Troller Ball Part 6

The Internet, social networks like FB (is there another?) and Groups like the Boring Group can at times be not unlike the “House on Haunted Hill”. A strange virtual world run by some evil deviant mastermind, where a group of otherwise reasonably functioning human beings are gathered into a spooky house to be tortured for the duration…

The purpose is usually a spurious offer of an amount of money- which pales into insignificance once the task of sheer survival takes precedence.

And then…once the drama has run its course…we find ourselves stuck in a room we can leave at any time…but cannot. Like a Beckett play.

& shut off from the outside world, we can only comment on the reality in that house.

To whatever extent it is able to masquerade as ‘reality’.

More a simulacrum; until we realise it has more in common with reality than we might want to admit. Only it is a heightened reality- a world intensified by the collision of temperaments and mood, opinion and hyperbole, wherein our ‘friendships’ are tested under the conditions & in the comparative anonymity of the medium…

Where real selves emerge…neurosis come to the surface, latent anger and hatred brought to the boil…and we find ourselves under certain circumstances defriending & blocking people for offending our sensibilities and in our righteous indignation…

We commit a kind of ‘virtual murder’.

Where many of us we see no need to work the differences out to a better, more humane conclusion. We just bomb any offenders.

And we soon see that- for all intents and purposes…this world IS the real world.

And we can indeed be little Hitlers.

And when we see our potential in this virtual world…

Things all of a sudden DO matter.

How we act toward others does matter.

I have had to defriend & blocked for sleights to my sensibilities.

In the name of 'security'.

And yet, is it in fact a demonstration of my own Insecurity that I do it?

I actually think defriending and blocking someone who does not agree with you is an act of cowardice.  And to criticise others for doing what I myself do the height of hypocrisy.

And…in the only court in the land- nay the entire world- that matters…

The court of my own conscience…

I find myself guilty.

Faced with my own social shortcomings…

I seek to find out WHY I act this way with people…

And how I could learn to do better.

And this DOES matter.

Who I see in the mirror DOES matter.

How I wish to be remembered DOES matter- because these are REAL people here.

Just because they are online- & we have not seen them in the flesh- does NOT mean they are cartoon characters.

In the game of life, wherein our integrity, our common human decency  is tested…there is much at stake. Which is why such incidents where we fail miserably in our connection with others BURNS so much.

No matter who was at fault…a relationship that fails BURNS.

For is causes us to look at the other person…& when we have finished blaming them…

We must look inside the hardest place of all- our own heart, soul and conscience.

Such incidents show us who we are- who we really are…

How we behave under pressure…

And most importantly of all, what we take of this out into the real world.

Which brings up to the question- who are we online?

Who should we be?

Is who we are in the real world different to whom we are online?

Should it be?

Is there even a difference between online and real world?

I think we play merry hell with who we are.

The truth of who we are.

Should that be worked out prior to our entry?

Or may we figure that out as we go on?

Here- just as in the real world?

Which is why I engaged in this series of blogs in the first place.

To follow the burn of a group that did not want me.

A group that actively encourages us to play a role…

An affectation…

And perhaps it is that that caused the Boring Group offence.

I could NOT be a proper bore. 

The right kind of bore.

I was accused of wearing a mask; which was ironic, because I think closer to the truth, the problem was I was not wearing enough of a mask.

I was veering to close to the truth of my self exploration…

And it was too risky.

Harmful.

After all…is not the TRUTH the most Boring thing of all?

Or perhaps…NOT BORING enough in this particular case?

It is time to go into the minutae of what happened in the Boring Group, to lead up to my expulsion.