Timing is Everything

I went to the movies a couple of days ago, and chose to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” This is a work adapted from a 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, with the screenplay written by Eric Roth (who also wrote “Forrest Gump” - a fact that has prompted several comparisons between the two tales). The film stars Brad Pitt in the title role, with Cate Blanchett (“Daisy”) as the female lead and primary love interest of Benjamin. The film was directed by David Fincher (“Fight Club;” “The Game”).

Despite the comparisons with Forrest Gump, however, I suggest that “Benjamin” is really a meeting of “The Bridges of Madison County” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” As in these works, “Benjamin” is, first and foremost, a love story between two people who are doomed in their pursuit of being together long-term. The first comparison works for me because of the initial set-up: stories of relationships disclosed by a senior near death (“Benjamin”) or from beyond the grave (“Bridges”). “Bridges” is also a tale of two people who love each other deeply, yet only have four days really together. Additionally, a sense of fantasy and whimsy with regard to time are pervasive in both “Time Traveler” and “Benjamin.” And, it’s because of the twisted nature of time in both stories that the couples are not able to spend their lives with each other.

The essential premise of the film is that Benjamin is an old man when he is born (shriveled up, suffering from many of the infirmities of old age) and ages backwards until he dies as a dementia-ridden infant. It’s a cradle-to-grave story that stretches one’s imagination, I admit. But the story is told so lovingly, and with such imaginative special effects, that this suspension of reality, for me, for awhile, was entirely successful. Film critic Roger Ebert, interestingly, disagrees. He says:

[“Benjamin”] tells the story of a man who is old when he is born and an infant when he dies. All those around him, everyone he knows and loves, grow older in the usual way, and he passes them on the way down. As I watched the film, I became consumed by a conviction that this was simply wrong.

Well, Roger: I’m so sorry. You’re the one who is wrong. This entire film works, as it eloquently tells a (gut-wrenchingly moving) story of undying love between these two people.

As Benjamin lives his life, first as a young, old man, he meets the granddaughter of one of the residents of the “home” he lives in. He is immediately taken with her, but while Daisy looks her actual childhood age (of course), Benjamin appears to be in his 70s (or so). As the story unfolds, Daisy and Benjamin meet again and again, but never when it is really “age appropriate” or convenient...until, finally, in middle age, they are able to be together. And their love for each other can be mutually acknowledged and consummated.

Their coming together seems to take an eternity (in years, and surely in movie minutes), but appears to be nothing short of pre-destined. Their time as a couple is blissful, intense, and oh-so-short. The period during which they were actually able to share their lives, for me, demonstrates a model for what true love can be. Each revels in the other, and they want nothing more out of life than the relationship (...the words, when they come, that Daisy utters to Benjamin: “my love for you is everything to me”...are supremely poignant).

In the end, though, being with each other becomes impossible. Benjamin keeps getting younger, Daisy older. After their child is born and has had her first birthday, Benjamin leaves. Both of them are in love with each other forever, and yet, in a reflection of the basic unfairness of life, are only able to be together for a short time.

So. Entirely. Sad.

And, yet, perhaps, a lot like how life really is. Whether you’re living it forwards or backwards.

This is not really a “feel-good” movie. However, unless you’re made out of hardened steel, this is a movie that will make you feel. I recommend it. Go see it. Go feel it. 

Tweet, Tweet

I found myself, during the last week, once more trying to explain the phenomenon of Twitter. For as many times as I've tried to describe what it means to have a Twitter account, to be engaged in that kind of online activity (and the corresponding concepts of "tweets," "followers," and "following"), I was met yet again with blank stares and a "what's the point?" kind of attitude.

In response to such overt skepticism, or even contempt, I tried to make the point that the entire experience is mostly beyond words: that you really have to try it out for awhile to "get it." My attempts to communicate what "digital intimacy" and "ambient awareness" are all about have been largely unsuccessful. I guess it's a little like trying to explain any relationship - or any new technology. If you haven't been there or tried it, this new something (whatever it is, the totally unfamiliar), and you have no other life experience to compare it to...well, then, the whole thing sounds rather bizarre.

