The Public and the Private

I'm a huge proponent of the Anti-Individualization Movement. I say all the time that before I bring Little Ones into the world, I want to ensure I have a social network (and no, this does not include Facebook friends...eye roll) that will be able to fully support me and the Little Ones (as well as Captain Marvelous, of course). With that said, I'm completely aware that my family will continue to support me, but it's nice to think of a life where I can call my recently pregnant friend and ask questions like, "Is this normal?!" in a panic, without having to rely on my mother.

Truth be told, it's been awhile since The Mother Hen has dealt with any of this stuff: fledgling relationships, new marriages, pregnancy, raising an infant...the list goes on and on. Though she is still the Mother Hen, there are some issues that might be more appropriately dealt with by my peers.

Enter: the Network.

I'm reading an article now entitled, "The End of Solitude" by William Deresiewicz from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's an article about how society today fears being alone and prefers the company of the computer, of online social networks, and of countless text messages. Gone are the days of missing someone's phone call or not being able to find somebody (isn't that concept alone just a little silly now?). But lordy, wouldn't it be nice to just slip away from all this publicity? We purposefully put our lives out in the open in the hopes of reaching out...but where is the serenity that comes with staying private?

I regret that I'm guilty of this very thing. Though I maintain I keep The Blog for self-preservation, I suppose there is a bit of narcissism that comes in posting my pictures for the world to see. I suppose if I was really that concerned with privacy, I would erase this as well as my Facebook profile. Truth is, I actually like seeing pictures of people's kids and weddings and parties. It's entertaining. It's a bit intrusive, but entertaining nonetheless.

Unlike the subjects in the article, however, I love being alone. I love to tour around alone, read alone, watch TV alone: it's soothing and quiet. I think it comes naturally to me: an only child. My mother taught me from a very young age how important it was to use my imagination, enjoy my own company, and take quiet time often to get away from, you know, the world.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the article. I found it very, very interesting. If you want to give 'er a read, click here.

But we no longer live in the modernist city, and our great fear is not submersion by the mass but isolation from the herd. Urbanization gave way to suburbanization, and with it the universal threat of loneliness. What technologies of transportation exacerbated — we could live farther and farther apart — technologies of communication redressed — we could bring ourselves closer and closer together. Or at least, so we have imagined.

The first of these technologies, the first simulacrum of proximity, was the telephone. "Reach out and touch someone." But through the 70s and 80s, our isolation grew. Suburbs, sprawling ever farther, became exurbs. Families grew smaller or splintered apart, mothers left the home to work. The electronic hearth became the television in every room. Even in childhood, certainly in adolescence, we were each trapped inside our own cocoon. Soaring crime rates, and even more sharply escalating rates of moral panic, pulled children off the streets. The idea that you could go outside and run around the neighborhood with your friends, once unquestionable, has now become unthinkable. The child who grew up between the world wars as part of an extended family within a tight-knit urban community became the grandparent of a kid who sat alone in front of a big television, in a big house, on a big lot. We were lost in space.

...Boredom is not a necessary consequence of having nothing to do, it is only the negative experience of that state.

...If six hours of television a day creates the aptitude for boredom, the inability to sit still, a hundred text messages a day creates the aptitude for loneliness, the inability to be by yourself.

The Internet brought text back into a televisual world, but it brought it back on terms dictated by that world — that is, by its remapping of our attention spans. Reading now means skipping and skimming; five minutes on the same Web page is considered an eternity. This is not reading as Marilynne Robinson described it: the encounter with a second self in the silence of mental solitude.

Isn't that a beautiful synopsis?
I might have to pick up the old book tonight
and give The Office a break ;)

(The author speaks about Henry David Thoreau, then says this...)

We, however, have made of geniality — the weak smile, the polite interest, the fake invitation — a cardinal virtue. Friendship may be slipping from our grasp, but our friendliness is universal.

Reporting live from the entirely non-virtuous Land that God Forgot,
I hope you're having a better day than I am.