Another blog to join the masses: It's solidarity baby!

"You don't, after all (despite withering cultural pressure), have to use a computer, but you can't escape language: language is everything and everywhere; it's what lets us have anything to do with one another."
-David Foster Wallace


I have an enduring fascination with modern American culture. While I am well aware that I myself am part of the aforementioned, I often find myself standing off stage of our hypothetical cultural play, flipping wildly through my program, unbelievably confused by the rising action. Forgive my somewhat labored analogy, but it's the way I often feel; tossed mid-scene into a play more haphazard and mercurial than a Tarentino film.

We are at the height of an age where "impossible" doesn't begin to describe an attempt at living life void of our increasing technological dependencies. Smart phones, email, Gmail, PDA, skype, mp3, kindle, electric cars, smart cars (were the cars before it stupid?), satellite networking, GPS. I mean really, the list could go on and on. I feel swept away on an undulating wave of constant technological change. BUT! Before this begins to sound like some veiled criticism or diatribe on modern culture, I should stop and change direction...no need to toss the baby out with the bath water right? Despite its inevitable complications, I love the accessibility and ease that technology brings: the new art forms and avenues to engage and connect with the world around us. The blog is one such mode. Without our dear friend technology this newfangled form of expression and connection would not exist. Though things seem to change at a dizzying, almost scary pace, I'm trying to keep up. I've got my facebook account, my laptop, my bluetooth cell phone, my wireless Internet...kinda, and now my blog.

Hello blogosphere.

I will say though, that my reasoning for this new cyber-mode of interaction has little to do with a desire to be technologically hip, and much more to do with my love for human interaction-- telling stories and sharing life. Anyone who knows me or has spent even a brief period of time with me would tell you that I love to tell personal stories. It's an easy avenue for the superseding fact that I love to talk. Robert Frost once said "nothing gold can stay". If this is true--and I believe for the most part it is, then what matters if we are not in constant dialogue attempting to understand, live through and for the things that fade and those that last? I should qualify though, and say that by personal I don't mean the T.M.I details of my life, but more so the funny odd/interesting, sometimes sad pieces. When you share a story you give a little piece of it away. You take others on a journey with you giving them the ability, albeit, in a minuscule scope to walk a few inches in your shoes, to help you bear the weight.

It's amazing what it does for the human heart, how sharing these seemingly inconsequential details makes living them easier. Instead of 1 person you have a thousand...a Million, invisibly helping you carry the load that is life. The proverbial, hypothetical host of fellow survivors walking with you. It's solidarity baby! Or at any rate, it makes you realize your life is no where near as crappy as you thought it was. Whose mom didn't remind them of the starving children in other countries when we refused to eat some inane vegetable, that to us, at the time seemed like poison. I mean how could they do that to us?! Force us to eat such despicably disgusting food! But somehow that image of a poor, half clothed child made us realize that broccoli wasn't as bad as it could be. The stories of those around us reverberate within us. It gives proper scale to the "problems" and even joys we face day to day; especially when we can sympathize. It's why I love movies, books, songs, art. I mean, if you're honest with yourself, why do you love Love songs? The same hackneyed themes over and over again? Even though we've heard a million of them a million times. There's something about knowing someone has felt what you've felt, been where you've been (or where you couldn't dream of going) that makes the awful, awkward, amazing experiences of life more bearable. It makes you thankful. They're the songs we sing a bit louder, the ones where we know exactly what they mean. It's the world engaging you, reminding you that you're alive and that you can do it...and you can.

Hi, my name is Faith and this is my blog. Enjoy