All The Lonely People

The other day I tweeted the above and also posted it to Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn. 

Ironically I got responses from a lot of FB friends (one of whom also responded on Twitter)! More ironically, I used a Tweet so couldn't say everything I wanted, which was that Facebook strikes me as being a lonely place for many.

The desire to share is huge, but nobody has time to read everything everybody shares. I often see on friends' pages that they've shared stuff nobody has responded to. I know that for some, social media is a primary source of connection and for others it isn't, but still it's hard for me to believe that anybody shares anything without wanting it to lead to a connection of some sort. 

Maybe I'm wrong about that, though. Maybe it's just what I want. I guess I won't know until I ask people individually.

Facebook makes choices for us as to who we see on our pages. It can make you forget that others exist. And it only has buttons for support. What if I post something and you don't like it? You don't respond, so I think you've forgotten me. The logic seems right, but it actually isn't; non response can just be the result of algorithm control. Me, I prefer somebody to disagree than say nothing, but you might not be the same, so there's no way to connect.

It's a strange world, Facebook. Twitter can feel more immediate because you can find specific conversations with hashtags and join in. So if you have an interest, say, in politics you can find others with the same.

For me, Facebook takes more effort at conscious participation. Ultimately, real relationships take work, don't they? Social media ease of access doesn't save one from that.

Find me on Twitter and Facebook 

Lemons, Lemonade and a Day in the Life (Clue: Not Hillary's, Bernie's or Donald's)

Embed from Getty Images

Funny how sometimes you have a lot of monster bitter nasty lemons and you’re convinced that the world is falling down about your ears and you’ll never be able to crawl out of the wreckage in a million light years. And it all really is your fault. Then from some place that you don’t even believe in, some kind guiding hand that most of the time you cynically believe is a figment of somebody’s over-optimistic imagination turns your lemons into delicious lemonade for you.

And you didn’t even have to believe or meditate or even be positive. Ha!

Yesterday was Friday. Or that’s what I thought when I woke up. And when I made coffee. And when I read the New York Times with my coffee.

And when I planned my day, including in the mix a few hefty nasty bitter lemon-type challenges—that I could see had the potential to be lemonade at some point, guiding hand or not—which, if I didn’t do this week would turn the whole week into a total achievement-bust.

I had it all planned out. I was going to go to town to talk to the curator of the Rugby museum about either helping me find funding for the script I’ve just co-written, or for another rugby script idea I’ve got that might even be better. Or for both. The world is your oyster when you’re in the planning stages. I was going to do it on Monday. But I had to think about it. Can’t rush into these things. So I told myself. Come Thursday I said, OK, tomorrow. That’s it.

I’d also kind of sort of totally procrastinated on rehearsing a song for my end-of-month concert. Haven’t sung for two months, barely played the guitar. But, on Thursday it was part of my Friday planning. I’d get out of my funk and bloody rehearse.

So there I was on Friday. Everything under control. After coffee I thought I’d spend a little time on Facebook. Not long. Just checking in. It was Friday, I still had time. I started thinking about my friends on Facebook and how much connection I really do have with so many, notwithstanding all the clichés.

Relax. I haven’t got to the lemons yet. At that point I had a plentiful supply of natural lemonade. Not too sweet, not bitter at all. Just perfect.

Then I realized. Crap! It’s not Friday at all. It’s frigging Saturday. And there it was. A nasty bitter lemon bloody barrel bomb exploded in my world. Total achievement and get out of my musical funk bust and I was an hour late for a Very Important Seminar. More haste less speed was never more evident as I piled everything I needed into my bag and downed the rest of my coffee, contemplating having another cup which I really needed. Sense won the day. I put on my makeup which always takes hours, changed clothes three times and raced out.

Remembered that I forgot to brush my teeth. Raced back in, brushed my teeth, smudged my lipstick blah blah blah. Raced out. Started the car, nearly backed out with the garage door closed. Remembered I hadn’t set the alarm. Raced—fine, you get the picture.

Somewhere along the busy road into town packed with irritating, indecisive drivers or grindingly slow day-trippers—God! I hate those silly day-trippers—BOOM! Another lemon barrel bomb detonated. I forgot to check where the seminar was. No turning back now. I had a vestigial memory and just went with it. And ended up in a building that looked right from the outside and was in the right part of town. There was even parking right there. Ha! I’d been here before. I went inside.

Wrong bloody place. By now everything above the height of my head is one giant barrel bomb and it’s hailing lemons.

That’s when it happened. Out of the blue. Lemonade. And not raining on me either. That would be rather disgusting, I admit. A rather dishy fella came out of a shop in the center and said the magic words.

