#medium talk

medium talk: how often does it rain in the town you live in?

2004-2005, wandering around Seattle by myself. Film taken with my dad’s old Olympus that I took with me when I left home. 

Remembering how when I was maybe 25, someone I knew who was a bit older than me, and probably fancied themselves wiser told me that perhaps I just hadn’t lived enough yet to really be able to write about anything. That maybe that’s why nothing would come - I just hadn’t experienced enough yet.

Probably the opposite was true - I had maybe lived too much, at least in some ways. That what was really necessary was living a little less, moving away from a paradigm of fight or flight and into one of rest and digest (I once made a joke about needing four stomaches like a cow, and while it was about something else entirely, metaphorically it feels like it would have been quite helpful actually).

Depending on the web context you meet them in: if you get to know them through their writing, or through their actions, they can have an almost mythical quality to them when you meet them in person. I don't want to know the prosaic, boring details of someone's life (work/life/school) which is all too often what facebook and certain users of twitter prioritize. That's for passing the time of day with an acquaintance in person, when you can't be bothered to ask difficult questions.

I want to know their thoughts. I want to know their dreams. I want to know the kinds of things they're capable of, the kinds of things that trouble them. Then when, if, you have the pleasure of meeting them in person, you know their dream life, the things that motivate them. You have an unspoken understanding.

The internet is an emotional metastructure encasing the physical world, one we can access to draw closer to one another.