, “and you got 80 comments which is fantastic!  That means you are very popular!”

Something in that made me very uncomfortable.

Melissa: Is it important to be popular?

Wolvog: (prying his eyes away from the screen as if the Mac literally grasps his corneas every time it springs to life) No.

Melissa: But you just told her that it was great that she got 80 comments.  Would it mean the project wasn’t as good if it got 60 comments?

Wolvog: No.

Melissa: What if it got no comments?

Wolvog: But she got 80 comments.

Melissa: I’m just asking, what if the project got no comments.  Does that make it a bad project?

Wolvog: People comment on projects that they like.

Melissa: Do they?  What about the projects they don’t find?  If no one finds the project and therefore no one leaves a comment, does it mean it was bad?

I think I blew his little mind.

We ended up having a great conversation about it.  The Wolvog leaves dozens of comments daily on other people’s projects.  He loves talking about computer programming, and he excitedly makes his way around the site, unabashedly leaving comments everywhere.  He doesn’t look at a project without leaving a comment.  Which means a lot of people know him (and by default, his twin sister since she is the only friend request he has accepted.  It’s an interesting dichotomy — he comments everywhere but he loudly proclaims to a social media site that he is only friends with one person; his sister.  Whereas from what I assume, a lot of people leave few comments but collect many “friend” connections).  They visit his projects because he has visited their projects.

I worry about him latching onto computer-based validation this early in life.  We all know as adults how much meaning we put into comments and page views.  If you comment on this post, I assume that means it resonated with you.  If you don’t comment on this post, I fall into this grey area of wonder — were you busy, reading the post on a phone, did you hate it, was there nothing to say?  If you visit my blog, I assume that means there is something of value you can read here.  But I also know that if you don’t visit my blog, it doesn’t mean my writing or ideas aren’t good enough to hold someone’s attention.  There could be dozens of reasons for why you don’t come.

The rational adult knows not to hold so much stock in numbers.  There are fantastic writers who few know about and there are terrible writers that everyone knows about.

But the emotional adult is like the Wolvog — excited by the number.  Today, 80 comments seem like enough.  But we all know how this goes — 80 views is good, but 90 is better.  90 is reached, the person feels good.  70 is reached the next day and the person wonders what is wrong.  120 is reached and the person wonders how they can do that again.  30 is obtained and the person wonders what is wrong and changes a bunch of things.  20 is obtained and the person changes more things.  80 is obtained and it no longer looks as good as it did.

Humans like to gather information, we like to make sense of things.  We like to count people just for the sake of counting people to know how many people exist.  We like to know how many people read our words, how many people took the time to tell us that our words affected them even minutely.

As humans, we like to be counted.  We like the idea of being recognized, of our existence being marked.  We all aim to leave something behind in this world — a child, an invention, a book, a business — that marks the fact that we were here after we’re gone.  We want to know that we’ve been counted, noticed, noted.

The census, the comments, the page views — these are all examples of externally sourced validation of our existence, our importance.  Numbers matter  to us, as much as we say they don’t.  If they didn’t matter, we wouldn’t tie up our self-worth in them, in the amount of money we make vs. the fact that we make money.  The size of our house vs. the fact that we have a house.  The number vs. the quality of our friends on Facebook.

With few exceptions, numbers matter to people: that is a self-evident truth that we can’t dismiss.  We may focus on different numbers — how many times we have sex per month vs. how many people bought our book vs. how many people attended our presentation — but we all focus on numbers somewhere in our life because they’re the measuring stick for our self-esteem.  They’re the concrete example we can point at that say “I matter.  I am here.  I am noticed.  I am counted.  I have worth.”  We don’t count the things that are meaningless to know; the blades of grass on our lawn instead of the number of bathrooms in the house.  We count what matters to us, and that is often people and our connections to them.  Humans want to connect.

What do you count?  What numbers matter to you?

*******

I have, I fear, at least one more post in me about external validation all based on the Wolvog and his love of the Internet.  Coming soon.

On Friday night, Josh mentioned an NPR piece he heard about Anonymous shutting down the Internet on March 31st.  The Wolvog immediately started to panic: Why would someone do this?  And how could they do it?  And would they do it?  What would happen to his blog or his favourite sites?  The same questions again and again in a loop, like a panicked drop of water circling the drain.

We alternated between reassuring him — Mashable says it won’t happen — and giving him some perspective — It will be like a blackout.  You’ll just do whatever you do during a blackout.

We actually had a blackout last week for a few hours and he didn’t do very well with the concept of no Internet at that point either.  It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t have been on the computer anyway because we were eating dinner during the bulk of the outage and doing homework during the rest.  Just the idea of not being able to go on the Internet was terrifying.

His first words when he woke up Saturday morning were, “do we still have the Internet?”

*******

A few weeks ago, I walked out of the house without my phone to run errands.  I was walking across the parking lot at the library when I subconsciously touched my hip to check for my cell phone (unsnapping the seat belt sometimes knocks it off in the car), didn’t find it, and then realized that I had left it on my bed.

My first thought was to go back home — a long drive — and retrieve it, which would mean not having time to get to most of my errands.  I justified it with the idea that the twins’ school would be unable to reach me if there was a problem.  But let’s be honest.  If there was truly a problem, they’d call Josh.  They’d call my mother.  And what were the chances that a problem would happen in the next half hour?

I wanted the phone because I wanted access to email.

Because emails coming in make me feel connected to the world.  People need to reach me.  They need to ask me questions, they need to tell me things.  Comments from posts are emailed to me and Facebook messages.  I like the feeling of the phone buzzing to let me know there are emails because each buzz means that I am someone that people want to speak to; to interact with.  If they’re speaking to me, I exist.  If they have something to say to me, I must be of some importance.

