Blogging, Social Media & Connecting with old friends

As a seldom blogger, I have to sometimes question my tendency to attempt to create an opus each time I want to write. Of course, it’s understandable when sharing something public, to feel the weight of the higher standard. Editing, spell and grammar checking, researching etc. You should. But the problem is, setting such a high bar can make it impossible to post frequently enough to meet the general blogging practice standard. You need time to do this (which I don’t have a lot of) and the end result is to not doing anything at all. Which is sort of a shame. Because you tune out and so does everyone else.

I suppose, Facebook and Twitter are serving this “tuning in regularly” function now. But that is part of the problem. People take digital dumps on Twitter and share it. Or overshare on Instagram. We all make Facebook posts to start conversations, “humble brag” or blow off some steam at a frustrating event – either personal or political. Not everyone, but alot of people. I know I’ve done it – (FUCK YOU -<ENTER PERSON’S NAME> But it all becomes a part of the digital documentation soup that carries – in hindsight – little weight and permanence to human history (At the risk of getting a little high-brow here).

That said, Facebook, does have value. What you may ask? For me it’s most positive value is that is provides a connection “possibility” to friends in your past. In the old days we were reliant on our old address books, the White Pages and friends of friends who hopefully didn’t change their number. If too much time passed you had to become a detective almost, which, by today’s evaluation might be considered stalking. Maybe it opens the doors too much, I don’t know. But like I did just the other day when someone came knocking at my door unannounced, I just didn’t answer. It’s still possible and won’t result in excommunication. We all need to plug in or tune out from the grid.

As far as blogging, it’s history is a hybrid, evolving one. I started this in 2006 with Google’s Blogspot. By that point it’s origin as “digital daily weblog” had already evolved to at least somewhat of a journalistic standard, and later still, actual journalism. The truth is, a blog is all those things but it depends who is doing it. I am not a journalist, nor an English major but I have to try to at least be credible, be it underqualified. And all of us have to try to be interesting. And if all that fails, at least do it enough.

Anybody snoring yet? Hopefully not. I soldier on. In the next paragraph, I attempt to tie all this together to my original intention, (i.e. WTF am I getting at)

It’s an odd thing that it’s difficult to take the time to reconnect with close friends. We all have our lives to attend to, spouses, kids, jobs and that can make our lives turn completely away from each other. But weeks turn into months and then years. You sit down, have the thought, pick up the phone to call someone, then put it down again. Another odd part of this type “procrastination” is that – almost always – the effect of reconnecting is a rejuvenation of your spirit and filling in the gaps to those fuzzy memories you have that only get fuzzier with time. Which is the polar opposite of what normal procrastination is – doing something you are dreading doing because you have to do it but don’t really want to.

When you reconnect, there is the reliving of the memories you have. You swap stories that each of you know, or perhaps one knows and the other doesn’t. Or you can correct each others’ slight errors in recollection. And afterwards you can then can sort of solidify the mental time line you have created for yourself. How your life went the way it did and (hopefully) why. And you also get a fresh perspective on where you are now. You think about what you could be doing now, that – for whatever reason – completely discounted as a possibility.

This weekend I reconnected with an old friend of the family by phone for almost 2 hours. We shared stories about Dad, the tragedy of his stroke, ourselves and what happened to Dad’s beloved cats. On a practical level I have made some updates to my Youtube videos of Dad from Nashville 1984 that were a bit fuzzy, missing some key information. Feel free to peruse…

The friend, by another Facebook friend’s clever assessment, is way too cool for Facebook. It is compliment but I am not insulting myself or anyone else who uses Facebook regularly. But people can be quite content without it, private and discreet about their lives and you have to respect that throwback concept. They continue to live in the ways before Facebook became this curious omnipresent thing in our lives and a permanent digital guest at our table.

There were many impacts on me yesterday. One of them took all day. Namely this website. It was completely screwed up. (And most of you were likely too kind to point it out). This Raney site is kinda sucky functionally speaking (albeit big on heart?). I try but being a WordPress expert, Admin and whatever else can be overwhelming. Busted links, photos. I’m still dealing with it. I made some updates. Yet another rabbit hole…

But still I persist. Next paragraph hopefully some clever all encompassing closing thoughts

Either way the end result of reconnecting with people is math defying in that this formula is always true:

1+1>2.

You enrich each other lives and fill in the grey areas. Plus you relive those moments together not just in your head. You can do that I suppose digitally, but does anything replace a phone call, or better a meeting in person?

I think not. (Clever all-encompassing conclusion hopefully satisfied…)