I’ve been occasionally plagued by nightmares since I was a child. In fact, I can recall quite a few of them even today in my middle age. One in particular involved a giant, brightly lit pastry shop full of all manner of goodies that I was forced to choose from while suffering from not-so-surreal-stomach-pains. Upon waking I promptly puked all over the side of the bed.
This night however was strange in that I don’t actually remember the visual images that spawned the horde of nightmare spooked anxiety. It seemed more about how I felt in the world rather than watching some horrid dream about disease or violence blossom before my inner eyes. Specifically I how I feel in the winter wonderland that has just graced our doorways yards, and streets.
I feel simultaneously clutched by claustrophobia and lost and alone in the cold white vastness of the season.
This is not unlike how I sometimes feel about the web actually. The big, world wide, usually friendly, web. As I sit down and type out a piece of my story on a white background, I wonder how much of it will actually get heard, how much will just get swallowed up by the vastness, or how much will just get piled on top of all the rest of the content out there as millions of readers slide right over it unknowingly.
I really hate to add to that pile, what one of my internet guru friends calls the “echo chamber”. Millions of digitized voices all saying the same thing over and over, in blogs, videos, comments, etc. It’s this popularity contest that we as social media “personalities” both strive for and I think in our hearts probably abhore, if we are REAL anyway.
This preoccupation with getting large numbers on the web reminds me of one of the musings within the book The Little Prince :
Grown-ups like numbers. When you tell them about a new friend, they never ask questions about what really matters. They never ask: “What does his voice sound like?” “What games does he like best?” “Does he collect butterflies?”. They ask: “How old is he?” “How many brothers does he have?” “How much does he weigh?” “How much money does his father make?” Only then do they think they know him.
But on days like this I almost fear that I am too small a blip on the screen…a very childish fear I am sure, but one I cannot help have while being so sensitive to the world, web and real.
