Monday, 31 March 2008

  • What's it all about, Xanga?

    Is it just about society, friends or like the old song, Alfie,...is it just for the moment we live? Yes, all that and more. It is expression, sometimes obsession. It is the comradeship. We often tell complete strangers things we would not tell our closest friends. Although quickly those strangers may become friends. The writers among us get a writer's hearts desire, a readership. The lonely assuage that emptiness that only another human can fill. We have something that has never existed before this era...arms-length intimates.  We can even message off line, exchange personal data and meet in person if we so desire. So it is a meeting place, a community.

    We can network. We get advice, information and inspiration. We get emotional support. We get a prayer circle, if that is what we want. We get a meeting of the minds, insights. We can be neighborly. We share our humanity and our faith. We affirm that " people need people". We can embrace each other in a global hug. We can reach out to far off places where we may never be able to go or to find a friend in places we may someday travel. We can try out ideas to get feed back. We connect. We have an opportunity to create. It can be a living scrapbook of memories, a memoir, a journal of events. It is a hobby, a habit and a haven!

    It is to bathe in the confirmation of the inner self, to risk rejection and ridicule. It is funny and fun and entertaining. It is to inform, inflame and to invigorate. It is a nurturing experience where one can reach out to others and also to be comforted in turn. It is a place, like home, as they say that anytime you want to go there, they have to take you  in. It is open 24/7, 7 days a week and even holidays. You can banter back and forth in real time. It doesn't cost long distance. You are connected anywhere, all the time. Why, you can send each other gifts and art and poetry and scripture and all the things that elevate a soul into a higher realm. And you can make friends for life.

    It is a party, a movable feast spoken of in high literature as in the historical day of the intellectual salon. It honors the gift of articulation as nothing else has since. One can cry out for human understanding and the embrace of fellowship. As I recently blogged one of my favorite Xangans who asked what was the purpose of it was anyway: We squat by the fire, sharing our adventures with many of our kind. We tell our stories. We touch other hearts in open comradeship. We are the thinkers, the dreamers, the lovers, making our music in the orchestra of life. We march along together. In this sometimes banal, sometimes puzzling world of today, we share the journey. Why? Because like Willie sings,"like a band of gypsies we go down the highway," we can share the journey. We can sing and laugh and play and weep together... all the way home.

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