Seeking intimacy born of creative, shared passion?

Sometimes I wonder ...

I watch a bunch of different communities that are devoted to love and passion between characters - real or imagined. From the world of ontd_startrek to the fic communities on live journal devoted to countless pairings and conversations about countless pairings ... there are times when I wonder if what we're not really seeking is an intimacy born of a creative passion that can bind us together as a people.

We are isolated. Locked in our little worlds with our little glowing boxes, more and more we seek out connections. Meet ups and gatherings and bashes and parties - all of them devoted to giving us that shared intimacy. We seek comfort with the known and stare at the unknown with fear, terror, and desire. We seek to pull away shadows of our souls but scared that we will be labeled geek, nerd, dork, or nuts allows us to seek out the goofy, silly side of ourselves and never truly touch the other side of the human soul.

I do not speak of our connections to others. Our connections to others have always been and will always be mostly superficial. As humans we keep a small group of people we love and trust around us those that even if they are not blood, they are considered family. Most of us have those we call friends but who are at best acquaintances. We can love them, but if we were to lose them in our lives we would not be affected that deeply.

But how can we lose people? What with twitter and facebook and myspace and blog after blog after networking site and blog we find old loves and old hates and meet up again, ships passing on a crowded channel. At the touch of a button we know how everyone is doing. Everyone I think but ourselves. The internet has been our new religion, our new way to feel important, to feel loved in the eyes of the universe. We have a purpose on the internet - even if it is to post the latest updates on our new Prada shoes, important happenings of democratic struggles around the world, or a blog about the importance of exploring our own personal psyche. As I write this, I do not pretend to be immune or above the words I am spewing. Without the internet, I would not have made some of my closest friends, my family. Without the internet I would not have found my way to so many new worlds of exploration. I would not have found the courage to start posting my fan fiction and then move on to publishing my own works. I would not be the person I am today.

But I find myself more and more at odds with where we are as an internet culture. On fandom after fandom community, I see posts that we as fans should have no place in caring about. I do not need to see picture post after picture post of Actor A or Actress B as they walk to get morning coffee. Yet, for the worlds that I care deeply about, I check. Did Musician A appear at Band B's show? So perhaps for me then it is not topic but frequency? I don't know.

But I wonder. Is this frequency of posting good for us? As we wait with baited breath for the next hilarious post on twitter from a favorite, and perhaps interesting actress, are we instead waiting for a justification of our own existence? An escape from the mundane is one thing, but permanent exile from who we are as a person is something completely different.

The most terrifying journey any human being can take is into their own soul. To face the good and bad about themselves and to learn to own it and decide when and how those things are meant to be displayed. The human soul is a dark, dark place. It is filled with insecurities, with the memory of how we were tortured relentlessly by our peers and the disappointed voice of a parent who wonders why we can't be just that little bit better. It is a place hidden from the topical monsters and what makes the brush of the wind remind us of terrifying school stairwells or what makes us take solace in the comforting face of an actor or musician who we will never have but because we know they are unattainable, we can lust and crush and it is harmless and we will never be hurt. We fear those dark places because we are there with them all the time. We run from them, terrified that by facing them, by stepping into the room and realizing there are no lights on we will be unable to find our way to the other side.

But that is what we are most seeking - understanding that dark room. Collectively, we are afraid of the dark. If we read enough books or write enough stories or post enough twitter messages or play enough games on facebook no one will notice that we are not hiding from that dark, shadowed place. No, we are in fact lost in it, wandering, not realizing that all it takes is a few steps forward and we will come out the other side.

Perhaps I am too harsh on all of us, including myself. Following the completion of my first novel, I found myself staring obsessively at photographs and articles of the musicians who had been my primary "muses" for the story. I posted song lyrics and photographs and found a part of my soul actively hurt when people didn't respond enthusiastically. It lasted about two, two and a half weeks. I realized what I was doing, and started to look deep inside. I started to look inside. I started to realize what I had not allowed myself to face: my fear that if I was finished with my novel, would my muse then leave me? Would the friends I had made over the course of the years I had been writing leave me? Would I wake up one day and Marc and Jared be gone, leaving behind only the stories I had been lucky enough to be a part of and a legacy of music I had discovered while writing their story? Terrified, I forced myself to look inward. Deeper and deeper.

They aren't going anywhere.

This journey is nothing new for me. A loner who somehow manages to have friends of some sort around her, I spend a majority of my time alone and in my head. My head, a dark, shadowed place full of memories I am still unraveling and fears that continue to hold me back in some form or fashion. My obsessive nature is cyclical and can track my mood swings. Like a pattern and a drug addict, I find something and need more and more and more ... nothing rivals that first high. Will this day spend searching the internet provide something more for me to know? But I have learned something in my ramblings - that they are only satisfying if I look inward as well. Not with everything, of course. But do I REALLY need to look daily at what feels to be the same pictures of Actor A or Musician B? Yes, probably. But in doing that, I need to not use it as an escape. Everything is a learning experience and to linger in one place only produces self pity and frustration.

And that is what I fear I see in the world around me. We no longer turn to massive churches - we are massively connected. When was the last time I turned off my computer and just enjoyed a book without wondering if my messenger had pinged? When was the last time I found myself discovering intimacy born of a shared, creative passion? (I can tell you the answer to that, actually.) When was the last time others found the same thing? Is social networking important? OF COURSE.

Is it something we are addicted to? Even more so.

In an interview about the album I am currently listening to, Chris Degarmo spoke of how when they wrote Promised Land,it was like they stepped into the room and there were no lights on. I think that is how we are in today's world. Despite massive change, despite massive hope that again permeates the culture, we are refusing to face ourselves.

Or, the greater question is ...

Is all of this social networking actually our way of exorcising those soul-deep demons? Will we truly be better off for it?

I think as a people, collectively, we will adapt and yes be better.

As individuals ... I am still not sure.

But isn't that the great question we still face? Why we were put on this world? To create, to seek, to search deeper and as a result climb higher?

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go post this update to twitter and facebook. ;-)

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Now playing: Queensrÿche - Dis Con Nec Ted
via FoxyTunes