In addition to the words I just listed above, there seem to be other, equally-unfamiliar terms dominating the lexicon in this area. One new one to me was the phrase "social media." This keeps coming up over and over, and there are a quite a number of individuals on Twitter who claim to be social media "experts" or "consultants." Huh?

So, I had to do some research. Wikipedia informs us that social media

• are primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.

• can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), and Twitter (social networking and microblogging).

I guess what all this means is that the ubiquitous opportunities we have for interaction with other human beings via the internet, and the technologies associated with such contact are, in sum, lumped into the term "social media." It stands to reason that we'd now have developed an entire subset of individuals who specialize in facilitating such contact and are involved in the concomitant technologies.

Given all this, it would seem that I have been heavily involved in social media for years now [namely email, the Google photo-groups I belong to, instant messaging (including text-messaging via phone), this blog, Flickr, Facebook, Match.com, LinkedIn, and most recently, Twitter]. I just didn't know it.

And in terms of my biography, this all makes total sense. When it comes to new technologies and ways of communicating, I remember that, at first, I was pretty mystified, back in the 1980s, with the concept of the "personal computer." Even though I'd been programming on mainframes since the early 70s, I thought: a computer at home? Really?

But then I met the Apple IIe, and more specifically the program called "VisiCalc." From the moment I started playing around with magic of that spreadsheet software, I was pretty much hooked. Then, the true moment of personal-computer conversion came the first time I laid my hands on a Macintosh (sometime within the first year of its existence). As I fooled around with the graphics capabilities of the machine, the WYSIWYG interface, and the ease of use of the mouse, I was enthralled. My reaction was I have to have one of these. The Mac Plus was way beyond my financial means at the time, but I wasn't to be denied. Just one week later (after refinancing my car), I owned a Macintosh. All it took was the exposure and a little familiarity: and that little box with a tiny screen started to change my life. The Mac Plus was likely the real genesis of my metamorphosis into TechnoMonk.

However, in the present day, for years I had resisted the idea of the social networking sites. Weren't MySpace and Facebook primarily for angst-ridden teenagers and college kids struggling to find connection? What did these kinds of internet destinations have to do with me, anyway?

However, as I have described earlier, I finally, this last summer, tried Facebook. And, because of the "status update" feature there, I was led to Twitter. Through Twitter, I have now developed a sense of being part of an online community. I have generated an awareness of this collection of individuals, some of whom I "know" better than others - either because of the frequency of their posts or how they use their allotted 140 characters to communicate their lives. And, since I have developed a number of "followers," they must be getting some kind of a sense of me. As of today, I follow over 90 people and there are over 60 individuals who receive my regular, periodic updates...with a number of them already having commented on my entries, either publicly or privately. Apparently some of them, at least, are paying attention to me and my life. So far, the experience with Twitter has been much more interactive and satisfying that my three years of blogging have been.

I had envisioned this blog would attract a few followers, and it has. A very few. (Who are you, oh person in Oman?) However, only a small percentage of you who check-in here interact with me in any meaningful way (at least through the blog). My expectations, in that regard, have not been met. This website does allow me a place to publish these little essays I feel compelled to produce, though. And, for that reason, I anticipate I'll remain a blogger, even though more and more of my energy will go into the microblogging activity of Twitter.

(Final note: For another person's perspective on the appeal of Twitter, and the decline of the weblog, read the recent online Wired Magazine article by Paul Boutin entitled "Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004.")

Update on October 18, 2008:

People just keep talking about, and trying to explain, Twitter.

Here's an article from today's Wall Street Journal: "Twitter Goes Mainstream."

And here is a story about how Twitter helped save a life recently (posted today on a personal blog): "Think Twitter is Useless? Think Again."

Hack the Debate

Would you like to watch a presidential (or vice-presidential) debate while simultaneously reading what people all over the world are, in the moment, writing about that very debate?

