A War Without Edits

 sean durham, stream of consciousness, Writing  1 Response »
Jul 232010
 

Writing from the safety of some furtive lookout, I watch the war. Though I’m safe, perched in a kind lookout high in a swaying tree I hear the battle below me; feel the word’s echoes. There’s some lines of action mounting, throwing charges at the accusation. Apathy and empathy at arms.

Ego and transparency, on some distant hill fighting their own distant war.

Maybe writing is important if only to watch as the war between the “what-if” and the “what-now” unfolds itself onto the drama of some pages. It’s here where I sort things out, where I’m cleverer than I was hours ago. Where I’m better than I should be but always as strong as I am.

 Posted by SeanDurham at 10:01 pm

Social Media and the Art of Stealing Thunder

 sean durham, stream of consciousness  4 Responses »
Jul 142010
 

These blogs are meant to be a kind of expulsion for me. A kind of catharsis, but mostly a way to document the tide of thoughts ebbing and swelling throughout my head throughout my day. Most of them are positive. I do try to be uplifting.

This one, though – not sure where it’ll land.

There has come to exist (only in the past few years) a phenomena unprecedented. I haven’t termed it yet, but for our cursory purposes, I’ll call it “preemptive deja vu” or PDV, for safety’s sake.

PDV is most often seen in the arena of social media, but it’s commonly littered throughout our day-to-day interaction. It’s got nothing to do with communication and everything to do with technology. Basically, we’re dealing with the fact that more people know more about us than we can ever understand or have possibly consented to. PDV is actually so common that we’ve come to grow to know it, to understand it, to accept it like a modern convenience. Like cars or something (what did people do before, walk?!) or maybe electricity. It’s so permeated into the fabric of our social interaction that, if removed, we might feel a bit uncomfortable, or worse, unknown.

I’m not trying to be obtuse, it’s not that I’m speaking around the subject, it’s just so enmeshed with most of our engaged reality, that’s it’s difficult to isolate. PDV can be seen in the following regular occurrences.

“How is the beach?” asks your perfectly innocent (albeit Facebook lurkery) mother.
“Yeah, I heard about that” replies your friend over coffee just as you begin to tell him about the vacation you just took.
“How do you know my fourth-cousin’s step brother?” asks someone you really shouldn’t be friends with.

It’s not the nature of these interactions I find interesting, but the context. Because of Facebook, Twitter, blogs and myriad other lesser media, we now know more about each other than ever, and I’m really starting to wonder if it’s a good thing.

The excitement of telling your friend about your engagement is stolen (for both involved parties) by a change in Facebook status.
The anonymous day alone becomes a source of worry for interested co workers (What’s wrong with him? Who goes to the beach alone?)
The job applicant begins his in a defect thanks to some unseemly and unfortunately “tagged” pictures of a too-wild party.
The requisite “getting to know you” nightmare of a date is replaced by a simple Google search. (Actually, this is actually awesome. Listing siblings can be taxing)

So we’re plagued by last week’s party pictures and haunted by a few pointless status updates. We’ve been thrown into an entirely new reality and we haven’t the benefit of history from which to solicit advice. This is unique to our generation. At best I think it’s annoying, at worst I think it’s actually really dangerous.

Or, maybe we can all come to terms with the fact that we are actually in control of our online personas – with all of the proliferation of identity customization, we have almost complete control over the brand/idea/life we engage in every day – especially in social media. It’s a new world. Maybe the bright side is that we have the power to create an online identity that speaks well of yourself, on your behalf.

Of course, it’s also pretty easy to delete Facebook, too.

 Posted by SeanDurham at 12:12 am

Stream of consciousness and a conversation with oneself.

 life is epic, sean durham, stream of consciousness  2 Responses »
Nov 142009
 

Sometimes we sit there, our hands held, yours warm and smooth and mine, rough from wringing. A little clammy in late in the evening.
The only real lines I’ve drawn have been crooked and almost always circle back to me. Nothing real or permanent and no canvas to paint. I cannot paint if I do not leave, but still, I have several books to write and no more than several sentences. A world that celebrates potential is a world that stops and starts with the impetus of genius. That sentence is meaningless.

These geneses of genius.

And perhaps we too were fiction, don’t go back and add commas. She lived a story written beautifully, perfect grammar and structure. There was no plot or capture, no story or support. She was endlessly edited, and I, all painted self and broad strokes, I’m overdrawn and indebted.

Oh God, with what great oneness you’ve designed us, that we would compass this globe in all of our errant ways and still, to find bits of you swimming like small magnets in all of our blood. And when, upon encounter with another, we feel drawn – some mad electric swell that tells us that we’re made of the same stuff. No more digressions, and close your mouth when writing.

Now, look away from the screen.

Don’t tell them anything, says the bad man. But my hands are clams, clodding away at some kind of computer and compulsion towards half-hearted alliteration. Sometimes, I just try to conjugate words and leave it to Mr. Macintosh to tell me what’s what. That’s how I discovered “didacticism.” What a stupid word for a first year college kid. But it worked, didn’t it? Getting A’s was never hard for me, it’s all about focus, but I had none. So, I would memorize big great words and ask important ancillary questions so the teacher would think I was really on to something.

And, indeed I was. I was wondering why the steel on the side of the chair felt so cold in such a warm classroom. And I was hot on the wild trail of speculation. See, the woman next to me was married and I heard her make mention of a few kids at home. But she leaned in real close to the guy next to her when they spoke. Now, there was nothing illicit, I understand that, but maybe things weren’t great at home. Or maybe, she misses the attention of men, or maybe they were just in the long boring afternoon of their marriage.

So, to compensate, for thinking about everything in the classroom (everything but the lesson.) I memorized good words. Great words that I’m now embarrassed to know, and all of them I won’t mention here. I’ve always cared more for the question than the answer. Sometimes writing is too honest, too base and too cold. I wish self-actualization had more tact.

That’s how I maintained a decent GPA despite learning almost nothing.

 Posted by SeanDurham at 11:53 am
© 2012 Sean Durham Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha