due to the lovely Nor'easter, which has brought snow in the wake of the lovely Sandy and additional power issues, there will be no audio this week....
Socio-neti-phobia
This social anxiety is not bound
by the physical world;
it crosses synapsis as zeros
and ones,
spreads like a virus as binary
worm,
springs forth unwittingly from its
Trojan Horse
intent on crashing -- shutting down --
every connection
I attempt to make.
Still I power on,
unwilling to allow these fears to
Ctrl;
my fingers move deftly across
keys--
painstaking thoughts attempting
to express understanding,
meaning,
worth.
I hover over every single
word;
while breath stills -- refuses to
ESC
as I, mouse at the ready, press
"Post Comment"
ENTERing a SPACE (BAR) of social
paranoia.
An Aside: Commenting has been on my mind as of late; so much so that I recently went back and read an old post inspired by OSP Friday Poetically where I spoke about my anxiety in regard to entering the social world and spoke about a poem I had written to that end, called Follower, Friend, and the Like. It was also during that post that I shared an unofficial rule which I was adding to my blog rules (which if you haven't noticed over on the right there are currently in active).
The rule was to comment on at least one blog a week. I am not going to lie, it was not easy. That doesn't mean I did accomplish it week after week and with even more than a single comment per week, but rather that it did not get any easier the more I continued to step out on the ledge. It has been over a year and a half since I first made that decision. And still (fighting through the anxiety and paranoia) I do my best to not only read, but comment as often as possible.
Anyway, with the thoughts (and anxiety) running 'round still in my head, I thought I'd explore the topic again.
This is my offerings for this week's dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight. If you get a chance, check out all of the talented poets who have stepped up into the
spotlight.
Thank you for your honesty here in regard to commenting. I do think for me it takes more courage to link my poem in a public forum such as this than it does to comment on other people's poems. Truly people are appreciative of whatever you have to say.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the social anxiety ~
ReplyDeleteI do find though that commenting is something we can learn over time, and from reading others comments on our work. I find that I am more generous and open with my thoughts in my comments when its reciprocal ~
Have a good week ~
Well. This makes your comments on my blog that much more precious. Tremendous poem, and I can truly identify with your feelings here. I used to fret over every word, and hit the "Submit" button with fear and trembling. I still struggle sometimes, but it has helped just to force myself to put it out there and let it be. You've nothing to be anxious about, your work is always top-notch.
ReplyDeletei am glad you have worked your way through that...and i remember that post...ha....havent thought of friday poetically in a while either...the way i figure it is i may not get what you are talking about in your poem but do i really need to appreciate it...and i may see things you didnt intend but does that make either of us wrong...
ReplyDeleteyou do well...smiles.
wow...thanks for being so honest.. for me it was difficult to comment on other people's poems first cause i thought i'm so unexperienced that i didn't know if my comments were "right" or "wrong" - but i found, there's no right or wrong..and that makes me much more relaxed..
ReplyDeletevery interesting poem. like the others, the honesty in the comment is great to read. I've found my writing benefits from just being open more, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I kind of feel that one I let anxiety rip at me and control me more than it does daily, it hinders my writing. Your writing doesn't appear hindered though, so perhaps it doesn't effect you that way. IN any case, working through whatever one is bound by, in my opinion, can never be a bad thing. Best of luck. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI think as long as you are careful where you visit online, give out any personal info to anyone, as long as you don't open any emails with attachments or, click on any of the links in them, you ought to be pretty safe. If you buy anything online, or bank, ALWAYS in the top address bar where it says the http make sure it has an 'S' so that it is https that means it's a secure website.
ReplyDeleteLovely poem about a very valid fear.
Glad you had some power to post it. I hope you weren't hit too badly by this new storm. I feel so sorry for those who already had it really rough there
Glad you could overcome the anxiety, as yeah it can be there. But the cat is just crazy so he comments on about 50 a day and for anxiety he doesn't really care haha
ReplyDelete