“You look lost. Can I help?”

Oooh, Dishy British accent too. He pulled out his smartphone—and yes, I’m aware of how idiotic it is to not have one of my own—and found the place for me. We had a nice few moments there. He walked with me out onto the street even though the directions were tremendously simple, and sent me on my way with a measure of reluctance that was Very Nice. I burst into song as I started the car. Hey presto! I was out of my musical funk too. The song? Dream a Little Dream of Me.

The seminar was just wrapping up but it didn’t matter anyway because I got the info I needed. And I got home to have that second cup of coffee. And I got to my concert on time. And I sang. Oh Great Gods. My heart soared. Now that’s lemonade for you. 

Embed from Getty Images

The Perils of Internet Dating

Here’s the thing about reaching a certain age; you realize you’re going to die, and although the day might seem a little hazy and distant, the certainty is an absolute. For me, it’s raised a lot of bracing questions. Like, what am I doing with this moment? Am I just throwing it down the toilet, am I doing something towards the fulfilment of a dream? Am I having fun? Sometimes doing something towards the fulfilment of a dream means taking down-time from everything and not working at all. The fun thing isn't as simple as you'd think, either; sometimes doing what you have to do to get somewhere isn't so much fun. It's all very confusing.

Best but also worst, there isn’t a rule book. On the one hand that makes me a grand adventurer, but on the other, since time rudely marches regardless of what I do, it brings me face to face with the reality that I have to make my choices and that whether they lead to fulfilment or not isn’t something I can know in advance.

Mind you, I do know that the more I pay attention to the idea that I might end up never fulfilling anything, the more I’m like a petrified rabbit caught in the headlights. So since the future is all speculation, I’m learning real quick to give ever diminishing amounts of attention to that idea.

There was a time in my life when my sole yearning was to find a partner I could be real with, who could be real with me. In short, a soul mate. Then I went through a period of realizing that I wasn’t looking for companionship at all, I was just looking for somebody to rescue me from finding my own inner power and making my own choices. So I stopped even thinking about it. I had enough to deal with in learning to understand myself and set a course that could lead me out of the one-horse town that was in my head. I focused on that, and writing and trying to stay engaged in singing and playing piano.

Lately, that strategy has paid off. I got a job in the film industry as a head writer and script editor, I did okay at it, I got paid reasonably and was treated really well. I also wrote a film script that has been made into a film, and co-wrote 2 others that have also been made. They’ll all be screened by a local channel within the next 6 months. They’re low low-budget movies, and nothing much to write home about, but they’re done, they’re mine and they’re a stepping stone. Traction!

It’s funny, I made a bucket list, and “have a script made into a film” was at the bottom! It seemed so unachievable, for two reasons. One, I didn’t believe I could ever do it and two I didn’t believe I could ever do it.

I learned a great lesson: sometimes you know more than you think you do and you’re better at something than you realised. It’s easy to forget how much hard work you’ve done on building a foundation so you can get any kind of traction. It’s easy to forget how hard you had to work at not giving up in the face of no hint of evidence that traction is written into your future. I look back now and realize it was. Not all lessons are horrible. This one is a break out the champagne kind of lesson.

So what has any of this got to do with internet dating? Well, I feel more confident, I guess. Also, lately I’ve gotten curious and the imbalance in my life is something awful. I just don’t know any men, apart from my therapist, my brother and my brother-in-law. Actually, I was curious six months ago, and I signed up with a site. There were two guys that I wanted to at least meet. One was an American, hallo. Photos of him on a horse galloping through the snow! He’s articulate, seemed open-minded and hearted. The other was very different, barely said anything about himself. But what he said was very real. I liked that. How can you tell that somebody is articulate when they don’t say much? I don’t know, I was just pretty sure of it.

Anyway I lost courage and didn’t message them. A couple of weeks ago they came back to mind. Enough with the procrastination, I told myself, I’ll just say hi, I thought. How hard can that be?
I signed back in, and found them both. And oh. Not so easy. In short, I wanted to run again. But I didn’t. I looked at both their profiles quite a few times, trying to reassure myself they were human and ordinary like me. Am I ordinary? Then, heart thumping I messaged them both. I don’t see the point of online chatting when you can actually meet, because anybody can say anything with online chatting. I’m kind of a reality gal when I’m not fantasizing about Hollywood.

So all I said was “Hi, would you like to meet for coffee?” I was so sure they’d both say “sure thing”, because they both said they were looking for anything, which includes friendship, right? That’s where I want to start. It seemed like it would be fun to talk to both of them, and everybody I know says I’m fun to talk to.

