The drawback of our modern times...

We’ve made it very easy, I fear, with all our modern technology to distance ourselves from the ones we love.

Pretty heavy thought for a Friday, I know…

This is something that was recently pointed out to me, and has been twisting around in the wind tunnel that is my mind ever since. It seems that many of my friends text me, or chat with me on the internet, or read my blog once a week, and think that keeps them up to date on what’s going on with me at any given time. There are even those of my friends that when asked about it, simply prefer the half-sentences and poor timing of text messaging and chat to a phone call. There are nuances to interpersonal communication that are transmitted in conversation that don’t translate otherwise. I called two of my close friends this week, and realized that I hadn’t actually spoken to them in any real sense in months.

Our lives are better for living in the computer age, and it’s truly a miraculous time we live in… in many ways, we are more connected to the rest of humanity than we have ever been in history; but I can’t’ help but think that there’s something we’ve lost along the way. We’re all becoming more reclusive, and it saddens me.

This disturbs me a great deal. It disturbs me even more to think that those who keep up with me solely via my blog actually think that they’re getting the pertinent facts about my life, or my uncensored attitudes about what goes on with me. In a way, it also allows me to justify my distancing myself from certain folk I probably shouldn’t be.

I know this is a subject I go on upon a bit, but when I write this blog, I do so in an effort to be entertaining… It’s true that in many ways, what you read here has become my memoirs, but there is a lot y’all never hear about. Things about me that I feel that those that care about me have every right to know, but not things I want the planet to read about.

The real “Rob” is definitely not the one you see here, but is far more the one the “management” sometimes alludes to. The amount of personal change and growth I’ve experienced in the past few years is also not something I normally talk about here… something I like to think is evident from a conversation with me, but the “voice” of this blog is far more the irresponsible, party-loving oaf I was back in college; that many of my friends still see me as, apparently.

Thing is, that’s not me at all. There are parts of that still in me, mind you… I like to think I will always be a bit more free-spirited than most, and my priorities aren’t always those of the typical man my age. Still, I’m not the same guy I was a few years ago. You’d have to talk to me to find that out, though… and I don’t mean the same old small talk, I mean really talk to me.

Then again, maybe I’m just having a rough week. In any event… if you have any questions, call me. My number is in the book.