My throat feels like I swallowed a handful of broken glass. My nose is officially malfunctioning as a breathing apparatus. In short, I have been unceremoniously dumped with the inescapable gift of the Sick Role, which allows me to be out of (social) action for a while. What a relief.
Recently, for purposes of a project, I have been reading up on the Hikikomori phenomenon in Japan - that is, people who withdraw from society for above 6 months; they stay in their rooms and only come out occasionally, like for late night trips to the convenience store to buy food. Ironically, these people withdraw from society physically, but fratenise with a vengeance on online forums, chatrooms, blog circles etc.
Presently my state resembles an online Hikikomorian - someone who withdraws from the internet community but spends much time in face to face socialisation. Although the latter is more out of necessity and imposed circumstances rather than a willing decision, I suppose it is in sharp contrast to my online hermitdom. At least until this blog post.
It's scary how things like MSN result in such a great encroachment of your private life that suddenly you find yourself surrounded by 'imaginary' friends, some of whom you talk better with online than in real life. (When I say "you" I mean "I"). And the recent blog death was in part because I was wondering how, in making my private life public, I was changing my own perceptions, sensationalising events that would not have had any more meaning than their face entertainment value.
But there is no total honesty, and one life can be lived and told in so many different ways, that it's paralysing in a Hamlet sort of way.
I could talk about the cat whom I snuck up on when it was peeing, how it scuttled away so fast and vanished, rendering my efforts to find it useless.
I could talk about how a yr 2 struck up conversation with me in a way that seemed like she knew me for ages, when I didn't even know her name.
I could talk about how I was at a total loss for words when confronted by an American motormouth of a music teacher from a particular World-ly College who asked me to go down and see if I could teach cello to 2 kids.
But these all require energy that is so hard to come by these days, and I'm feeling the interminable effects of aging.