Anyway. Neither of them replied. Ouch, that was really horrible. One of them, my second choice, is online all the time, so I know he got my message. I wanted to ask him “hey, what’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you reply?” The other – well, I don’t think he visits the site any more. But here’s the embarrassing thing. I’ve realized that I can see who’s looked at my profile. So that means they can both see I looked at their profile a gazillion times before getting up the courage to send a message. What if they think I’m a stalker?

I’ve thought about sending a short message to say I’m not one but then they could interpret that as me trying to get their attention. Which would make me more of a stalker. If only I could find a way to point them to my blog, then they’d see how clever and witty and fun and unstalky I am.

Sigh. Didn't somebody write a book about fear of flying? Or was that about sex? Not going there.

2014 - Happy New Year!

I can't say I'm sad about seeing the end of 2013. For one, how was a year that ended in 13 ever going to be a good one for anybody? So we were all on the back foot right from the start. Talk about a year with an original sin of its own. I never even liked the look of it - 2013. It looks clumsy. 2014 looks kind of sparkly. Please don't ask me to explain that.

Recently the reality of my mortality has rudely thrust itself into my every waking moment. Help, Help! Stop the roller-coaster! has been my mantra lately. But a few days ago I decided to let that old roller coaster whip along at top speed for two and half more days without any resistance from me. Whooeee, what a feeling of freedom! A niggly thought flickered in my brain for a minute - what if I only have two and half days left and I've just wished them away? Then I thought, so what? I'd spend the next two and half days letting go.

Ever the optimist. On a more serious note, as 2014 approaches I’ve been thinking of what I want to carry forward with me as I launch with the rest of the world into a new year.

Be accountable for what’s in my heart. Respect me first before I think of trying to respect anybody else. Without the former the latter isn’t real. Charity begins at home. Rescuing people at cost to myself isn’t charity, it’s control and it’s not going to get me into heaven. It isn’t going to get them into heaven either. 

Know that I count just as much as the next person. My inner authority belongs to me, not to anybody else. I’m the one who can and must decide how important I am. If I wait for people to give me permission to be important, or to speak, or to be noticed I’ll never get it because the kind of people who require me to ask for their permission are the ones who have no intention of giving it. Duh.

On that note, if for some reason – which no doubt will reveal itself in hindsight to be sheer madness - I’m hanging out with people who have me low on their priority list, focus on me instead of them, and think long and hard about what I’m doing there in the first place. If I love them, staying silent and hurt and resentful will drive me crazy, so it’s better to tell them. They may dismiss me or judge me, and that’s going to hurt like hell, but at least I will have tried, and given us a chance and I'll know the reality. Which is better than not trying, and living with the doubt for the rest of my life, or living on a fantasy. Better to get real!

I educate people how to treat me. If I don’t notice myself they don’t notice me either. If they mistreat or dismiss me, yes it’s because that’s what they do and it’s revolting, but it’s also because I let them, and therefore it's what I do to myself. So I can stop letting them. Nine times out of ten they don't have a gun to my head. I hold that gun. Weird, uncomfortable to face. But true.

Use my judgement all the time. Pay attention to my gut. These are very cool organic tools for navigating life. It doesn’t take energy to keep them active; it takes energy to put them to sleep.

It’s okay to say sorry if I’ve done something to somebody that I know wasn’t okay, no matter how long ago it was. It’s not such a good idea to hang out with people who refuse to say sorry when they’ve done something to me that wasn’t okay. And also, it’s a good idea to watch out for a part of me that wants to say sorry when I’ve stood up for myself and they’ve got mad, and I’m scared of getting punished. If I buckle I entrench my powerlessness in my mind and in theirs. Then I’m a goner.
People are allowed to be who they are and where they are in their lives. If who they are and where they are means that I don’t get the really important core stuff I need in a relationship, it’s okay to let them be and give myself permission to seek it elsewhere.

Gotta claim my turf. I’m allowed to claim my turf. It’s mine, it’s got my name on it. I hold the title deed.

It's okay to speak up if I want to, to say my truth. It doesn’t matter if I don’t articulate it perfectly because it’s not necessarily the content of what I say that matters, it’s that I value myself enough to know that I count and that if I need to express, I can, I have the right. I may say it clumsily; people might laugh at me or shout me down, which may hurt, but it doesn’t hurt as much as never opening my mouth.

Why give respect to people who have proved they don’t deserve it? I don’t have to let myself be bullied. And if I am being pushed around, I must reach out for friends who’ll rally behind me and with me and help me stand up to those bullies.

