Diary: Being Very Online

It's been a little bit of a weird time lately since I first of all completely forgot about my diary for a few days, and then I got ill, which fried my brain as if it was an egg. Fortunately, the post-sickness clarity gave me some much-needed excitement and perspective on creative endeavours and, I don't know, life, so I have to thank the weird time for that. I feel an odd feeling of change looming in my chest, and I think it's because lately I've been in some kinda new and different social situations, and it's been really nice.

I spend a lot of time on relatively insular pursuits and activities, probably like a lot of creative people, but also like a lot of people in general, I'm realising. A lot of those insular things are great ways of expressing myself and also act as, paradoxically, a great way to share my innermost working, quirks and eccentricities, and winks and nudges with other people. But there's a distance to posting stuff online. It's not like you're sending it to specifically one person. It has a kind of passive feel to it, and in many ways is the opposite to intimate.

I mean, maybe a lot of people see a drawing of yours (or a text post poking fun at the language often used in avoiding crediting artists, for... example), and that's very cool, but I think it's very easy to have something like that online acting in place of meaningful relationships. Not that I'm complaining about people seeing/liking my stuff, because that is totally great and I love it a lot, but I guess being someone with any kind of audience online can bring some realisations and ruminations on what personal relationships and interactions online or offline even are and mean, and it's something I like thinking about a lot.

I've had some really nice moments and conversations with a few people in the past few months, and they've been influencing me to think a lot about this topic. I feel pretty inspired in various mysterious ways and I feel like I'm just learning now how to be a more earnest and genuine and meaningful friend to people, which is such a weird thing to say, but I don't know, your whole life is really just endless learning about who you are and who you can be, and I'm really excited about that, and I love other people so much. I'm a big fan of communicating (wow), and I think one of the greatest feelings in the world is when you see something and think of a friend.