Monday 2 May 2011

Not talking about the meaning of life

Today I went to the dacha in the gently undulating hills of Scottish borders. The dacha is really just a wooden hut, charmingly rustic and totally relaxing, without running water or electricity. My friend and I sat under an apple tree in the sunshine, drank vanilla tea, played few games of chess and talked very little, mostly about the surrounding countryside. It was too beautiful to talk about what we should do in the future, about the trials and tribulations of work, parents in need, the meaning of life or lack of it.. It was utterly satisfactory just to be, light of spirit and slightly intoxicated by primavera and the sweet coconut scent of yellow gorse.

                       
I have been reading my friends’ blogs and the blogs they are following, and the blogs listed there and so on.. Through them I had entered another world. It is a strange world, an exhilarating, yet alien landscape with a diverse population. My friends’ blogs excite my imagination, stimulate my creativity and give me further insight into their individuality. Yet some of the other inhabitants seem to live entirely in the realms of their own blog-topography. Theirs is a virtual world of words and images. Some have not visited Earth for a while. Others are permanently on-line. They share inside of their heads with the other population of planet BLOG. I am now one of these inhabitants of BLOG:- reading, reflecting, adding, discussing, agreeing, questioning. Yet when it comes to sharing me, I tread guardedly, my feet stepping on this alien planet lightly, my lips tasting and testing the air, touching the shapes within it.. Sometime I feel like Alice Through the Looking Glass where things are not exactly as they seem, where ordinary fascinates and mystery becomes commonplace. .  But  I think I like this new world of sharing!

2 comments:

Anhrefn said...

Tell us more about your apple tree Madzia

cricket7642 said...

An inhabitant of Planet BLOG! :) Yes it is a virtual world that has been constructed using words and images selected by our infinitely creative minds, electronic canvas on which to splash electronic paints. But then, how is that different - truly - from the world that we have constructed out of words and images in our daily lives, in the so-called 'real' world? The you that you share with one of your friends is not the same you that you share with a member of your family, or the same you that you share with your work colleagues, or the same you that you share with a stranger beside you in a queue.

For instance, when you step through the threshhold of the Wonderland of your paid employment, you are selecting and exercising only the very slimmest portion of who you are and your personal potential. And I don't mean just the current Wonderland of Dysfunction where you currently draw your payslip - I mean any paid employment, throughout your life. We accept this as part of our reality yet it is as invented as the Internet.

So then who is this 'me' that treads guardedly through the terrain of Blog?

I love the idea of the ordinary becoming fascinating to us. Planet Blog isn't the only place this can happen. And if mystery were tolerated, indeed welcomed in our lives as a commonplace, we might then get a glimpse of things beyond our so-called 'real' reality.