Why I Post At All

I have been posting for five days. Mainly, at the request of certain friends scattered about the country who I see not often and talk to only sporadically, despite their repeated emails (I have a horrible hermit streak). A request that in this new year I be more accessible, even if it is only in glimpses, out of context and indirect. I would have most likely honored their request regardless of when they made it, for their sakes and not my own. But, with a coincidence of timing, their request was made at a time when I found myself without outlet and so the idea had even more appeal.

Drawn to seclusion I may be, and yet there are occasionally those with whom I find I feel secluded even while totally exposed. That I rant to, cry to, reveal myself to again and again in every light imaginable. I had such a one until days ago, when I realized that the every light imaginable had not included the one capable of clearly illuminating our circumstances. And I revere the person still, but they are no longer another home for me. And I chose, though it felt not like choosing, to be silent to them.

And so, with some small part of my spirit wandering, I was perfectly inclined to agree to this venture of brief glimpses and lack of context. And I expected nothing more from it than to bring pleasure to those who have pleased me for years and to perhaps find some small venting of myself in the process.

And I have read many other people’s posts in the past five days. A page at random, bits of archives here and there, posts in the middle of the page, without chronological relevance. And in that time, I have commented twice. To posts that for some reason resonated within me at that exact moment in time. I cannot say why one and not others, surely there were others that I found comment worthy.

And a girl I commented to today, said about my comment:

“…what you said seemed to have the energy of a benevolent universe. thank you for your wisdom.”

And how, other than flukes of fate and timing and mood, was I there to be wise for someone who needed wisdom? Such things make me so contemplative about how little I understand anything. And I think: “how odd it all is” because you know what amuses me most about the situation? That she was just as receptive as I was giving.

How often does that happen in “real” life which is so filtered and so often our minds and opinions are prefabricated? What if this girl turned out to be *not* a stranger? Were she to turn out to be my neighbor who all this time has seen me through eyes, under raised eyebrows, that take in my cut offs and scruffy hair, in the yard with the roses and overgrown herb garden? Would she dismiss my words without hearing them? Or if she turned out to be my mailperson or my waitress at my favorite bar or my best friend or someone I know’s ex-girlfriend….

What a difference the context you know a person in can make in how you hear what they say, in whether or not you are inclined to even listen. It is a trait I believe I have mostly shed in the many years I have been studying myself, but how often you *see* it.

What if I had walked up to this stranger in the grocery store, after overhearing her post via conversation, and made my comments? Would her reaction have been the same? Would the wisdom still have been inherent in my words? Or would she have already made 10 million split second judgments of me and have placed them between my spirit and hers? Perhaps it’s my hair she would not like or my eye liner or lack of it. Perhaps even just the sound of my voice. Any and all such filters we create again and again and again throughout our in-person interactions with others. And such filters are necessary, of course. Such boundaries and valuations. The world is full of stimuli and it must be channeled and prioritized in some fashion.

But the key is to build such walls and channels as temporary as possible, so that they contain but can still be moved. And the key is to notice when such necessary structures of convenient processing become immovable temples built to ourselves.

I am glad I was here. I am glad I commented when I did. I am glad she heard me when she did. I am glad we do not ‘know each other’ and never will. I am glad that we existed for one moment of anime to anime and not persona to persona. And while she is grateful for my ‘wisdom’, I find I am grateful for that moment which validated my having chosen to be posting here. Symbiosis is a beautiful thing.