balance

[adrienmundi]

I browse the internet a lot, read a lot, every day. Part of it is desire for connection, sure, but a larger part because I'm very curious about a lot of things (think: diletantte with no attention span). And, if I'm honest, an even larger part of what I read originates from the realm of should: I should focus on things important to me, I should read about difficult things, etc. I read a lot about politics, about justice projects, about inclusion and exclusion. While some of this is very well written, and by people I'd love to know personally, not a lot of it is happy, and a lot of it really pisses me off.

I'm starting to realize that lj has been an important balance to this aspect of my online world. The very individual, very personal, sometimes happy but very real gives me connection to the people on the other side of the keyboard. It's not overtly ideological or issue drive, it's just... people.

Unfortunately, I'm realizing this by absence. Sure, there are mitigating factors (reading a new, more virulent example of transhate and feeling compelled to step into the defense of transsexuals against authoritarians disguised as second wavers, work crap, etc), but I'm missing that snapshot connection to other real humans. The workplace just doesn't provide that for me.