looking out to see within

while i may only head over to my babbling place behind the candoor now and then (less than once a month, in fact, and almost two years of not being there before this year), when i do go there, i sometimes i click randomly on a diary listed on the recently updated box (so what, maybe three times in the past three years?... or maybe a bit more, but anyway), i lose track of time for a few hours reading someone’s life… and shelby marie helped me do just that for the last couple of hours… and i was once again amazed at how much can be learned from the internet about a person… scary amount of detail, in fact, cuz i not only know her full name and birthdate, but her family history, her friends, where she lives, her vulnerabilities, and a whole lot more that would make personal contact on and off line so simple… and the bottom line, for me, is that while my innocent curiosity and voyeurism is harmless, what i discovered in just a couple of hours, any predator could find and if one spent more time, searching the web and actually connecting with this kid, it could be very bad…

and i realize that i am exposed online as anyone i know and wonder, would i be as exposed if i was a teenage girl?... and actually, there are others who have flicker and myspace and facebook and all sorts of other exposures with photos and more, so at least i didn’t find that much this time, but i did find a geneology site that tracks her famil;y history back to the early 1700s… that was the most unique part of this internet wandering… and the sad fact sticking out in my mind is that when looking at the geneology, most of the children in the family in the 1700 and 1800s died in infancy… this was in england, not a third world country… and that reminded me of just how far medicine and knowledge has come in just the last hundred years… a hundred years ago, even less, the whole world was a third world country compared to the way many of us live today…

and then i read rigby eleanor (and besides realizing how much i miss nature, or at least the variety {because that is what florida lacks most, variety… and not just in nature} and then realizing how skewed {negatively prejudiced} our culture is when it comes to age, but these are other thoughts) and the thought that rose up was that i do not have anyone in this life today who is actually close enough in space and lifestyle and philosophy and intangibles to be called my friend by my lifelong definition of the word… i’ve only had a few who have been friend by my definition, actually, so it’s not that surprising… and maybe nobody has actually been truly balance as everyone i’ve ever grown close to has become dependant on me in just about every way… but it’s the length of time…

and i am not too surprised that i have not played the role of the boxer in the sense of there were times when i was so lonesome i took some comfort there in as much as loneliness can physically ache at times, superficial physical sharing never was appealing to me and that’s more true in recent years… not that i feel much less sensual (though i do feel a little less sensual most of the time mostly due to fatigue, distraction, food substituting, and perhaps a touch of age, though that comparison would require a lover to determine), i am just less willing to compromise or accept superficial satisfaction… probably why i do not feel like writing the lonesome or mostly dead stuff i used to, because i am no longer mostly dead (recovered from toronto?... wow, who knew) and not creating the illusion that sharing actually ends the loneliness of this life… separate bodies and minds are the reality, always alone… though i do miss sharing that illusion (he writes with a hopeful grin)…

to be continued?...