Leave the great indoorsnotes on the journey

I’m currently re-reading one of my favorite Christian classics: Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen.  It was published in 1975, so the last thing I thought it would do is get me to think about Twitter, Facebook, and the boundaries in our lives.  But this section he quotes from Henry David Thoreau got me thinking about how open our lives have become:

When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.

“The greatest number of letters…”  Or the greatest number of Twitter followers?  The greatest number of blog post comments?  The greatest number of Facebook friends?  I am still tempted to say that this is such an old-fashioned view — that the idea that online activity somehow keeps me away from knowing myself better just isn’t realistic.  But could there be some truth to this?  Nouwen goes on to say the following — and I have to admit that my initial emotion was anger at him for daring to imply that I somehow live a superficial life:

There is a false form of honesty that suggests that nothing should remain hidden and that everything should be said, expressed and communicated.  This honesty can be very harmful, and if it does not harm, it at least makes the relationship flat, superficial, empty and often very boring.  When we try to shake off our loneliness by creating a milieu without limiting boundaries, we may become entangled in a stagnating closeness.  It is our vocation to prevent the harmful exposure of our inner sanctuary, not only for our own protection but also as a service to our fellow human being with whom we want to enter in a creative communion.  Just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed.  Our world is full of empty chatter, easy confessions, hollow talk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities.  Not a few magazines become wealthy by suggesting that they are able to furnish us with the most secret and intimate details of the lives of people we always wanted to know more about.  In fact, they present us with the most boring trivialities and the most supercilious idiosyncrasies of people whose lives are already flattened out by morbid exhibitionism.

Now before you say that this guy has no idea what he’s talking about and is just plain judgmental and negative, let me say that he goes on to make a plea for solitude and how that enriches our lives and our relationships with others.   I’ve been thinking about the section above for most of last week.  Wondering if I believe that excessive openness flattens out relationships, and therefore if social media plays a role in the flattening of relationships.   I was still thinking about it when I came across the article The Overextended Family in the New York Times.  It talks about a family that was thinking about using Skype to stay connected.  And then the author says this:

To Skype or not to Skype, that is the question. But answering it invokes a larger conundrum: how to perform triage on the communication technologies that seem to multiply like Tribbles — instant messaging, texting, cellphones, softphones, iChat, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter; how to distinguish among those that will truly enhance intimacy, those that result in T.M.I. and those that, though pitching greater connectedness, in fact further disconnect us from the people we love.  Depending on your viewpoint, perpetual availability to everyone you know can be a comfort or a shackle, can intensify closeness or subvert it.

And that just got me thinking about how thin the line is between technologies that connect and those that separate.  As with most things, the trick is not in the technology itself but in how you use it.  Without Facebook I would not know what’s going on the life of my 14-year old niece, who lives in South Africa.  I would not see my brother’s photos or know what my best friends from college are doing this weekend.  In that sense, Facebook enhances our relationships.

Without Twitter I would not have met all the very interesting and like-minded people out there who share links and advice on everything from parenting, to the latest articles on my field of work, to ridiculously funny videos.  So in that sense it expands my horizons.

But I guess the closeness turns to noise and disconnectedness when these technologies stop you from living your own life for what it is on its own. And that is something we should guard against at all costs.  If I can bring in a music analogy…  I’ve recently been getting into vinyl records, and I think one of vinyl’s greatest strengths is that a record player doesn’t have a shuffle button like an iPod.  You can’t just put on a record and ignore it.  You also can’t quickly copy a song and share it with someone.  Vinyl demands your full attention, and in doing so makes for a more complete musical experience — and a very personal one at that.

We should all be on the lookout for those vinyl experiences in our lives.  Putting our life-iPods on shuffle is ok for the most part, but we shouldn’t forget to slow down, be alone, and listen to some vinyl every once in a while — whatever that might mean for you.

Or to put it another way, from the New York Times article again:

The very technology with which we choose to communicate in a relationship has become a barometer of our willingness to reveal ourselves within it. Racy photos, amorous texts and nonstop Skyping may be just the thing for lovers who are separated during the giddy days of new romance. At the same time, all that virtual togetherness may overaccelerate a courtship. There is something to be said for the slow burn, for anticipation over immediacy. I’m relieved not to be single in a time when you can flirt, fall in love, sext and break up with a guy without ever so much as meeting for coffee. And, really, what is more erotic, more personal, more potentially vulnerable than handwriting on a page? My husband won my heart by sending a witty postcard from a film shoot in Hawaii. No return address, no way for me to respond at all, let alone instantly in three platforms. These days, it seems, the only time we put pen to paper is when someone has died.

On that note — who wants to join this support group with me!?