(I’m talking about something entirely different than the graphs provided by CNN  to instantaneously illustrate the reactions of various voting groups…)

Here’s the deal: on the Current cable television network last Friday they tried an entirely new approach to debate-viewing, called “Hack the Debate.” While Obama and McCain went at it, in almost real-time, on the bottom of the screen, the network displayed Twitter posts (discussed in my “Digital Intimacy” essay of September 15) from folks who were tweeting about the debate. It was a pretty interesting process. A tweet would appear onscreen from someone, somewhere, and then slowly dissolve away while a new one appeared.

I have to admit that, although I found it fascinating, it was also a tad confusing. It was like having subtitles during a movie containing the director’s comments on the significance of the scene. I had a bit of a challenge listening to what Obama and McCain were saying, and how they were saying it, and at the same time reading what everyone else was thinking about what was going on. It was a LOT to pay attention to.

Especially because I was writing comments as well. Yes, I had my laptop in front of me and I was composing my own observations. (As far as I can tell, though, nothing of mine was on the air.) AND, I was monitoring Twitter’s own streaming coverage, with comments very quickly whizzing by at http://election.twitter.com/.

If you want to try a whole new debate-watching experience, catch Biden and Palin (if she’s still the nominee, that is) this week on Current (Comcast channel 107 in Marin). Better yet, get a Twitter account and join in on the fun!

Digital Intimacy

I signed up for a Facebook account in July. At the time, I had no idea that I was playing with fire…that I might be embarking upon some kind of transformative path in my life…that this was a journey that would provide me, in very short order, with great highs and ultimate lows.

But I was (doing all those things). And here’s a little bit of the story.

Although I have had for some years a very broad and active online presence (evidence: this blog, my old blog, a personal website, a LinkedIn page, a Match.com profile, and a Flickr photo-sharing site), I had, however naively, neglected an entire universe (millions and millions) of people out there active in social-networking sites (namely MySpace and Facebook). In fact, if I thought about such internet destinations at all, I asked myself: What’s the attraction? What’s the point?

But late last June I did another Google search that led me, yet again, to someone’s Facebook page…which, of course, was unavailable to me since I was, first: not a Facebook member, and second: not that person’s Facebook “friend.”

This was not the first time this had happened. I sighed. Dead end.

However, this time, for whatever reason, I thought about it some more and within a few days, I signed up for a Facebook account. That was the ridiculously easy part. Now what? I thought…am I really going to start a “page?” If I enter some information, what will this mean? Who will I share it with? Am I going to seek Facebook friends? Do I even know one single person here with whom to be friends? And: what, ultimately, does it mean to be a Facebook friend, anyway?

In essence, I was asking: Why am I here?

The eternal, existential, question.

Well, little did I know that I was entering, what Clive Thompson (in the September 7 New York Times Magazine) calls, the “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” In this thoroughly absorbing article, Thompson discusses the attraction of social networking and how the “omnipresent knowledge” of what others are doing is “intriguing and addictive.”

And, indeed, while he tries to explain all of this, Thompson and the individuals he interviews all seem to acknowledge that the phenomena of “ambient awareness” and “digital intimacy” are very difficult to communicate: that you have to actually participate to understand how this all works. His discussion starts out with a story about Facebook, but much of the article is devoted to a description of the so-called microblogging tool available at Twitter.com, which gives individuals the opportunity to broadcast to the world short updates about their lives (in answer to the question: “what are you doing”), in 140 characters or less. The bottom line, for many people (and certainly it’s turned out that way for me), is that the quality of ambient awareness of others created by Facebook and Twitter is a way for a person to “feel less alone.”

So, yes, I have come, slowly, during the last couple of months or so, to feel less alone in the world. This has been a very positive development in my life. And, perhaps, as I said in the first paragraph: transformative. For while my physical being continues to be on a healing path, my emotional self seems to be in a similar recovery…partly attributable, I believe, to more social connection.

The dominant relationship that has been enhanced is with one, dear-to-me person I used to work with in Portland. The emails, instant-messaging, and the “mobile” aspects of Facebook (when I’m away from my computer, I get a text message when she updates her page or sends me an email), have brought us much closer together. She visited me here in person last week.

