To Be Online, Or Not to Be Online, That is the Question

Getting started with my first blog has been an interesting internal process, even though it's only a few days old. I get lots of inspiration during the day, LOTS of ideas I want to share or jot down here. But every time I go to write, I find myself "self-conscious." Not at all in the inspired state that birthed both the blog and the ideas throughout the day. So, tired of being blocked there, I decided to write about that sticking place, since that's what's going on right now. And isn't that ultimately what blogging is about?

OK, so I have some time, and I open my blog poster. No longer in the moment, I find my mind trying to grasp at past and futures, to try and make this entry cohesive with all the other entries... to be clever, to be instructive, to be inspiring. I want to appear knowledgeable, holy, smart, wise, experienced, and a good writer and teacher. Of course, the 'I want' tells me: this is gonna hurt, eventually.

Next, I remember my 6th grade English teacher's pithy instruction: "Think of your audience." And yet I have no audience, I've told nobody about this blog. And I'm not sure when I will. I'm just a tree falling in the forest and making no sound. Better that, I think, than extending my ego forces full blast, unconscious, driven by internal forces I don't have time to stop and consider.

What some people find extremely FREEING about the Internet.. the ability to be anyone, to express beyond the confines of your normal life, to try on new personas and ways of being... seem somehow troubling to me, as an aspiring Buddhist. You would think that after 20 years of being online, I would have this figured out and settled in my own being. But hardly.

I was using email when nobody had color screens or graphic systems, and email addresses were sometimes very long strings of words separate by exclamation marks. The internet was a wild, untamed forbidding and beckoning nexus accessible to only for nerds and scientists and military geeks. When you got an email, you always knew it was from a person, and very few were thinking about portraying themselves as something different than they really were. Email, the main online activity, was simply a communication tool that was so much cooler than sending mail by post. I started several successful online, email communities.

Now, of course, all that has gone by the wayside, and 85% of the mail I get isn't from a real person at all, but usually some anonymous company seeking to get me to buy something or look at something or believe that they are real. Thousands, millions of phantom egos wanting attention and money and click-throughs. I too often find myself stuck in this hungry ghost realm aspect of the Internet and want to scream and throw my computer in the garbage can. Maybe this will wake me up.

So here I am, blogging. And all this experience on the internet has seemed to have created my own "on-line ego", which longs for it's day in the sun: linked to by others, winning compliments and kudos from friends for my cleverness and style and the great design of my blog stylesheet. Whoo hoo! THAT will bring me happiness, yes?

Oh, it looks like I am hungry-ghosty too, like those spammers! Ego doesn't like to look at its hunger, so it retorts: "But MY cause is uplifting! MY cause is spiritual. This internet can be a really uplifting and powerful tool to share the dharma! Don't be such a heavy!"

I suppose it can be, and I respect those that see it that way. But I worked hard to wake up this much, and I can't afford to lose my way again.

I am cautious. It is easier to go unconscious (i.e. get lost) on the Internet than anywhere else. For who is watching? There aren't any limits. Very few laws. Do, Be, Say, Share anything you want! Yay, anarchy!! No karma! Can't really hurt anyone here, it's all a big fun game. Pictures! Videos! Blogs! Twitters! Webcams! Personals! The list of cool rides goes on and on and on. Once the digital endorphins kick in, you can see forever.

Ok, off the soapbox. My main goal with this life is to learn about and develop the capacity to SEE THINGS AS THEY REALLY ARE. One question is: can I see things as they really are, if I am not BEING WHO I REALLY AM? And if nobody can tell who I really am, will being just myself MEAN anything? Will everyone assume that I am fronting a false personality and be factoring this in the whole time I am working on being 'real'? What the hell is 'real' anyway in cyberspace?

The skillfulness of 'being yourself' just seems so much more obvious when considering so-called 'real life,' where our actions and words and thoughts seem to have a much stronger effect, and interact with real people. In the realm of physicality, it seems that even among the uninitiated, "being sincere and without pretense" holds some real social value. Such behavior strengthens trust in others and builds friendships. Such behavior shows a maturity that may land one a promotion, or a hiring into a better job. Others can observe you are skillful and so they might learn something from you.

But here in cyberspace, it seems being yourself puts you sort of at the bottom of the pile. The colorful, the loud, the interesting, the most-published and most-read get the props, the clicks, the views. There isn't a way to search for "people being truly, honestly, themselves online with as little masking as possible." People who are simply centered, skillful humans don't get the link. You aren't interesting enough. At best, you just get to be part of the background noise. Seems like the place for those who know/feel that the self is empty, by nature.

So yeah, you can write or be out there for your own process. Great! But with limited time and a busy schedule, what is the point? Wouldn't a diary be equally as effective? Especially as a person learning mindfulness, I have to ask myself, "Why invest time here? Why spend time thinking in words? Wouldn't the time be better spent on the cushion, delving into death and impermanence?" :)

I don't know the answer to that question. I see many good teachers with extensive on-line presences, with more coming online probably every day. Podcasts, websites, blogs. And I myself benefit from them! They are a part of my Dream here! They do increase my awareness and self-knowledge. How crazy can it be?

Yet I wonder if and how long they struggled with this concept of online identity before 'taking the plunge.' Did their students beg them? Did they have a vision where Tara told them to go online and share the Dharma? Did they look at their dwindling inflow from community donations and secretly climb online, half-guilty, hoping to raise their income levels just a bit more? Perhaps, in the Now, none of these concerns is important and they just went online with happiness. Maybe only the false teachers are online, and all the real ones are working in their bonsai shops or sweeping high school classrooms or shining shoes on the street. Maybe this is a big waste of time?

I guess each individual must find their own online raison d'etre, if they decide to be on-line and CONSCIOUS in their life. I think this blog is an exploration of that search, for myself.

After giving this a lot of thought, I am going to use this blog initially as a place to play with 'outing myself'. Of sharing how I find myself "oh so very delightfully imperfect." To demonstrate the deconstruction of my self-patterns. For sharing in ways that show those "owie moments" when the crust is falling off. This is a place to gently out my own rigidity and posture-taking that seems to do its dance daily.

I have an intuitive sense that putting the silliness of my ego-posturing out there (even in cyberspace), will make it easier to not take myself so seriously "In Real Life." [Hey, but won't that expose our lack of wisdom? Who's gonna wanna listen to you when they see how lost you REALLY are? Don't DO that, you'll embarass me! -ego]

The greatest blessings I have received from recent life, has been learning and evolving for myself the "language of letting go." And they say you should teach what you seek to learn, and this, my auspicious friends-who-I-know-not, my cyber-sangha, is something I really want to learn. Half my life wasted already in the millions of masks and defenses and ego rigidities that have not gotten me a damn thing except struggle, and suffering.

Thanks for joining me, however briefly, on this journey. Thanks and prostrations for letting me teach myself how to wake up!

Now it's time to put this body to bed, to prep it for another day of adventure.

Blog on!

Dedication

I'd like to dedicate this wordy bodhi-blog to all beings working on waking themselves up from The Great Sleep, especially my teacher Ken, friends Stacy, Bekah, Anna, Uma, Kaylia, Phoenix, and my son Bryan. Your warm presence in this life reminds me I am never alone.

Thanks also to my many teachers and adversaries who have arrived so perfectly at every point on my path when they were needed. Oh, and of course to my Mother and Father for gifting me this precious human birth, and my family for never stopping the Love.