Six Different Ways...

If you are an artist, hobbyist or someone who promotes things, or you just like to be in the know or "tuned in" you probably belong to or use several different social networking sites. This past Monday I decided to take a break from all of these sites and just see what it felt like to only check one blog, my email, and keep posting my daily photos on blip. Even that is enough to keep one busy, my usual routine includes two blogs, myspace, facebook, twitter, along with blip and my email, not to mention the countless other blogs I read and comment on.

So are you connected? You are? But are you connected enough? How much is too much? What are we gaining from this and what are we losing?

While trying to avoid these sites, I tuned into Pandora Internet radio and started working on my neglected "to do" list. If you must know, I was listening to the New Order station I created-and The Cure's 6 Different Ways came on, and I started thinking of it as a metaphor for social networking...

6 Different Ways © The Cure

This is stranger than I thought
Six different ways inside my heart
And everyone I'll keep tonight
Six different ways go deep inside

I'll tell them anything at all
I know I'll give them more and more

I'll tell them anything at all
I know I'll give the world and more
They think I'm on my hands and head
This time they're much too slow

Six sides to every lie I say
It's that American voice again
It was never quite like this before
Not one of you is the same

This is stranger than I thought
Six different ways inside my heart
And everyone I'll keep tonight
Six different ways go deep inside

I know I am grasping, and I know I could just talk about my experiences with social networking sites and be done with it, but I wanted to shake it up a bit.

If you really allow yourself to think about it, these sites are strange! If I was not promoting my art, my name, or the galleries that represent my work, I am not sure why I would be on them. However, I make my living from these things and I have been conditioned by the media to believe these sites are valuable tools so I use them. I agree that there are many benefits to online social networking. I have made some amazing connections, friendships, received valuable feedback, inspiration, emotional support, not to mention renewing old friendships and making money all while using these sites. People from around the country and the world know of me and my work because of them. At the same time, to fully utilize these sites it seems one needs to invest a lot of time and energy in the process. You get back what you put in and nothing is free.

There are now six different ways to contact me, message me, get in my head and even inside my heart. We witnessed the whole giving to the sick friend fiasco a while back all via social networking sites.Yes, it mobilized people and was inspiring but it also crashed at my feet and caused me tremendous worry and time loss. I am also a person who keeps all the conversations with people known and unknown inside me. I take them seriously and put a lot of time into my relationships with people I care about. Sometimes, keeping up with everyone on these sites can be a bit overwhelming.

Maybe the more I think about it, the more sad it makes me feel. On the one hand I have knowledge of so many brilliant artists and art lovers all over the world thanks to myspace, twitter and facebook, but I also have the unfortunate knowledge of what they ate for dinner, who is having a breakdown, who is bored, and often who is lonely, all sent to me in little tweets, status bar updates, bulletins, and comments.

Back to the lyrics, I'll give them more and more and I do, there have been times when I want to bolster, support, encourage, inform these complete strangers so much that I spend more time with them than I do dealing with my own issues, my own family, my own real life that sits behind me waiting for attention. I won't say, I tell them anything at all or that there are 6 sides to every lie I say but I will say I do present my best light and a controlled view of my life. You are getting my best self minus the "I eat too much when stressed and I haven't done laundry in weeks" and "I am feeling guilty for not cleaning more often" because that is not what you come here for or who I want to present publicly. Before I wrote a blog I would read other people's posts and feel completely inadequate, these people read good books, traveled places, had lots of friends, were sharing photos of the elegant meals they prepared. I didn't live that way and felt bad that I didn't. Envious that I didn't live up and then I realized...this was their spin on their life, their best self; edited, made witty and clever. Smart and crisp: an adventure perfect for a blog post. You start to even view the world as a series of stories you can tell, are you living them in the moment? Who cares- this is going to make a great blog post, bulletin, or status bar message. Look at me! Look at me! Then the year passes and you realize you haven't felt it- you just reported it.

It can be a seductive and dangerous loop. We put something out into the world, we want a reaction. We wait for the reaction. The reaction comes, and then we do it again and again, and not only on one site but on many sites, all the while continuously checking for new and better reactions, for more feedback. It is a game of call and response, and we become slaves to the machine.

This marks day five in my vacation from the space, the face, and the tweets. I feel alive and content in this moment and I have just reported it to you so it must be real.

It was never quite like this before...