Finally, it’s a good thing to somehow find a way to let the wisdom of life filter in and also give myself permission to not be perfect; to just be, and make big mistakes, really screw up sometimes. To want nice, totally material things, to have fun, to love and sometimes hate, to laugh and cry, to be scared, to be held, to stretch my wings in every which way. No need to live in a nunnery.

Happy 2014! May it bring many things you want and not just the things you should want!

Facebook, Twitter, Apple et al - Helping us Make a Better Connection? Really?

It’s a world of instant gratification, where we’ve all been massively conditioned by a constant barrage of advertising and new, better, bigger – well, actually smaller – products every few months. A world where we’re all racing to save time and make more money to pay for all these new necessities. Or working way too hard for not enough money so the person or company we’re working for can buy whatever they want. If we’re in that scenario we’re imprisoned by our own prejudices against ourselves – that we don’t deserve anything better – and by a pretty generally accepted idea that’s it our fault we’re not more empowered.

Time is money but there isn’t enough of the former, ergo never enough of the latter. We’ve been taught with Machiavellian cleverness and in ways that we’re not even aware of that social media keeps us connected but in fact it keeps us distracted, uses up that precious time and leaves us starved for something real. Because the connections we make are long distance but immediate, often with shorter and shorter sentences composed of horribly distorted and truncated words.

Our minds are deluged with information that’s outrageously seductive and feels fulfilling but only for a few seconds. Then we need more. It’s not the real stuff of connection and fulfilment, it’s a drug and dangerously addictive.

We are the slaves of Apple, Facebook, Twitter et al. Devices get smaller and smaller and we use less and less of our physical capacity. Hunched over a tiny screen, using tiny movements of thumbs. Body tense. Eyes straining to see the print.There’s nothing pleasurable about it and nothing intrinsically good about lousy grammar and small, but we don’t question, we just buy, buy, buy and use, use, use. Or feel left out, left behind if we can’t afford to keep up.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that all this information, all these new and better products, this fast-paced life, is giving us more and more, making our world bigger and bigger.

It isn’t, though. It’s imploding in the places it matters the most. Our capacity to express creatively and originally. To really think for ourselves. To realize that the worthwhile things in life take time and space to develop, and that it’s the journey which brings fulfilment not the immediate achievement or gratification.

And what about our capacity to connect in a meaningful way face to face? Either we don’t have time, or we’re hooked on social media, which has made cowards of us all. We throw words and images out into cyberspace hoping somebody will like them and leave some kind of cryptic comment. But if they don’t, hey, we’ve moved on to something else anyway so we don’t care. There’s no risk-taking and very little reward, so it leaves us overstimulated and understroked; dessicated at a deeper level. With an overactive brain and an aching heart.

It's not hard to imagine where this could end up. A world where, even face to face, everybody’s desperate to be heard by a living, touchable human being – to have that real experience without which none of us can survive in those places it matters the most. So desperate that everybody talks but nobody listens.

Humanity Getting its Ducks in a Row

When I was a child my grandmother marvelled at how when she was a child she travelled by ox wagon and now we were sending people to the moon. I wondered then how the world could change in such a way that I'd be marvelling when I was her age. If I ever reached it. It was hard to believe that I ever would, she seemed so ancient. I'm not there yet, but that marvelling time has come already for me. 

There wasn't any internet when I was a kid. Distance communication was by phone, letter or telegram. Arriving by noon train stop pick me up stop don't forget stop I love you stop.

Letters were written by hand, music was played with vinyl, radios were a piece of furniture. I spent 90% of my waking leisure hours outside. We didn't even have a TV. When it came and we finally got a set, we were only allowed to watch one evening a week. And then we could have a coke as well. Bread and milk were delivered to the door. Ice cream cost two pennies, the cost of everything stayed the same from year to year and people stayed in the same job.  

On the surface of things, it was a simple life and a good one. But heaven help you if you were a schizophrenic or depressed or a girl with a sexual appetite, or one who didn't know how to say no. There wasn't a place for you. Where you could feel valuable, that is. There was a place alright; society's garbage bin. Not that it was openly acknowledged. Racism, slavery, abuse of women and children were rampant, but nobody spoke about it. The have-nots were hidden from the pleasant surface of society's fabric. Ah, the good old days.

Now nobody writes anything by hand, radios are either streamed or ugly little boomboxy things. Vinyl isn't dead but mostly it's music by download, books by download. TV on your laptop. 

Conversation happens by tweet or text. Impersonal, no risk, no real connection. Fast, though. Ice cream costs anything from R5 to R20 and the price of everything rises every day. Employees are nomads scrabbling to find work in broken economies. The world is at war; so much of mankind a well-oiled killing machine. Polar ice-caps are melting whilst people still debate if humans are destroying the environment. Women get stoned to death for wearing the wrong clothes and wanting to be educated. Child pornography and the slave trade still flourish around the world. 

