Where I’m At & Where I Want to Be

Howdy.

I feel like it’s been a hot minute since I’ve addressed my readers directly- and perhaps that’s the problem right there.

When I started this blog, I wanted to connect with people and build relationships. And when I say relationships, I don’t necessarily mean anything so advanced as lifelong friendships, but simply a feeling that my posts were worth something to others. I wanted to build a dialogue, however limited that might be. In my previous two posts I wrote about the limited dynamic between a content creator and those that consume the content. It’s not the same as a face-to-face friendship, but there’s still a relationship there. The feedback might be as rich and personal as a written response, or it could be as subtle and impersonal as a Like. Any kind of user engagement is felt, and works in a cycle of symbiosis with the writing process.

Like pretty much everyone in today’s mass media dystopia, I consume the content of others. When I think about the parasocial relationships I’ve developed with these creators, I think about how the sense of being included keeps bringing me back. Of course, the inclusion isn’t personal to me — they don’t know who I am- but what they express in their work resonates with me in some way. It touches my life experiences and my inner self.