Inanity

I live in a situation where I have very little direct contact with people.  I don't hang out with friends.  I have my wife, and right now with her in Portland for a week I have had an excellent chance to see what that means to me (I function, but I am just treading water, not flourishing), but not really anybody else with whom I can have a conversation.

To ward off loneliness I have The Face of Evil, which works surprisingly well as loneliness doesn't care whether other people are evil or dumb, and the internet.  I spend more time than would be healthy otherwise on forums and facebook.  I repeatedly try to reduce my time on these places in favor of self-improvement, but find it very difficult to do so.  Basically the internet works to reduce loneliness.  As long as you can have a conversation, some contact between minds, there is a social interaction.

The difference between the internet and real world interactions is that with the internet you get time to think about your response, there is a flawless record of what was said to which you can refer, and there is distance.  By distance I mean that there are no other emotional clues other than words.  There is no intonation, no facial expressions, no body language, no chemical messages.  We all know that you can say the same words and have two completely different meanings, and that in person those different meanings are obvious to everyone but the woman you are in a relationship with who wants to have a fight that will somehow be your fault.

I was raised in an environment where discussion meant that there was an idea that was talked about.  An academic environment where disagreement was interesting and agreement was dull.  Or more accurately, that environment was extremely available, which may explain why my sisters and I didn't talk a whole lot once I became a teenager.  I have discovered that this is a really weird environment.

On the internet people express their opinion about something.  It is very rare that I exactly agree with a position, when I do I say so and that is very brief.  More commonly I differ in some way, and I have a tendency to say so.  For me this is a starting point for conversation, or a pleasant diversion, a useful means of exchanging ideas and information.  How it is usually taken is as a personal attack, often it is explicitly said that I am uncaring, or ignorant, or someone out to hurt people for fun.  Basically I never actually insult someone, although after a while I may demean their particular opinion when they don't listen to me (nobody has to agree with me, they just need to understand what I am saying).  In practice this distinction means nothing.  To express a different opinion and continue to express it in the most convincing way possible is to viewed as attacking someone.

The other thing people do on the internet is safe updating, inanity.  They discuss the weather.  They say whether they have a cold.  They say they are pleased to go on vacation.  They show a picture of their children.  Basically they are saying they are human, having ordinary experiences, but mostly they are just confirming they are part of a group.  Part of being in a group is making noises without real meaning other than to reassure people that they are part of a group.

When I first came to the States people kept asking me "How are you doing?"  I would answer this question honestly, telling them if I was happy, or sad, tired, etc..  I remember always getting these pained, baffled looks.  It took me about eighteen months until I understood that people weren't interested in the answer, it was a meaningless piece of politeness, the same as saying, "Hello."  the correct answer, under any circumstances is, "Fine."  When I would point this out to Americans they were generally unaware of this, and about half said it wasn't true.  After all, to ask how someone is doing and then not care would be terribly rude, if you were actually asking that question.

In summary, what people want is to be able to say what they think and have people agree with them.  Or they want to say inane things to get along.  I am very bad at these things.  There are few things more excruciating in my regular life than to go to a social event because "We should" rather than because "It will be fun" and then spend the time ensuring we talk to everyone "We should" without saying "Anything that might upset them."  The most fun portions of those events is to find the other people who hate it so as to talk about anything else.  I am terrible at keeping my mouth shut when something is wrong.  When someone says, "That socialist government health care is stupid, the government can't get anything right" I just cannot stop myself from saying "The French live longer and spend half as much money on health care."

Just about the perfect way to lose friends is to not to use small talk (because then you don't care) and to want to have a discussion with different views (because then you are rude, aggressive, insecure etc.).  The perfect way to keep friends is to agree with them, tell them how capable they are, and never say anything that means anything significant.  Of course, I do care about people, one of my problems is getting trapped in bars fixing the lives of perfect strangers at their request.  I open my mouth to have discussions that are fun and interesting with people I think smart enough to learn and teach.  it doesn't matter.

There are groups of people where my style works.  They are academics, and at my level of knowledge of any particular subject, usually students.  I think basically I never grew up.  I have the moods, and the earnestness, and the desire to learn and then tell people what I have learned that college freshman have.  Let's change the world, let's find out new things, let's really think hard about what we know, let's question orthodoxy, let's share what we know.  The person I love more than anyone else has independent ideas, is smarter than I am, independently finds things out, and proves to me that I am wrong more than everyone I have ever met.

One of the goals in our plan, that seems to get more distant as time goes by (but probably isn't), is to live in a community where there are students.  Students are more intelligent, more creative, more challenging, and have more energy than the general population.  Mostly, they are more like me than most people.  Until then I have to try to practice inanity, look for things to discover (TED talks, most interesting thing ever) and use this blog to express my thoughts.  I don't expect to do well at this.