Wagahai’s corner

With the speed of the Internet, a change in how people relate has occurred. For some unknown reason, I feel the need to post about this. Before going into the online/off-line worlds and the relations, I need to define “friend”. For the purpose of this post, a friend is not someone who sends you an online message and says “lets be friends” or someone you added as a friend on myspace. A friend in this post is someone who would understand that a difference of opinion is acceptable, someone who you can talk to if you’re having a problem and would not make fun of the situation or tell everyone who doesn’t need to know. So, now that we’ve covered that, here we go..

It used to be that a “friend” was someone who you got to know over time.. may see every few days or was a friend of a friend who you got to know better over time. Recently, thanks to online chat networks, gaming and other online activities relationships live and die faster than ever before. There’s both good and bad to this, but I think that the “average user” really never takes the time to consider the difference in how relationships are established online.

One on one relationships in real life take a while usually.. you meet regularly, may be involved in a project and work side by side for a while.. and over time a friendship (or hate) is developed. In the online world, you can do projects with someone for a short time while typing back and forth and think you’ve met your soul mate after 3 hours of chatting. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly in virtual worlds.. someone wanders up to someone offers help to a new player and lends a hand.. lets say the new player needs a house.. so they build together and talk.. and are “friends” after 1 night. This friendship is no less “real” than a friendship built over weeks off-line, however it is so sudden that there will be things the 2 people don’t know about each other which could make or break the relationship over time. The ability to be semi-anonymous may also play a part in this depending on the mindset of the individuals involved.. but that’s for another post ..the relationships are more fragile due to the speed they happen at - often they escalate to hardcore relationships or immediately fall apart.

Group relationships are probably the most difficult to maintain long-term online. The first part of the problem is the one on one relationship being more volatile thanks an off-line relationship already. Groups are also more difficult due to people in groups not always agreeing and getting along.. plus with online communities, many people belong to a number of groups that they try to be involved with at the same time which either takes time away from the other groups or they attempt to combine the different groups into 1 larger community.. and there is more conflict than they expected. The community part gets more complicated when “friends of friends” are involved and the community attempts to set a direction.

I realize that this post sounds negative towards online relationships, but it’s not meant to - just wanted to point out that these relationships are more difficult usually than off-line ones. I’ve had the pleasure of being in positive versions of both personal and group relationships online. My wife is the best example of the personal version. We are two people who met and had a shared interest who eventually fell in love (over years). I have a few groups of friends online too.. most are unorganized groups at this point who stay in contact as a group yet have separate interests and groups they spend the majority of their time with.

Went today to Wild Animal park with some friends, 2 mini video clips to share

Lorikeets in action and asking for attention.

Although I’ve already dealt with this in person, I still feel the need to blog about today. The initial plan was that a group of us would meet up and go visit an art exhibit. I was making sure that all of my errands were done this morning, got Java’s food, went by home depot, got lunch.. and then went back home and watched TV while waiting to hear when everyone got back in town from the morning festivities to go to this exhibit. Late in the afternoon I called the friend who was coordinating things and left a voicemail that I was curious when things would happen.
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Usually children aren’t given the most credit for being wise or smart due to their extremely short amount of experience in the world. Their views are often based on little knowledge, not well thought out as to the long-term effects that their suggestions would have on the real world..

There are exceptions to this. Recently in a conversation I was having, the child I was speaking with brought up that they really disliked religious discussions at school. They felt that given the amount of religions out there that people need to be more tolerable of other people and not force their thoughts and beliefs on others. To further the statement, this particular child said there was only 1 person that they needed to believe in - themself. THEY were in charge of what they did. THEY were the ones to get in trouble or not get in trouble. They showed a great deal of pride in taking credit for their accomplishments or failures instead of calling for help from someone or something - or blaming it on someone or something. They also found it frustrating that others could not understand this concept (not “embrace it”, but just to “understand” it).

There are times that society could learn from children, this would be one of them.

Wondering what tomorrow may bring. Sometimes, you just KNOW what things will be like. You know that you’ll wake up, eat, that nothing exciting will happen and that you’ll go back to sleep at the end of the day. Others you let ride on the wind and see where it will take you. And then others you look and you realize it’s not even riding the wind, the amount of random things that can happen are infinite and are of a mixed bag and you’re better off not even going there. I don’t think I’ve ever really had the “mixed bag” - everything is either “ride the wind” (if I like the direction it’s blowing) or the typical day.

Sometimes, when you watch others, you realize which type of day or week they’re having. Sometimes you hope you can help them catch the right wind to ride or help them get out of the “mixed” day and have just an old fashoned regular boring day since that’s what we sometimes need. Sometimes the winds are too strong and you watch them get blown away.

Other times, the winds that have to travel the globe are the strongest since they travel the farthest. They carry the spirit and the heart along. The wind can carry the feelings and thoughts without anyone even realizing it.. and since it’s a cycle, it carries the other spirit and heart back.

..and with those thoughts, back to work I go