The Contemplation of All Things Rational and Good: Towards a More Communicative LiveJournal
Most of my recent posts have been the livejournal equivalent of a monosyllabic grunt when asked how one's day is going; they say something but don't really say anything. That is to say, they are a form of expression, but they lack any actual communication. I started contemplating this while at work today, and I realized that in this light, my posts have been no different than the "true blogging" of emo kids and churlish adolescents. In principle, both types of posting are frighteningly similar. So I thought I might try to change that.
And, since communication is one of the basic human drives (the others: respiration, consumption, copulation; although all three of these usually involve some form of communication, even at its most basic and primitive levels), I decided to actually try and change that instead of just thinking about trying to change that.
I hope, so far, it has worked.
In the contemplation of all things rational and good in relation to a more communicative livejournal, it struck me that perhaps there was a question of modality at work here. Exactly how "real" can one expect things to get in livejournal, or in any blog for that matter? And, furthermore, without knowing how "real" the information is, how can we hope to recieve anything rational and good from the fruit of its vines? Let us take on this temporary definition of a livejournal "reality" until a better one poses itself: the "real" is whatever is felt by the user. Therefore, reality would be the factual and proper documentation of the user's feelings into the electronic livejournal environment. But this doesn't really solve anything; every single post that properly expresses the user's oftentimes complex emotional state of being would be considered real. No, there are higher forces at work than simply the user. Since livejournal is a public or semi-public service, we must also consider how that information is communicated to all other users, which brings us back to the beginning.
Livejournal is a journal, true; but the fact that the user's entries can be read by most anybody, even complete strangers, points toward a necessity for broader and more exoteric means of communication. This is, of course, accepting the assumption that one is using livejournal at least partly as a means of communication.
However, there is a slight problem of a socio-cultural basis that comes with the onset of the Information Age. What the parents would write privately in their actual journal, the kids are now writing in a more public setting. This is the foundation of one of the media-popular myspace problems that teeagers are experiencing; many teens are placing their personal information into an open setting, where it can be easily recieved by extremely dangerous, evil, and otherwise malvolent predators and molestors. Of course, the media itself may be partly to blame for the problems of information overexposure.
I digress.
What was once private is now being shown publicly, wittingly or otherwise. What was once written by one person and meant for the eyes, mind, and understanding of that same person is now being transmitted around the world instantaneously. But it is still the same type of private information, something that only certain persons would have the inside knowledge to fully understand.
Quite often, the teenage problem is the opposite: nobody, cries the user in many different ways, nobody, not even my closest friends, nobody understands me. Let me propose that this is a bigger problem in the mind of the user than it should be. If nobody understands the user, perhaps it is the user's own lack of the communication skills necessary to express themselves. If nobody understands the user, perhaps the user should employ his or her words towards fixing the rift in communication, instead of escrying how impossible the rift in communication is to overcome. It is the equivalent of a man being stuck in a ten-foot hole with fifty planks of wood, a hammer, and nails. Instead of building a ladder to climb out, he fastens a few planks of wood into a sign, on which he writes (to any passing stranger), "Help, I'm stuck in this hole."
I believe that it all boils down to whether or not we wish for livejournal to actually be a form of expression and communication. There are many journals which do, and they perform the task very well. There are others (myself included) which proffer the idea that they do, but then don't quite proffer the proper communication that they desire. And there are others dedicated simply to the art of journaling; if anyone stumbles across it, then so be it.
It is my belief that journaling is something that should be practiced (initially, at least) with oneself. It is an open dialogue between what is in one's mind and what one can express in words. As Flannery O'Connor writes, "Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man." Journaling aids in contemplating and understanding all of the various conflicting wills. As such, it would be nearly inconcievable to let any outside influence in upon these wills until they have reached some form of resolution. To do so would allow the many wills of another to cloud and flaw your own wills, and then they would no longer be strictly your wills, but another's wills as well.
Don't get me wrong. There are times when it is necessary to ask another's opinion or guidance before a resolution of wills has occurred. But to do so without one first having done his or her own thinking would be dangerous. We are, after all, individuals by nature. It is our own decision (conscious or not) that meshes us together.
Back to modality. How can we extract a universal "real" from the communication of one's private thoughts and feelings? Even when we write to ourselves, we oftentimes look back on it and wonder what in the world we could have meant. As Robert Browning once aptly said, "When I wrote that poem, only God and I knew what it meant. Now only God does." So what is "real" (henceforth what is therefore a priori "rational" and "good") must apply to a larger world outside of the user, and it also must be able to be understood at least somewhat outside of the context of the time of its expression. Therefore, the shorthand note I wrote to myself four months ago, and recently discovered last month ("tl f.b. / aws stay") would not be a rational or good livejournal communique. When I myself cannot understand how I expressed myself, how can I expect anyone else to interpret the information properly?
Let us now undertake a proper examination of the various levels of modality at play in an average livejournal post. The ultimate modality, or the "real," is the user experiencing certain qualia in their conscious living. The actual experience represents an extremely high modality. From there, we take steps removing the user and the experience itself from the original high modality:
*User experiences certain qualia. (high modality)
*User interprets qualia in a specific way, influenced by belif systems, past experience, mood, etc.
*User communicates those interpretations to him/herself through the process of thinking and reacting.
*User communicates those interpretations into a computer.
--further steps of removal from modality depending upon the quality of thought transfer; typos, grammatical errors, not being able to find the right word, confusion of actual experience and biased memory of experience, etc.
*Information is read by another user.
*Other user interprets information in a specific way, influenced by belief systems, past experience, mood, etc.
This reveals at least five steps of removal from the high modality of the "real," if there are no typos or other errors in communication, and if the user is able to communicate what he or she wishes perfectly. The size of the steps of removal depend mainly on the posting user, but also slightly on the receiving user. If the posting user wishes to communicate effectively, he or she should see to it that the size of the steps of removal is made as little as possible. Obviously, no form of communication can be strictly 100% "real." Communication involves interpretation and effort on both ends, and interpretation is based upon many factors; quite the same factors that influence one's opinion of a natural proof of a God existing: some say we can understand through nature that a God does exist, and for quite the same reasons others can say we can understand through nature that a God cannot exist. Using our own interpretations of nature, who is to say which is truly correct?
The standard recipe for communication has usually been viewed as such:
Writer ----> TEXT <---- Reader
But Frank Conroy has posited a more appropriate model, which I adhere to and will print here:
Writer ----------->
**TEXT**
<----------- Reader
The spaces marked with asterisks are what Conroy calls, "the zone;" or, where the efforts of the one communicating and the one being communicated to meet. The writer puts effort into the creating the text, and the reader should put effort into reading it. The reader should not simply swallow the words, but digest them as well. All of this action centers around the text, thereby revealing its utmost importance in the communicative process.
At the same time, I propose that the majority of the burden of proper communication is placed upon the writer. We all must shoulder that burden, if we wish to communicate properly.
As for the reader, many people say that communicating is also listening. Most of those people, however, only wish this to be true because they are speaking.
I believe that I have once again digressed. What I truly meant to express today was the concept that I myself should post more communicative entries.
Whether or not I have succeeded is up to you to prove.
Current Mood: |
 thought through my eyes |
Current Music: |
ineluctable modality of the visible:at least that if no more |
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