Still I (Will) Miss You

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

The Book of Face

How many Facebook friends do you have? I know some people who keep their friends list pretty tight, friend requesting and only accepting friend requests from those to whom they are actually already close. Some people friend everyone they've ever met or known and even accept requests from people who they don't know. I know people with friend's lists barely in the double digits, and others who are approaching 2,000 friends. I am somewhere in between. As of this sentence, my friend list (as of this moment)numbers 539. I could go through the list and tell you exactly how I know each and every person on my list. But as you can imagine, the number of those people with whom I am actually in regular contact is slim. (I now have 540 friends).

I often find myself feeling awkward when I become privy to the ups and downs of the lives of these 540 "friends." I have witnessed marriages, births, divorces, deaths. I know when relationships end, when friendships go sour, parties go bad, jobs disappear.

What does it mean for all of this information to be available so publicly? I feel I am a voyeur, given access to people's lives, but not necessarily feeling welcome to comment on them. And so I pray for people when it seems appropriate, silently congratulate them, look at their photos, read their blogs...maintain my distance.

Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here the computer, a companion without emotional demands, offers a compromise. You can be a loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need never feel vulnerable to another person.
-Sherry Turkle

Favorite Link(s) of the Day

From New York Magazine:

• The 33-Year-Old Yearning for His First Real Relationship

From the Hathor Legacy:

• Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test

From Cat and Girl:

• 

It Ain't so Bad

Earlier: On Loneliness
Here is a further thought to expound on what I was implying, which is that loneliness isn't necessarily a good thing, but it is a universal symptom and a healthy acknowledgment of the spiritual/emotional lack in our lives.

"It is not 'abnormal' to be empty, sad, and lonely at the deepest place in our souls that was fashioned for eternity - to be dissatisfied with the empty provisions of this world, sad over the destruction of beauty, lonely for the companionship of lost friendships. It is not only not abnormal, but wrong to be otherwise."
-from Bold Love by Dr. Dan Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman III.

On Loneliness

We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.
-Orson Welles

Because of man's sin, he is separated from God and separated from other men, created a remarkable sense of loneliness and isolation within each individual. My thought on loneliness:

Loneliness is unbearable because it is the most unoriginal sentiment. Every other human being to walk the earth has felt a complete disconnect from the rest of mankind. This is frustrating, not only because we are incapable of bonding over our shared feelings of solitude, but also because we can find no uniqueness or special quality about ourselves within this feeling of seclusion.