{"id":35,"date":"2008-03-20T01:15:17","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T06:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/2008\/03\/20\/on-the-digital-web-and-friendships\/"},"modified":"2008-06-20T10:29:28","modified_gmt":"2008-06-20T15:29:28","slug":"on-the-digital-web-and-friendships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/2008\/03\/20\/on-the-digital-web-and-friendships\/","title":{"rendered":"On The Digital Web and Friendships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"> <\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me. &#8211; Abraham Lincoln<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">T<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">here are times in your life that your friends will be mad at you and there is nothing you can do about it.<span> <\/span><span> <\/span>Further more, as frustrating as that is, they won\u2019t respond to tell you.<span> <\/span><\/span>But are they mad, or are you not communicating in a way they will respond. <span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">This is more than a life lesson, it\u2019s the truth.<span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\">\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Even as we get closer and there are ways to contact more people, we get <em>picky<\/em> about the way we do want to get contacted.<span> <\/span>Some of the people I know refuse to talk on the phone, texting is all they will do.<span> <\/span>A lot of people email, but not their parents, so talking to parents becomes a chore. <span> <\/span>I have a friend who emails me every month or so.<span> <\/span>I don\u2019t bother texting, calling or even leaving twitter messages.<span> <\/span>Yet I know her Iphone is in her hand always and she\u2019s checking it obsessively.<span> <\/span><span> <\/span>It annoys me a simple conversation takes 6 months to complete, yet there is nothing I can do about, so I stick it out, because I don\u2019t want to use the mediums she wants me to use. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <!--more--><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">This is the dilemma of the age we are in, where there are so many ways to get things mixed up thur texting, email, left voicemails, twitter websites, social networking sites and forums, but often enough, the root cause of your friends no longer being your friends, is the absence of you on those mediums.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Here are the truths of our current digital life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Did you have a friend where you were as tight as pod people, yet when they moved away, they are gone forever. <\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Do you have a friend who obsessively checks their phone\/iphone\/crackberry, yet never returns your calls, texts or emails or if they do they do so days later.<span> <\/span>Did you mention it to them and get ignored even more?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">To collapse the bridge of incommunication they often ask, Do you yahoo, Aim, Jabber, gmail or ICQ or MSN, do you facebook or myspace, or have you read their live journal or blog?<span> <\/span>Do they often say, \u201cI\u2019ll text you?\u201d<span> <\/span>Often, what they ask for is the only way to reach them quickly and immediately.<span> <\/span>It\u2019s not the method they use the most, but it\u2019s the way they want <em>you<\/em> to interact with them.<span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Here is my advice, and it\u2019s not even my advice, it\u2019s that of a song:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Understand that friends come and go, but what a precious few should hold on.\u00a0 Work hard to bridge the gaps and geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5in\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 13.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">Everyboy is Free (to wear sunscreen) by Baz Luhrman<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in\"><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\">The Digital web is more than the internet, it is the web of communication hubs that we now are forced to check, to keep up with the people we want to still call our friends.<span> <\/span>You can get lost in any web, so bring a light; it\u2019s indeed scary in there.<span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Times New Roman;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me. &#8211; Abraham Lincoln There are times in your life that your friends will be mad at you and there is nothing you can do about it. Further more, as frustrating as that is, they won\u2019t respond to tell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[130,128,129,50],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-life-lessons","tag-communication","tag-digital-web","tag-friends","tag-relationships"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thestormypresent.com\/ocean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}