I need to take a break from our relationship.
I mean, I love you–I do, really! And thanks so much for the cooked meals and toilet traning and stuff!–but recent events in my life have caused me to question the political utility and, yes, the emotional return on our interactions. I feel stifled. I feel unrealized. Most importantly, I feel frivolous.
Yes, frivolous. I’ve noticed a very trivial trend to our communal discourse of late. We’ve been watching a lot of television, including some formulaic crime dramas, and even some movies with very little political or intellectual content at all. We’ve spent far too little time talking about the dynamic of our family and far too much time deciding whether or not to see Borat. We’ve been doing the crossword–the local crossword, not even the New York Times crossword. We’ve gone to the beach. We’ve eaten a lot of takeout, and some very short-sighted baked chicken with rice. We’ve made a lot of pies. Too many pies. There’s talk of apple cobbler this weekend, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and deeply saddened.
I’ve also noticed that there has been conflict, and that it has been remarkably unproductive given the sheer amount of energy we’ve devoted to our fights, and the emotional investment we have in each other. Why can’t we interact professionally and courteously all the time? Why do we have to be passive-aggressive and immature? Why can’t we bring some dignity to these family arguments? Don’t we respect each other–nay, ourselves–enough? I’m tired of having discussions that are similar to prior discussions. I’m tired of sniping and sarcastic remarks. I’m tired of yelling at you occasionally. I’m tired of feeling bitter and alienated every few months or so. It’s wrong. No one should ever feel like that around their family. Ever.
Where are we going with all of this? Are we really good for each other? After nearly three decades, is there anything left to say? I feel that time apart will strengthen our bonds and, hopefully, give us all some needed perspective on what we want out of this parent-child thing, and what we bring to the arrangement. Hopefully, I’ll be able to be your son again sometime soon. Until then, please don’t call or contact me. I just don’t see the point.
Love (at some point in the future),
Your Co-Nuclean
Can we please stop acting as though there has to be some larger political purpose to everything we do? Should I go and meditate on the inherently unserious granola bar I’m about to eat? Should I wonder whether I can bring a more progressive ethos to the floating gay movie night I’ve set up with a few friends? Should we discuss the postmodern queer subtext in Bedrooms and Hallways? Should we even rent Bedrooms and Hallways? Maybe we could discuss the postmodern queer subtext in The Thin Blue Line. Fuck, I don’t know.
All sarcasm and tantrums aside:
I am here because I like to talk to you all. I’m here because you’re interesting people, even those of you I can’t stand. I’m here because I have learned about issues that hadn’t even occurred to me before. I’m here because there’s a lot of stuff to read. I’m here because I have time to kill every so often. I’m here because I don’t like being isolated.
It gets really obnoxious when bloggers start writing as though there’s no point to all of this–or, I suppose, as though “pointless” is always a bad thing. I know that most progressives go into anaphylactic shock when they hear this, but fer chrissakes: Lighten up. Put on some lipstick. Hug your dog. Put some lipstick on your dog. Take some pictures and put them on flickr. Never, ever run for office.
Where was I?
I recognize that we are not perfect, myself least of all. I can see that we sometimes get into childish fights that are good for no one, least of all ourselves. I’m pretty sure that’s normal. My loved ones and I have never, to the best of my knowledge, ripped each other to shreds over the semiotics of anything, but we’ve had our petty disagreements. We’ve been very unfair to each other, and said some unbelievably stupid things. I’m gossipy and caustic and judgmental in real life, too.
Blogs change a lot of the conventional boundaries that regulate intimacy in other spheres. Politics at the dinner table, for example. Ovarian cancer over lunch. There are other rules, not always clearly defined, that permit and limit things like graphic descriptions and strong language. There are evolving rules specific to online interactions, some of them little better than personal preferences, that cover details like how frequently one should comment on a post. There’s no consensus on any of these laws, at least that I can see. Blogs also alter the conventions of how we come together–we are different in different ways than we are from our real-life friends and our families. Like people have said in the other comments thread, contact works differently online. All of that makes for a jagged discussion, one prone to a number of conflagrations.
None of that means that online discourse is inherently or inevitably dysfunctional, just that it operates in different ways, with different positive and negative potential. I respect that some people feel that these interactions take time away from others they’d like to prioritize. I respect that some people see their less-noble tendencies aggravated rather than ameliorated by the quirks of blog-related interaction. I respect that some people would like to spend less time killing time. After all, some families really are dangerous, or at least stuck, and some people really would be helped by time apart.
But it’s baffling to hear people talk as though blogging and online interactions are this little sliver of a two-dimensional experience, as though it’s possible or advisable to junk a medium altogether. Saying “What is blogging good for?” is like saying, “What’s my community center good for?” “What’s the library good for?” “What’s my neighborhood hangout good for?” “What’s my neighborhood good for?” “What’s my telephone good for?” Blogging refers to everyone who can get online and write something, really. It refers to the self-mutilation support groups on livejournal. It refers to Juan Cole’s personal op-ed page. It refers to kittenwar. It refers to Riverbend. It refers to Ragged Edge. It refers to Black Looks. It refers to Instapundit. It refers to the message boards at Hip Mama. It refers to Taken in Hand. It refers to the St_rmfr_nt networks. It’s a way of communicating that can be used* by many different people for many different purposes. Some of those purposes are frivolous. Some of them are downright destructive. How that’s supposed to be different from human interaction in general, I have no idea.
*It was blogging, see, that taught me to utilize proper syntax.