Sure we've sent men to the moon and found cures for all sorts of diseases but 'experts' can't explain the outbreak of violence amongst seemingly peaceful communities. And we still don't have anywhere close to an understanding of schizophrenia and depression. Children and adults commit suicide and everybody says 'I had no idea they were depressed'. 

Very few say 'if I'd been a better friend, a better parent, a better sibling, I would have noticed because nobody gets to that final moment of despair without there being plenty of signposts along the way.' 

Has the human race really progressed much since my grandmother was a child? The way it expresses itself has changed, that’s obvious. But the percentages of different types of people are probably still the same. What also hasn’t changed is the human capacity to find joy and pleasure within, no matter what’s going on in your life. That’s a good thing. That’s a remarkable thing. 

And we've identified concepts like entitlement and self esteem. We know - or some of us do - that if those two aspects are fragmented it doesn't matter how talented a person is, they'll never make any progress. If they don't get help. And help is available. We know that we can learn to say no. That we're allowed to pay attention to what we need. That what others think of us matters a whole lot less than what we think of ourselves. That if we want others to treat us with respect we have to treat ourselves with respect. We know a lot more. We haven't necessarily learned how to put it into practise, but that will come.

An even bigger difference between when I was a child and now is that the underbelly has been exposed, that's clear. We haven't been able to keep that lovely smooth surface unruffled by the reality of society's inequalities and injustices. It’s uncomfortable to see but uncomfortable isn't necessarily all bad.

The good thing about it is that the have-nots have finally found their voice. And that makes me marvel as much as my grandmother did. Just learning to get our ducks in a row.

Vinyl is Still Cool

Imagine what the world would be like when digital has taken over everything. No more books, for a start. Life becoming less and less tactile, people communicating in shorter and shorter sentences, getting further apart with every meaningless tweet and Facebook post thrown out into the ether in the hopes that somebody will respond. Everybody quoting everybody else but never thinking for themselves. Nobody speaking directly to each other and dealing with emotions in the moment. Nobody taking emotional risks. Relationships getting more shallow if that’s possible.

The whole of life being experienced through the head and not the heart. Memory and the spoken language a thing of the past. The heart a vestigial organ. The human brain reduced to the size of pea because it doesn’t get used any more. Except for the part that creates the illusion that we’re really clever when we look something up on Google.

Hollywood has optimised on the digital age, making explosive, futuristic movies that impact on the senses like bombs exploding in the living room. But those movies are dry and cold and awfully dull really. There’s barely an original or truly creative idea in any of them.

Maybe, though, the digital age is nothing more than a passing fancy and maybe the proclaimers that it’s the way of the future are just unimaginative sods who know how to speaking convincingly from their soap box. We’re fascinated now, but we’ll get bored, we’ll move on to something different. We want the experience of life at the coal face and of love even if it’s uncomfortable sometimes. We like the sound of our own voices. We’re moved by music and creative ideas.

A romantic, renaissance type existence has more pleasure in it than a cold, digital, futuristic one. We like pleasure, our bodies and beings are wired for it. Even if we’ve never had it or had it enough we long for it. Something inside of our brain calls for it. And we like to feel and touch. 

Take the record industry. When CD’s took over from vinyl it was fun, it was exciting, it was the way of the future. But they just don’t look and feel the same. Some die-hards never gave up on vinyl. It  became a collector’s item. Many thought of it as a thing of the past, though. Maybe thought of it with regret. Then the digital age really closed the door. Or did it? Not with everybody. Some didn’t give up on their vinyl. Then some more didn’t. Soon there was a market again. Sooner than you would have thought. Amongst people born after the advent of CDs.

And that market is growing. According to the New York Times, CD sales are of course dropping, digital downloads are on the rise, but so is vinyl. Figures for Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music corporation, show that from 2011 to 2012 vinyl album sales rose by 3%. All major labels release vinyl now and the number of vinyl pressing plants around the US is growing, working to capacity.It's happening in Asia, also.

It's not just classic albums like The Beatles being re-released on vinyl. French Punk sold 19,000 vinyl albums in a week on releasing Random Access Memories. About 25 million discs were pressed in the US last year. Record players are being manufactured and the whole industry is starting over again. A industry based on our need for a tactile life. Because tactile is cool amongst college age kids. 

Thank God somebody’s got some sense. You watch: one day Microsoft, Google and Apple are going to get into recycling paper and the book manufacturing and marketing business. If they're smart enough. If there are any real brains left in any of those organizations.