Moving Hands

I’ve been spending less time on the Internet recently because my router and/or browser keep crapping out. I don’t really have the energy to deal with that right now, so I have been focusing on other things.

In that time, I have been thinking about my relationship to the Internet, including what I want from this blog. I want a space where I can put forward my unfinished thoughts so that they can be completed via discussion. In my opinion, thoughts are always unfinished unless you have someone else to discuss them with.

I feel like my blog sometimes reads like I’m saying, “I think everyone should think this.” That’s definitely not how I intend it to come across. Come on, nobody knows shit, myself included. I’m not the type of person who comes up with an essay – or blog post – and sees that as the end-all-be-all; it’s a work in progress. There are some blog posts from two weeks ago that I completely disagree with now because I kept thinking about the issue and came to a completely different conclusion.

I think that a blog is a difficult space to discuss things. Part of this is because the Internet is written in ink: you wouldn’t ever have any idea that I changed my mind unless I told you. People can still navigate to a post from 2009 and read what I thought in 2009. Part of it is that people just don’t comment – I’m not sure what’s up with this. I think that part of it is that blogging is a passive medium. I post, you read the post, then you move onto the next part of your day. But I genuinely want to know if there’s anything that I can do to foster discussion. If any of you have any suggestions and feel comfortable sharing it, please let me know.

Maybe one thing that I could do is to be better about posting. For example, when I change my mind, I can come back and say, “Oh, by the way, I changed my mind.” In the past, I’ve been pretty anxious about things like having perfect grammar. Now, though, I think my ideas are more important than being perfect all the time – I want to open up a discussion, not lead an English class. What do you guys think?

Anyway, like I said, I’ve been spending less time on the Internet and I’m happy to report that it’s been going well. In the past, I relied on the Internet a lot because of a combination of deafness and not being out. It is a space in which I can communicate with people very easily without having to worry about reading lips or making my speech clear. When I was figuring out the missing pieces of my identity in college, it was a space where I could meet other people like myself and post pictures to find validation that I was attractive.

Now that the whole ‘coming out’ thing has worked out very well – way above and beyond my expectations – I find that I don’t need the Internet to validate my identity anymore. I don’t need to post strategic myspace pictures of myself all over the Internet anymore; people now recognize and respond to me appropriately. As for the deaf thing, I’ve been around hearing people my whole life, so I know how to deal with them. It’s difficult sometimes, but that’s part of life as a minority.

How I use the Internet has also shifted. These days, I find I’m less interested in silly games like “how many upvotes can I get in Reddit?” or “how many people will answer this question?” and things like that. I’m more interested in emailing my mom, staying in touch with friends on instant messenger, and so forth. I used to get upset when I went an entire day without emails, but now I’ve realized that my self-worth is not wrapped up in my e-popularity. Instead of using the Internet as a leisure/socialization activity, I’d much rather use it as a tool to enhance my life. Posting in this blog would qualify as a life-enhancement; browsing imageboards would not.

Looking back on my history of Internet consumption, there’s definitely a few things that I would have changed. For example, I wish that I’d turned to the external world for socialization rather than to the Internet; perhaps I would have made more local friends that way. But, really, I did need that supportive space for some time. It helped me so much because I realized that I’m not alone. It’s simply that I have reached a stage of my life where I don’t really need it anymore.

I don’t think I will pay for Internet when I move into my next apartment. If I just so happen to find an apartment with free wi-fi, that’s cool. But I think I’ll be fine with just using a coffeeshop or library to browse the Internet – and to post on this blog.