I can tell you about my blog friends. I can tell you the ones who suffered tragic loss, life-threatening illnesses, incapacitating accidents and downright scary stuff. When I read their stories, my heart fills with compassion, I want to reach out and hug them. I search for the magic words to make them feel a little bit better. I know this works because when I've needed their compassion for things not nearly so heart-wrenching, they have been there to make me feel better.
What I wonder about this evening is what makes this so much easier to do this in blogland with "strangers" than it sometimes is in life with real people. The "real" of a person telling the story and the fear of not having the right words in real time makes the same kind of compassion much more difficult face to face. I can't "click to the next blog" in real life. Once there is compassion in that moment, what else can meaningfully follow? And yet day to day conversation returns. There are the rare moments in real life with friends where we share our stories, our deepest exposed feelings- and then we laugh at Chicken Bob. Not because we're irreverent or lack compassion, but because we have to. The duality of this is a mystery to me and I suppose that is as it should be. I don't have to know everything.
Is something lost in faceless communication with people I've never met, or is something gained. Am I really feeling compassion for their circumstances- I believe that I am- or is it just easier and safer than listening to someone face to face.
Tomorrow I will try to be as compassionate in real life as I often feel in blogland and see what happens. Throw some insight my way if you have any thoughts on this, would you?
8 comments:
Insight isn't exactly my strong point but - I'm convinced that feeling and expressing compassion in blogland is in some ways a help in expressing it in real life. Feeling compassion is not, for most of us, the problem; it's just that expressing deep feelings is embarrassing. So practice in a less stressful environment - at your own speed, nobody watching - is probably as good a form of training for the real thing as we're likely to come across.
Prepare to have your heart crushed and then healed all over again
I don't have any insight. I find it much easier to express myself honestly in blogland than in real life, and I suspect lots of other people--especially introverts like me--do, too. I can express heartfelt sympathy for a tragic loss in a blog comment, but I find myself tongue-tied and miserably uncomfortable trying to do the same face to face. My son's teacher lost his 38 year old wife to cancer last week. I went to the funeral, but I couldn't bring myself to attend the reception or speak to the family, although I sat across from them during the service. Ironically, I have been expressing my support and prayers for her for almost two years on Caring Bridge--a blog for people facing serious illness. I know the family has read my comments and that they saw me at the funeral, and I've known the husband for eight years--he taught both my sons. So I guess I'm the last person who can answer your questions.
I got insights out the wahoo, but in the end, I find it much easier to write than to talk about that which touches me deeply. In some ways, you know me better (or, at least differently) than my realworld friends. You have the most interesting thunks, Sweetie. Really.
I wonder if there isn't some link between being able to express compassion and deep feelings on the internet and also being able to flame people unmercifully. In both cases, we are not face-to-face. Weird, though.
I think you have the right idea, try to be more compassionate in your 'real life'. It's a great challenge.
Why are you so fat, please, still funniest thing ever!!
Kristin
I think it's easier to show compassion in the blogosphere for the same reason it's easier to write about the tragic things that happen to us. Writing gives us time to think about what we really want to say, whereas face to face you have to form words on the fly. I know I'm not necessarily at my best off the cuff (I don't even introduce my music programs. I make the kids do it.) and like to have to the time to say something meaningful beyond, "that sucks." (Though that is often the most appropriate thing to say.)
I've been thinking about this and I think it is the 'delete' button that allows us to me our best selves online. There is time to compose the right thing to say and if it doesn't sound right, delete and try again. No such button in real life.
Post a Comment