The metaphysics of LiveJournal

[lobelia321]

I've been thinking.

LiveJournal is like life. It continues in its ceaseless chatter, around the clock, across all time zones, never-ending, busy-busy, and it does this whether we're jacked in or not. Even when offline, I can sometimes picture the non-stop progression of text and icons scrolling themselves down the screen and hear the zillions of voices whispering away.

This is like life. It goes on regardless, even when we have died. Life closes around each death and the world keeps on turning and being busy-busy-busy.

When we're offline and imagining LJ going on and on, it's like being dead and knowing that the world keeps on going on and on.

So we have to go online and participate, to convince ourselves that we're not dead.

Well, it's one way of explaining the addiction, anyway.

Comments

jumpstart

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Nobody's commented on this in the last 3 seconds so I'm going to jumpstart the ball rolling.

Also, so that I know I'm still alive.

[lazulus]

I was wondering where you were.

*clings*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I was in Norwich.

See? It's worrying if people disappear. It's like Death. And I start to feel I'm dead when I'm offline. Then I think, absurd, I don't need to go online. So I don't, in an attempt to wean myself a little.

[crazybutsound]

Well... that certainly didn't cheer me up. But it does make sense, though. Mmmmm...

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

*waves wildly*

I'm here!!!! I'm alive! Oh, thank God.

I was having some rather more literal and morbid thoughts about death and LJ last night. Like, if I were to die suddenly in some freak lying-in-bed accident, who would know to post on my journal that I had shuffled off this mortal coil? You know, and maybe I should leave some kind of note somewhere, just in case?

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

if I were to die suddenly in some freak lying-in-bed accident, who would know to post on my journal that I had shuffled off this mortal coil?

Oddly enough, I've been wondering the same thing. I'd just... suddenly disappear and no one would know. Bwah. I guess I'm afraid of being forgotten.

[lazulus]

I often have such late night musings. I have also thought to leave a list of people and places - including LJ - to let know that I have popped my clogs. I even know who I should leave it with. I have a set of keys to the house of a close friend and have promised faithfully that I will remove all diaries, pornography, dirty pictures etc. in case of her sudden demise, so that her Mother need never see them. She has promised to do the same for me.

[dantana.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a good plan.

[lazulus]

Yes, it is! We came up with it when my friend had to clear out stuff from her Grandmother's house - at the Grandmother's request - knowing that there were certain thngs that would have been painful for her Dad to see.

[andraste-oz.livejournal.com]

What a fantastic idea. I'm going to start planning the same way!

[lazulus]

*nods*

Makes me feel a whole lot more in control. I know that:

a) there is stuff in my house I would not want my family to see
b) there are people who I know would want to know if anythng happened to me, but who are outside of my everyday RL and would therefore never be told as a general rule.

Morbid, possibly. But also makes good sound sense.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Mortality, mortality!

This is precisely it: late-night musings! Fatal time of day.

This is why I've started to give out my mobile number and address to selected people. Because otherwise, if I suddenly disappear, who'd ever know? Who'd know it was different from a hissy fit? Which is also why hissy fits are so disturbing: who's to know it's not a Real Death? Well, I presume people who Delete their LJ aren't precisely dead, but say, someone just stops posting...??

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, a trusted person who knows your password and knows to post a 'I'm dead' post on your LiveJournal. (DeadJournal!!!)

This thread is starting to disturb me.

No, I guess I was disturbed already.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh see, I've thought of this, but not in terms of death. To me it feels more like the year of university I spent abroad. I KNEW that life was going on as it always did for my friends and family, but it seemed a little strange to me that it would, since I wasn't there to witness it. Being away from LJ for a while feels a lot like that to me.

If an LJ is deleted, but none of its Friends notice, did it ever really exist? Ponder this grasshopper, and be enlightened. *g*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Now you've got me going. (Why grasshopper?) Oh, the existential ontology of LiveJournal...

What would Plato say? Or Sartre?

I will ponder the life-or-yearabroad conundrum.

Re:

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry. I was being silly with the grasshopper bit. There was that old TV show: "Kung Fu" where David Carradine played a kung fu master in the old West. When he was a youngster, his Shaolin Priest mentor always called him "grasshopper."

I would ponder right along with you, but right now I have the attention span of a grasshopper, or probably worse. *g*

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

the way i see lj is, it's like a community of friends. we're still people. we're not imaginary. we care about each other. we gossip about each other. we share experiences with each other. we laugh and cry over each other's experiences. we share jokes and stories. we drool over boys. we do all the things within our little lj community the same way we would with real life friends. it doesn't make our lj community any less valid or real.

i feel that, through lj, i have acquired a lot of friends i would otherwise have never had a chance to meet. and as i would in real life, i would like to cultivate and maintain my online circle of friends.

but like all friends, you acquire friends and you leave friends. maybe you feel you have outgrown us and don't need us any more. it's not a good or bad thing. it's a fact of life. people change; people move on. i would be very sad if you decided to move on and leave lj, but i respect your choices and support you in whatever you wish to do.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

O no, I cannot leave, you see. I am joined at t'hip. I am able to go cold turkey for a few days but then I'm back, to feel the pulse.

And it's precisely *because* it's a circle of friends that the analogy to life and death occurred to me. It's imagining my real life friends and even my closest family continuing with their lives after my death, the inexorability of everything going on, that made me think of the comparison to LiveJournal. After all, I don't give a shit about who else chatters on the net, the zillions in chatrooms or whatever (or, hang on, if I add *them* into the equation my head spins even more....)

This is metaphysics, not huffy "I'm leaving" post.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Though it's sweet of you to try and dissuade me. *g*

ACK!!!

[pippinspeach.livejournal.com]

don't freak me out! I just joined up today!

LOFL

cyndi

[msilverstar]

Fascinating musings. I find my motivation is a combination of curiosity (what have these women been up to?) and greed (more good stories!).

[ios-pillow-book.livejournal.com]

Very, very interesting your musings (like those on the apocryphal nature of slash). And yes, there's definitely something to that idea even if I wouldn't go so far to say that being off-line is like being dead (although it's damn hard, admittedly). It's not as if RL was just a matrix whereas LJ is RL or some equivalent to life. LJ reveals just a part of people's RLs, a smaller or bigger part, an authentic or a made-up record depending on how much and what people share with others.

Apart from catching up with the latest gossip news (especially of a more visual nature) or searching for slash fic for me LJ is a bit like following your favourite TV series (oh, there were times I watched "Lindenstrasse" religiously). Nowadys, I hardly watch TV anymore and actually LJ is MUCH better than TV because the characters are *real*. You can interact with them, even become friends. So I'd say the main reasons for me going online are curiosity and wanting to interact (like having meaningful conversations on Orli's hairstyle or his latest fashion faux pas :).