Looking Back, Looking Forward

[poliphilo]

Two more new friends this morning. Isn't that great!

I've been on LJ since 2004- which makes this my tenth year. I've thought at times that I would run out of things to say but I never have. As Stevenson said,

The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

I once retired from active posting for a week. Apart from holidays that's the longest I've ever been away. I was pretty shame-faced when I came trailing back.

I started out by posting five-fingered exercises. No-one was reading me so I figured I could write anything I wanted. later I worked out that I could do that even if people were reading me. That's the joy of LJ. Anything goes. It ain't one of those serious blogging sites where you build up a readership that expects you to have an agenda and stick to it. And yet it is a serious blogging site. 
 
I have made on-line friends and lost on-line friends. Some just went away. Others died. In my life I've loved them all. Some of  the dead have had their journals converted into on-line memorials. They're still here and I can still go read them if I want to. It reminds me of St Paul's doctrine of the communion of saints- all one big happy family in earth and heaven. OK, lets not push that one too far... 

A guy who fascinates me just deleted his journal. I hate it when that happens. No explanation, no fond last words. Just here today, gone tomorrow. Even his comments to my posts have disappeared. Bugger! maybe he'll be back. He has form...

And now LJ is the liveliest it's been in years. Hooray!  I know we won't be able to keep this momentum going but we've already made up a fair bit of lost ground. As we've always known in our hearts a crisis is good for the soul.  There's a novel by Ballard in which a guy engineers a crime wave in order to keep the community he's responsible for vibrant and on its toes. So here's to the spammers and the goons. Even our enemies are sort of our friends.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Aye, I have a couple of blogs here from people who are no longer with us- a guy who was at UKC the same time as me (although I never knew him back then except via his classical music show on uni radio- different colleges and courses). He died in a car smash a year or so back and another was a trans woman who was taken by the big C a couple of years back.

Intriguingly, both LJ and DW have become a lot livelier, so maybe it's an ill wind and all that? I'm a happy enough to be involved on two! :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You were at UKC? Me too!

I've lost three friends- all in late middle-age- all from medical conditions.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Eliot College where I did my history MA with Patrick Collinson, late seventies early eighties. :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was at Keynes College and then transferred to Darwin when it opened. I came away with a BA in English and American Literature. The dates would be something like 69-72.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

My undergrad stuff was in mediaeval Eng Lit.

[moodywho.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping people are getting sick of living in facebook-land.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That would be good.

I had a Facebook account created for me. I hardly ever go there.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

What's the title of the Ballard book? Sounds interesting.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Cocaine Nights.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything particularly insightful to say, but I do wanna say nice post. So, like, nice post. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

September 2003 is my start date on LJ.
I've lost 3 dear friends as well...and you and I share the loss of our beloved jackiejj. How I miss her, both her personally and her writing.

The one thing I've been able to do is meet so many of the people here in person. And then to find they're just as lovely off-line as on-line.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Jackie was a very special person...

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Ha! I have seniority among the mutual friends on this post! I joined in May 2003. Like jackiejj, I came over from Another Usenet Community when it became increasingly infested by trolls. I like LJ -- it feels like a better place to be reflective than those newfangled things like FB and Google+.

That said, I also like FB for its immediacy and a way to be in touch with folks' daily lives. I can pick up the thread of a FB conversation with someone I know slightly and run into at the drugstore etc., and it's a new bond.

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

I'm an LJ user who also appreciates FaceBook, which for me has evolved into a really nice support system and a way to connect. I know it's not that for everyone, and that people use it differently, but it's good for me. But I'm keeping my LJ connection going too. And I too miss jackiejj very much.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Congratulations.

I forget how I found LJ. It was my first blogging site and is still the only one I use.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

You also have the most intelligent and interesting friends. I've found a lot of my LJ friends on your list. I see you as the host of an intellectual salon, like Ottoline Morell.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ottoline Morrell! I love it!

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

>> A guy who fascinates me just deleted his journal. I hate it when that happens. No explanation, no fond last words. Just here today, gone tomorrow. Even his comments to my posts have disappeared. Bugger! maybe he'll be back. He has form...

I heard you pondering me. :D

One of my "friends" irritated me with a comment. My post was on how certain so-called Rosicrucian occult schools charge fees for their instruction or administration costs. I pointed out that a functioning Rosicrucian school does not charge money for anything, even administration costs, but will give of themselves abundantly -- profusely even (for such have we learned from our holy Mother Nature) -- for anything anyone needs to get his work or assigned tasks done. I also pointed to the Confessio, in which a very similar thing is stated. The commenter took me to task for being, essentially, judgmental.

I am irritated by this because there was no need for it. I think that if one is not capable of having a rational discourse -- and very, very few on LJ are -- the better approach when disagreeing with someone is to write a post with the contrary view in one's own journal. So, in this instance, the commenter should have written in his own journal that these occult schools do a wonderful job instructing students, at a very low price, covering only administrative costs, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Anyway, I'll stop being judgmental when people stop being idiots engaged in round-the-clock cognitive dissonance. I am very fucking tired, also, of people who always beat the drum, but never bend their backs to the oars.

But I am compelled, inwardly, to take the more enlightened approach. Truthfully, the more I comprehend that people are incapable of observation or reason, the less interested I become in their opinions, or even the concept of "opinion", itself. I like discourse -- discourse that gets to the bottom of things -- not opinion. Just as I like justice, but despise so-called "fairness."

I hate facebook, too. I don't think I can tag posts there by topic. Or, if I can, I don't know how to do it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're back. I'm so pleased.

I agree with your position. One doesn't charge for wisdom. If you do you poison it at its source.

Don't go away again without saying "goodbye". I was missing you.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I got started on this in 2007 because I wanted to reconnect with an old friend (and ex-lover) who had just lost most of her family. I wanted to be in her life again. She didn't really want me, but, as a compromise, we both continue to blog and read each other and stay in touch in that way.

LJ turned out to be one of the healthiest things that I do for myself. I've never been able to keep a journal before, but now I do. And, I, too, have made some very dear friends here, and lost a couple of people as well.

I am very glad that you are here. :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I forget how I got involved. I think it was pretty much on a whim. One of the attractions at that early stage was how idiot-proof the site was.

I'm glad you're here too. :)

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

*waves to wyrmwwd*

By the way...

King of Cups, Strength, 2 of Wands =

It is time for you to start following through on the advice given to you by your doctor. You can only "plan" so much before "planning" becomes "just standing around looking at the sea." :D

Also possible: If you have pets, you will need a vet's advice.

King of Cups + Strength = vet (or doctor)
2 of Wands following a Court/Court-combination = receiving advice from that person.