Of course, nothing good goes unpunished. I had my first real Facebook dilemma last week as well.

Facebook had become the one place in the universe that seemed to be left for me to maintain my relationships with “C”’s (adult) kids. All three of them, two of their spouses, and one significant other, had all befriended me on Facebook. To the extent that any of them logged in and updated their page(s), I was able to keep up with their lives. C did not have a Facebook account.

Until last week, that is. Last Wednesday morning I opened up my page to discover, on my news feed, that “daughter-in-law and C” were now friends.

I was stunned. Aghast. Angry and upset. What is SHE doing here?, I asked. This is MY place!, I exclaimed. (To myself.)

Upon poking around, I found that I had access to C’s page and she to mine (because of the manner in which I had configured my privacy settings). This would not do! Neither would being in the same social online network with her. That very day, I wrote a painful (for me) note to all six kids, indicating that since C was now on Facebook, I was going to have to leave. I sent off the emails and then deleted them from my list of friends.

For me: great angst. Great. Angst.

But, really, the only way.

Facebook: it’s just like real life.

Only not.

(If you need help finding me on Facebook or Twitter, just ask…)

Soundtrack Suggestion

I feel the sorrow,
Oh I feel dreams,
Everything is clear in my heart,
Everything is clear in our world,
I feel the life,
Oh I feel love.

(“Oh My Love” – John Lennon)

Update on October 9, 2008:

An astute reader writes in to remind me to remind you that my latest postings to Twitter (my five most recent “tweets”) are always available here in the right-hand sidebar of this page…in the TechnoMonk’s Tweets section.

Luck and Courage

I read both fiction and nonfiction. I love to escape into stories, made-up or real-life. I’m particularly a fan of the memoir (which really should come as no surprise given that a lot of these “musings” are intensely autobiographical in nature). So, here I am to report that I’ve just finished reading a particularly compelling one (memoir, that is).

I became acquainted with author Alice Sebold when I read her first novel The Lovely Bones. Although the book, a bestseller, was published in 2002, I probably picked it up around 2005 or so. Bones is the tale of a 14-year-old girl who has been raped and murdered – and who narrates the entire story from her vantage point beyond the grave: in heaven.

I remember thinking: this is an interesting approach.

For whatever reason, I found this novel to be totally intriguing: though certainly in a dark way. The book was anything but a “quick-read” for me.

On a trip to our local Borders store, just recently, I discovered that Sebold had written another book prior to Bones. In 1999, she published a memoir entitled Lucky (as in “lucky to be alive”). This work is a first-person account of her rape: a tragic event that happened on the last day of her freshman year at Syracuse University. The story includes a chronicle of her eventual identification (a few months later) of the rapist; the subsequent trial and conviction; and the progress of her life in the aftermath. The narrative also provides such details as: the status of her relationships with family and other men; her issues with heroin addiction; the gradual awakening to, and acceptance of, her post-traumatic stress syndrome; and the practically unbelievable development when one of her college roommates is raped, on Alice’s own bed, a couple of years later.

So, you’re probably asking: why is this is a story I’d be interested in? What could possibly make this book worth my time?

Good questions.

Just let me say that Sebold is an excellent story-teller. Although this is a very difficult topic to discuss, she pulls it off with incredible sensitivity and skill. And even though it’s autobiography, which goes into excruciatingly-gory detail, especially with the rape scene at the beginning of the book, it rather reads like a novel. I was completely drawn into her narrative. Wondering what will happen next…how will she find her way through this devastation…how can she put herself back together?

Naturally, Sebold’s life has had many twists and turns because of this crime. That she found the strength to look in the mirror, step back, and try to explain, to us, what she sees – well, this speaks to me of a person of incredible courage.

I am truly inspired by her ability to communicate through the written word, and her willingness to expose herself to the world in this way.

For me: as I write, I aspire to similar courageousness. I believe that it is through stories about the human condition that we learn more about ourselves. And that the lessons these stories offer, help us to live with our pain.