I know; once I realized this I slapped myself and went in the library, my figurative tail between my legs.

I got out books, ran to the food store, went to the school for pick-up, and drove home.  I survived, and even took extra minutes before walking upstairs to retrieve my phone to prove a point.  I can quit you anytime, technology.

Who am I kidding?

*******

I’m a random towner.

A long time ago, I was sitting with my boyfriend (now, ex-boyfriend) and a few of his friends and my friends combined.  We had just driven up to New York from D.C.  In the car, we had talked about how one of my favourite things to do when driving somewhere is pull off the road in a random town.  My boyfriend (1) refused to do this on our drive up (admittedly, there are very few exits off the highway between D.C. and NY that I haven’t already explored so I didn’t really need to do it again this trip) and (2) thought it was strange enough to bring up as a discussion point with our collection of friends.

He asked who else did this: who else was a random towner vs. a non-random towner.

I started doing it when I first got my license.  I drove down River Road, and when I got to the end, I made a right.  I found an old general store and some farms, and then the road wound around to a small shopping district that I never knew about.  Later on, I took River Road to the end and made a left, and followed it for almost an hour.  I just liked to see where roads went; but moreover, I liked getting out of the car and walking around knowing that (1) no one knew me and (2) no one could reach me.  It was almost like disappearing.

I still do this all the time, usually dragging along the twins.  Except now it doesn’t feel quite like disappearing.  If I can’t find my way back home, I can always use the map function on the phone.  And people can call me or email me.  I am always still connected to the rest of the world.  When I did it back in graduate school, before I had a cell phone, I felt like I was completely erased in those moments when I was off the road I was supposed to be on and in this random town.  Even a few years ago, when I had a phone that made calls but didn’t receive email, I could still feel like someone made out of ether, not really noticed or retained by the people around me because I’m a random stranger just passing through.  No one of consequence.  But now, I have the cell phone on my hip, buzzing buzzing buzzing to let me know that people are trying to communicate with me.  It is comforting — it is actually more comforting than not.  But it’s also a tether.  Tethers have a way of limiting our mobility even while making us feel part of something.

*******

A long time ago, all my validation came from face-to-face interactions and the telephone.  I got email in college, but it was something I checked once a day like the post box.  There was usually a message or two in my inbox.  Ten years ago, I got most of my validation from face-to-face interactions and the telephone and a bit of my validation from email.  Five years ago, I got some of my validation from face-to-face interactions and some of my validation from email, and that is where it has remained in a precarious balance.

People interact with me in the face-to-face world and it lets me know that they see me as important, worth attention, someone of consequence.  They make plans with me for playdates for our kids or to join me at yoga or to ask my opinion on something.  We grab coffee and talk, or we stand outside, chatting on someone’s driveway.  Josh shows me in twenty thousand ways every day (wait!  It’s the $20,000!) that he loves me, he chose me.  Out of all the girls in the world, he picked me to be his wife and that action proves my importance; I matter to someone.  My friends picked me to be friends with and that action proves my importance; I matter to them.

I exist.  I’m important.  If I disappeared tomorrow people would notice.  They need me to reshelve books at the library or they’ll sit on the reshelving cart!  The twins need me to buy them yogurt at the store!  My friend needs me to watch her kids after school!  The girl scout troop would be leaderless without me!  I believe all humans need to feel this validation one way or the other — we need to know that we couldn’t slip off the earth unnoticed.  If we never returned to the main road we’re supposed to be on, people would miss us.  The random town is a vacation from the tethers of reality, a chance to disappear for an hour only to reappear again.  A magic trick under my own control.

I think the problem the Wolvog revealed to me is how much we are dependent on the Internet to bring us our validation.  That we’ve stopped noticing that we get a lot of it in the face-to-face world, or we devalue that validation, or maybe we plum don’t have it. (I know too many people who have great connections online but are underappreciated in their face-to-face world.)

But the Internet is a delivery system that is subject to outages.  That isn’t accessible at all times.  The Wolvog heard the Internet was going away for a day and he heard it as his validation was going away; his messages from friends on the kid’s social networking site he frequents, his games he plays online that display his high score for others to see.  The Internet makes him feel important, needed, noticed.

I worry because the twins will never remember a time when they didn’t have the Internet that they can return to during times when it’s not accessible.  The power goes out and unless I have a deadline at work, I shrug and read a book.  There are plenty of non-electricity-based activities I enjoy doing just as much as I enjoy using the computer to connect with people.  I think it is much harder for this upcoming generation to do that — to feel okay being unconnected to people through technology, even if it’s only for a day.  My son experiences what I felt in the parking lot but doesn’t have the history to create perspective and walk into the library to finish his errands.  He mentally stands in the parking lot thinking over and over again: I’m untethered, I’m untethered, I’m untethered.

And I also think, as I saw with my ex-boyfriend, that there are people who never enjoy being untethered, whereas there are those of us who like the disappearing magic trick as long as it is within our control.  It’s just two valid yet different ways of seeing the world.

*******

I don’t want you to think this topic ends here.  There are a few additional roads off of this one, random towns.  And I want to pull off the main road to explore them too.  It’s just taking me a moment to get my thoughts unjumbled.  Sometimes they feel like puzzle pieces and there is a hand in my head bringing the picture together.

I just wanted to pause here to let you know how grateful I am to you when you let me know that I’m here, that I’m heard, that you’ve considered my words, that I’m important enough to communicate with, that I exist and people have noticed that.