Thank you for this thought-provoking post. So often each of us struggles to be heard and thinks about how we will be remembered, if our art or our words or our deeds have impacted another's life in some meaningful way. We all want immortality because we don't know why or how we are here, I think. But having to hide while we are alive is a tragedy no matter what the era. One of our deepest failures as human beings is judgement and prejudice, causing some people to feel they must hide their true nature. It's amazing, isn't it, that we wear masks of a different kind via the internet, but masks just the same.
These lines were so powerful:
"Will the young maiden, when her tears
Alone in moonlight shine—
Tears for the absent and the loved—
Murmur some song of mine?"
And the ending lines gave me chills. Thanks so much for sharing!
"...where nothing is ever forgotten. Celebrities and Instagram “influencers” curate their image by sharing only their most beautiful photos to give us the illusion of a shiny, happy life that is often anything but."
This transcends celebrities and has sucked up others into a narcissistic vortex of self-bloviating nothingness. Love this post!
Hi there. 'Lines of Life' poem is aptly named. Being witness to these issues of identity and secrecy is a recurring theme for me. Getting unexpectedly caught up in them. The boy who I liked in high school made a poetry account where he felt safe to express himself online. Out of all the people in the world I found him. His username was damocles1. I did not know he wrote poetry, was not looking for him. He felt betrayed because I did not make my presence known. He shut it down and created a new account and left for me an ominous story about a girl who found his poem that still gives me chills, in which he said my punishment for reaching into his mind and his deepest emotions without permission was he would never finish the story. He stopped the story and left it blank. Forever. He saw me as an intruder. I found him so innocently, accidentally, and he reacted as if I violated him, as if I were the plague, when he put himself out there in a public space, thinking the odds of someone he knew finding him were inconceivably low. We never spoke again.
Keeping your privacy and private life private are legitimate reasons to wear a mask online. For any ordinary person as well as poets and international spies and celebrities. So you make up a name and you choose an avatar. You find other people who love nature walks and eagles and rose gardens and children's stories. But you only have one physical reality, one face and body connected with your heart and mind and soul. If someone gets to know an alt version of you, with a different appearance and life history, I believe you will eventually create distance and disconnect where you sought genuine closeness and connection.
If language is the truest connection we can share with another person, which type, or is it more than type? Is seeing someone's face, hearing their voice a more real version of them? My own personal preference and feeling is I feel deprived of knowing someone who I shared my image and voice with who continues to show me a character/alias.
A person of notoriety would worry those near them are around for the wrong reasons, are not genuine, only like them for their name, profession, image, influence, wealth or possibly knowledge. Maybe that would make them want to retreat into obscurity on the internet. Let's say you fall in love online while wanting to protect your identity and career. At what point do you reveal yourself and location before your significant other feels alienated and rejected? I can understand wanting to share your feelings without risk until you feel more comfortable, but you have to take risks for love!!!! I see fantasy as a stepping stone to real life experience. It's not fair to give another false promises of a future together. The relationship can't stand on lies. It will wither and die and you will lose each other. Such are issues you might encounter in an internet only relationship.
BTW, I see what you did at the bottom of your post; AI is starting to make celebrities and others that make a living off of their words and profession very nervous. That disclaimer might take on a life of its own.
Thank you for this thought-provoking post. So often each of us struggles to be heard and thinks about how we will be remembered, if our art or our words or our deeds have impacted another's life in some meaningful way. We all want immortality because we don't know why or how we are here, I think. But having to hide while we are alive is a tragedy no matter what the era. One of our deepest failures as human beings is judgement and prejudice, causing some people to feel they must hide their true nature. It's amazing, isn't it, that we wear masks of a different kind via the internet, but masks just the same.
These lines were so powerful:
"Will the young maiden, when her tears
Alone in moonlight shine—
Tears for the absent and the loved—
Murmur some song of mine?"
And the ending lines gave me chills. Thanks so much for sharing!
"...where nothing is ever forgotten. Celebrities and Instagram “influencers” curate their image by sharing only their most beautiful photos to give us the illusion of a shiny, happy life that is often anything but."
This transcends celebrities and has sucked up others into a narcissistic vortex of self-bloviating nothingness. Love this post!
Hi there. 'Lines of Life' poem is aptly named. Being witness to these issues of identity and secrecy is a recurring theme for me. Getting unexpectedly caught up in them. The boy who I liked in high school made a poetry account where he felt safe to express himself online. Out of all the people in the world I found him. His username was damocles1. I did not know he wrote poetry, was not looking for him. He felt betrayed because I did not make my presence known. He shut it down and created a new account and left for me an ominous story about a girl who found his poem that still gives me chills, in which he said my punishment for reaching into his mind and his deepest emotions without permission was he would never finish the story. He stopped the story and left it blank. Forever. He saw me as an intruder. I found him so innocently, accidentally, and he reacted as if I violated him, as if I were the plague, when he put himself out there in a public space, thinking the odds of someone he knew finding him were inconceivably low. We never spoke again.
Keeping your privacy and private life private are legitimate reasons to wear a mask online. For any ordinary person as well as poets and international spies and celebrities. So you make up a name and you choose an avatar. You find other people who love nature walks and eagles and rose gardens and children's stories. But you only have one physical reality, one face and body connected with your heart and mind and soul. If someone gets to know an alt version of you, with a different appearance and life history, I believe you will eventually create distance and disconnect where you sought genuine closeness and connection.
If language is the truest connection we can share with another person, which type, or is it more than type? Is seeing someone's face, hearing their voice a more real version of them? My own personal preference and feeling is I feel deprived of knowing someone who I shared my image and voice with who continues to show me a character/alias.
A person of notoriety would worry those near them are around for the wrong reasons, are not genuine, only like them for their name, profession, image, influence, wealth or possibly knowledge. Maybe that would make them want to retreat into obscurity on the internet. Let's say you fall in love online while wanting to protect your identity and career. At what point do you reveal yourself and location before your significant other feels alienated and rejected? I can understand wanting to share your feelings without risk until you feel more comfortable, but you have to take risks for love!!!! I see fantasy as a stepping stone to real life experience. It's not fair to give another false promises of a future together. The relationship can't stand on lies. It will wither and die and you will lose each other. Such are issues you might encounter in an internet only relationship.
BTW, I see what you did at the bottom of your post; AI is starting to make celebrities and others that make a living off of their words and profession very nervous. That disclaimer might take on a life of its own.
;o)