Delicate web
Life imitates art. Or at least the saturday-snaps I took!
And the universe continues to astound me.
Sometimes the webs between us, woven by the cosmic spiders, are so finely spun you can hardly see them. And then suddenly the light moves or something brushes your skin and you realise you're not alone in a vacuum, you're gently connected to another real human being in a way that you could never have predicted.
I find co-incidences hard to digest. I don't believe in divine direction, but in happy accidents, given meaning and purpose by the choices made by the people involved. We probably have near misses with these accidents thousands of times more than we bump into them. But sometimes life is just too weird for my math-brain to simply add the data to the scatter diagram. I feel like I've seen the face of john lennon on my toast.
Say you 'met' someone online. As in, you bumped into their blog, via a chain of blog links. And this blog kept drawing you back. Became a funny kind of online home-from-home - a familiar place to return to for somehow 'touching base' in the cyber world. And then you moved house. Real house, in the real world. And you decided to comment a little on this person's blog, email them, start a conversation - for no reason other than it seemed like something you should do at a time when you were feeling a little lost. And then ... you found out that this other person, supposedly remote in the offline world, actually stayed in the house you have moved into, some 30 years ago. Just for a while. Would it blow your mind? I don't know whether I think it's the strangest overlap, or whether it makes perfect sense. That somehow, the forces that attracted us both, a generation apart, to this physical location, are the same forces that attract us to virtual locations.
The co-incidence isn't confirmed yet - I need to send some photos for final checking, but it sounds like this is the case. And it got me Thinking about how we come to be in the places that we are - online and offline. I believe many websites are places. Especially blogs. Whether they are cathedral or bus-stop, they feel to me like Somewhere.
I think I shall be on a technorati trawl for other people experiencing the work of the cosmic spiders.
posted by Stray at 8:55 AM
for focus and collaboration
subscribe here
8 Comments:
Or crumpled paper bag:0)....oh and there's more but then stardust is the link and as we breath in and out each day we connect with many other lives as they literally become part of us. Maybe connections are about breathing deeply with open mind and heart which just makes opportunity real enough for us to have the courage to say hello or at least reach out and brush the passing coat tail:0)
D-W
So super true. And unless you're a bit OCD about germs and stuff, the idea that we slowly become part of a whole, and the whole becomes part of us, is pretty comforting :)
Makes all that stuff about nationalities and geographical boundaries seem peculiar and irrelevant.
Courage is a good word. I suspect that I had a bit of London-itis ... don't speak to strangers and never make eye contact. Now I'm in a freer postcode, suddenly I'm able to make heart contact and mind contact too.
Strayx
What a great post this is, Stray. And thank you so much for your encouragement over at my place! Very much appreciated.
And I love your photographs ...
:) Your photo compliment made me blush. I have only had a camera in my hand for a couple of weeks and at the moment I feel like I have no idea what I am doing!
But thank you. I am enjoying them myself - we're getting such great light here at the moment. And my animals are so photogenic!
My co-incidence is now confirmed, and has become more amazing. We are linked by another Place - also far afield and a place which I think of as my second home. Not just a town or a school or a movie theatre ... an individual building and patch of earth around it. A home.
It is making me think of the wonderful movie 'I heart huckabees'. It's all the blanket. Everything is connected. If you haven't seen it, it's a great way to lose two hours in front of a television, and then many more mulling it over on buses and in waiting rooms. It's one of those movies that marinates.
And as for the encouragement, I took at least as much as I gave :)
Hey Stray, I agree with Mary — this is an excellent post. I tend to be sceptical of so-called 'coincidence', yet chary of reading significance into everything. A kind of paradox, I suppose: coincidence as nonexistent because nothing's really coincidental, but also because coincidences are far more common than we imagine (if that makes any sort of sense).
I've just had a quick look here, after reading your astute comments on Mary's latest post. I'll be back...
Thanks P, and cheers for dropping by my bus stop. :)
Ah g, I suspect the key to I heart huckabees is to let it sit a little, and then watch it again.
I think as a movie it doesn't quite deliver, but as a philosophy it is beautiful, and I admire the director for making the attempt. And it does get better with each viewing.
You also need a friend who has seen the movie, to whom you can turn and say "I had a blanket moment today ... " and then describe, because for me the real power has been encapsulating such complex thoughts into metaphors I can share with my friends.
aRSgq6 The best blog you have!
Post a Comment
<< Home