"I already accepted that I relate to nothing. The more I gain the more lonely it is ... I know I'm like a ghost."Ah, but wait! I know she is already dead, but here is the blog: I Like to Fork Myself. It's not all depression and death. And many of the blog posts begin with the words "say hi," and it's not always in a dark or sarcastic way. Here's "say hi to insomnia put to good use." There's a charming picture of pancakes, and the text is:
making breakfast.She writes about her reactions to art and film and music. ("Say hi to forever" is a post with a music video.) She doesn't come across as morbidly self-absorbed. She seems intellectually alive. There's "say hi to sadist masochist" — "shel silverstein... you kinda fucked me up in a beautiful way" — about Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree." She seems to have some distance and humor about fashion: "say hi to where strange things meet" ("diiiiiioooooooooor dioooooooooooooooooooor kouttttttuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure"), "say hi to a saturday afternoon at bianca's" ("yeah this is how i/dress when im at my friends place/i wear louis barthelemy/as you can see/i dont really care about comfort ..."). If I were a regular reader of this blog, I would have seen an interesting, complex person. I wouldn't have known I was watching a person in the final steps of a dance with death.
im going to be a good wife !!!!!!!!!!!!
Who around us is taking their final steps? Would we notice?
Posts
21 comments:
The article said that there is a high suicide rate among Koreans. Perhaps its a cultural thing.
The question you are pointing to but not asking is, does blogging really communicate enough so that you could tell whether a person was, for example, having a crisis leading to suicide?
Can you really know a blogger just through their blog?
There is a false intimacy to blogging. For the reader, you think you are having a one-on-one conversation with the blogger, but you're not. For the blogger, the false intimacy brings the superego down a bit, and you say things to your readers that you wouldn't say to some stranger on the street.
In spite of the fact that Ann Althouse at times shares personal details of her life on her blog, I don't know Ann Althouse. Our circle of friends and associates are totally non-congruent. I am pretty sure I will never meet Ann Althouse in my life. Yet blogging fakes intimacy so well, one can be deceived into thinking, as a blog reader, that Ann Althouse is part of one's social circle.
It's a lie. Blogging is to a social life what carbon monoxide is to breathing. Relying on it for social sustenance will kill you.
I quit blogging a few years ago. I comment in blogs mostly to get my writing chops back to where they ought to be, and to amuse myself. Sometimes I comment to vent. But I get my human social spiritual recharge from my boyfriend, from my work associates, from church, and from AA. Blogging can never feed me.
Did that poor Korean woman have any friends?
The next time you post about Peruvian fat hunters and skinny models in the same day, please make the post about the model appropriate for a joke.
1. No, you wouldn't notice. You people are too selfish and clueless to catch anything interpersonally substantive.
2. Yes, she had friends, and she wore uncomfortable clothes around them.
3. How anyone would think being around NewAge would inspire anything but thoughts of suicide is beyond me.
Sorry, kids, but what you've contributed to life makes it less worth living, not more.
This is all pretty much why I try to get people to laugh.
Althouse's last blog post might be, "Let's take a closer look at that coffin."
I cried because I had no shoes.
The I met a woman who wore Prada shoes but cried anyway, so now I am like totally confused.
Thanks Scott, very well put.
(But your'e not my friend.)
Scott:Blogging is to a social life what carbon monoxide is to breathing.
My friends don't what to talk about the type of things I get to discuss online. If it weren't for commenting I'd be insufferable.
Okay, more insufferable than I am right now.
Sometimes blogging is a way to think out loud (so to speak) without needing to consider the emotional response of the listener. You can speak without social clues that your thoughts are offensive or not witty.
For example, Michele Goldberg's diavlog was obviously the posting of someone who was not getting signals from her listeners that she was -- well, weird.
I'm sorry to say that I've known (offline) several people who resorted to suicide. Hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately, it isn't all that easy to see the signs.
Look at her thinness. She went to bed hungry every night. My guess is that people in a state of near starvation tend to get depressed easily.....I have read about the elaborate costumes of the ancien regime French aristocrats. Some of those wigs weighed eighteen pounds, and all those frills and finery on finery on a hot day must have caused many to ruminate on the beauty of the Noble Savage's life. Now we've refined the torture. It's not just the clothes that are uncomfortable, but the stick figure upon which they are draped.
Incredibly sad. What a waste. Reading her blog, there seemed to be more to her than that emaciated body and beautiful face. If this kind of thing doesn't convince us of the superficiality and ultimate meaninglessness of wealth and fame, I don't know what will.
wv: shoot. I'm speechless.
And I agree, there's an anonymity to blogging that emboldens many of us. Nevertheless, it's still difficult for me to be confrontational even in blogland; even knowing I can retreat and never read a response to a comment I've made or just disappear and never come back. Odd, too, how we seem to form images and opinions of people based on what they type here. Projection, maybe.
wv: uripper. I'll sew 'er back up.
The article said that there is a high suicide rate among Koreans. Perhaps its a cultural thing.
Probably. Over the past few years, there's actually been quite a lot of fairly high profile suicides among Korean artists and entertainers. Some of them appear to be tied to the economic downturn (which has hit Korea worse than the US). Others, like Noh Moo-hyun, seem to be designed to prevent the shame of exposure of past corruption and malfeasance. And others, like this, seem to have nothing to do with anything.
Scott, my take on this blog site or any other blog site is that the overwhelming majority of those posting have no illusions whatsoever that commenting and eliciting comments from others or from the blog mistress equates in any way with intimacy.
Looking for intimacy in perfectly legitimate interactions that fulfill needs other than but just as legitimate as intimicy is a surefire way of making oneself miserable. Life gets so much better and in fact richer when we accept boundaries.
And, uh...I'm holding off suicide till after Thanksgiving.
Hi.
Someone should have talked with her about Jesus. Jesus would have saved her.
william is very possibly right. There are definitely certain places you can be, biochemically, that will fill your head with suicide.
All the women she blogs have such toothpicks for arms and legs! It's frightening! I thought this was not true, and that it was something that the beefier people made up, but she was definitely on the thin side. Have some Twinkies, models, and forget about Twiggy.
Remember the death row prisoner who sued because capital punishment of him by hanging might cause his decapitation and therefore was cruel and unusual?
Surprised she weighed enough to die by hanging. Bet it wasn't quick.
Every picture of Jesus I have ever seen shows him with a bald face. Apparently, Jesus Shaves.
Post a Comment