The Internet, It's Complicated

I keep coming up with thoughts and ideas I'm about to blog/tweet/post and instead I reach for the papyrus and a pen. I scroll it out, like with those wooden rods. Dowels. Slap some ink down on parchment. Tell my secrets to a page, which someone in my house will probably spill milk on or maybe tear out and chew. Seems as good a way as any to interact with words: taste them.

Mine is a very filtered existence. Thoughts bounce around my brain and I weigh how public to make those thoughts. My relationship with the Internet is co-dependent, fraught with imagined missteps. Despite my reservations, I'm still scrolling, scrolling, scrolling  through screens and boxes.

You want examples? God, I knew you'd ask that.

We are in a very strange cultural moment when our every move can be subject to scrutiny, should we make it public or should it be made public for us. For example, I just typoed "pubic" instead of public. I'm a terrible typist, and 79 times worse when using my phone, which I'm not currently using. Say I tweeted that little thought, typo and all. Suddenly I'm screen captured, Freudian-analyzed, mocked, compared to Clarence Thomas, compared to a Coke can. "Make it Pubic" would go viral and inspire a line of t-shirts. I would bring shame upon my family and ancestral village.

You can't even physically attack your brother-in-law in an elevator anymore without the whole world knowing. See: celeb news, if you're so inclined. Cynical me wonders: What are they promoting? Because elevators have had cameras for years and years. We all cultivate our images these days, but for those who cultivate images professionally, there's surely a heightened awareness of audience. And camera placement.  

"Where do you want to go with your imagination?" my preschooler asks me, and good lord, it is adorable. We often talk about the beach, or going for ice cream, or maybe to his grandparents' house. But his sweet question bangs a gong, as it were, deep inside my chest cavity. In my imagination, I often travel to the city of Worst Case Scenario. In this city, I have pondered the terrible and life-altering things I could almost say and almost do. I could type the words here, in this very box, but I don't. I reach for paper instead. Something burnable.

I read an article that claimed Facebook has a feature -- this needs to be Snopesed, I think -- that captures anything you type, even if you don't post it. That little note you edit to a friend or lover or coworker, and delete without sending. The harsh or flattering words sucked up by your backspace key. Put another way, the thoughts you decide against sharing.

I am not an alarmist, but I am alarmed.

There's a moth banging against my window, and he cares not one iota about any of this. All he is thinking is: LIGHT.

Maybe that's us, too, in front of our screens. Our mini-campfires that shed only a fraction of warmth. We think we are gathering with others, and in a sense, we are. But I for one am dressed in layers, wondering who and where my people are. And hoping against hope that they're the forgiving type, for I am human, made of typos both private and pubic public.