invisible

here’s one odd advantage to being virtually unknown out here in cyberland:  i can say whatever i want, and probably no one will read it, let alone take their business elsewhere.  i can be as cynical, morbid, and depressing as i am!  i’m invisible.

but increasingly, many individuals and small startups don’t have that luxury.  that’s the downside of everything being so accessible and connected.  it can kill your online reputation if you dare to be transparent or brutally honest about your status.  to protect that last thin wall of  privacy from the random inconvenient  glare, you’re forced to internalize feelings that need to be voiced and heard.

don’t worry, this isn’t going anywhere too personal or awkward.  but since as i said, no one knows or cares who i am, i can just blurt out what i feel to the universe at large, and it will go unnoticed!  the upside of being nobody, i guess.

so, this weekend, while a few of us lone individuals were silently dealing with ongoing demons of depression and isolation, what appeared to be the vast majority of the fb world was loudly whooping it up and having a ‘wonderful time’.  and of course we loners get to sit in the bleachers, way off in the cheap seats, and bear witness to all this uproarious universal partying, while keeping our relentless reality to ourselves.

naturally, that’s what social networking is all about: everyone busily escaping from hard reality for a while, and broadcasting to the world what a great time they’re having with ‘friends’ and family, one event after another, complete with photo or video documentation just to rub it in.  nobody wants to hear that you’re alone and cut off, staring at life-and-death issues, with no answers.  no one wants to be reminded that it could be them.

of course they don’t do it deliberately, to make us feel worse.  it’s just human nature to share good times and bad.  i just wonder if anyone ever stops to think what it feels like to have it rubbed in your face day and night, when you have no choice but to either shut out the world that continues without you, or  watch it vicariously from exile, trying to remember what it’s like.  in the immortal (out-of-context) words of the dowager countess, ‘what’s a weekend’?  in my world, existence just plods on, crushing you under foot, waiting for someone else to die.  i’m not being melodramatic, just stating the facts.

so there it is: i hate it, hate hate hate!  i don’t care if anyone happens to read this, because i can’t accept employment even if it were offered.  the idea of working a regular job right now almost seems utopian, and i’m under no illusions about the types of jobs i’d be eligible for.  just the concept of being around diverse normal people on an ongoing basis, doing something meaningful, and then being able to get away from it once in a while to just do whatever, on my own terms…just to be able to have a cat… to see my family more than once a year…to see friends at all, go out and grab a pizza and beer with them…is it much to ask?  but those are the kind of small but essential things that most people take for granted, while for me they’ve become out of reach.

if i make it through this chapter and live to rejoin the human race, may i never forget or become desensitized to what it’s like to be cut off, sidelined, and dead-ended.  and as we all age, may we PLEASE come up with viable alternatives to dragging our children down to the grave with us.

thank you, great empty void!

 

2 thoughts on “invisible

  1. Believe me….some of us “out here” do realize what we do have(even be it not much), because we see, but can’t quite comprehend, where you are. I love and admire you!

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