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Short! Brilliant! Insightful! Wonderful! > ---------- > From: Rick Hermann[SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 1999 3:52 PM > Subject: cyber-musings > > I haven't posted here for a while, being a shy person, but realized today > that anything I wanted to say from my experience would be as relevant as > some other stuff that has been appearing on PIEnet. So here goes. If we > are, as Janet Paterson has said, a cyber-family (a view I don't subscribe > to), we have the dysfunctional qualities as well as the enduring, > nurturing > characteristics. Look at how we can drive each other nuts! And in the next > breath be there to support and encourage, then again to yell and rant. We > aren't a family so much as a consciousness with murmurings, occasional > coherent thoughts, lots of tangents, dreams, and nightmares. Our ideas > float around, interesting, provocative, insightful, or boring and > redundant. BarbM populates her messages with stage directions to add > relief > to the text. But no matter how many parentheses we type, it's not a hug. > And I've never met ANY of the other people on the list, which torpedoes > the > family metaphor for me. We are, after all, still incarnated in bodies. The > bodies, and their decline, is what brings this particular group together. > But even though I don't think we're a family, I value the list in a weird > way that I can't really put my finger on. Maybe it's just that it's there > if I need it that is reassuring, and that other people are out there > struggling with the same issues that face me and my family. > > Rick Hermann > Bellingham, Washington, one of the less hot places in the U.S. >