Reverse LifeStreaming

My friend JKD wrote a provocative post about if we can glean any meaning from sharing personal experiences through the internets:

Lifestreaming, if it’s understood as an attempt to catalog every single thing that happens in a day and put it in some kind of infinitely-faceted context, is no more interesting than reading someone’s diary of every single thing they do in a day. Perhaps good for a lark - and a giving of thanks that you’re not yourself trapped by such a compulsion - but nothing of particular merit or worthy of striving for as a goal.

We're all voyeurs, perhaps to reassure ourselves that our experiences are shared and normal even though they are uniquely ours. The interwub eases lifestreaming's hallmark sharing (and oversharing) process by at relieving the restraints of distance, time and language.

JKD also notes:

You wouldn’t want to post the entirety of your walk around the block - with video, audio, GPS coordinates, barometric pressure, etc. - as a lifestream entry. But maybe there was a moment when you looked up and to the left, and the sun glinted just so through the tops of the trees tipped with last night’s frost, and a hawk soared past. Maybe that would be worth both remembering and transmitting to the world (or your little slice of the Intarwub), with or without fuller context.

Since the twitchyness yesterday, I've spent a bit of time in a reverse lifestream process. Today and yesterday I asked friends to recap conversations, on-going projects and what I've promised to accomplish. Interestingly there are quite of few of them who seem to believe that I'm going to send them oodles of cash. I may not be the only one who is delusional. :)

It makes me realized what wonderful people surround me. I could fill in a lot of gaps with my compulsive To Do lists, email archives, etc... which insures my ability to function independently. But I'm not really independent--I depend on a network of friends, family, peers and colleagues.

I feel really grateful.
And guilty.
And weak.

Epilepsy is forcing dependence. Depending on other people, especially when I'm mentally out of it and clawing for coherence, means acknowledging that I can't solve a problem myself.

Now rationally, I know that great solutions come through collaboration and are frequently much richer than what we can concoct alone. Emotionally, admitting that I do not have the capacity to solve a problem is extremely distressing. I HATE complaining or worse, appearing to be some weak, fragile, fainting flower of womanhood.

However, there is maturity in acknowledging I can't solve problems, don't have all the answers and will have to ask someone to focus their time and attention on my needs. If Lifestreaming illustrates anything, it is that regardless how much we prize our individuality and unique perspectives within our lives, we crave connections. Asking another to help you figure out a problem creates vulnerability as we describe our ignorance. Trusting others to not take advantage of a vulnerability is a risk and opportunity to build interdependence.

It is not a great revelation that building trust and interdependence needs mutual vulnerability. Why is taken on the extreme of the young, fainting, helpless belle so unappealing? Because she exploits the best instincts of her heroic rescuer.

Helping someone is a risk--it pulls us out of the familiar, tests our intellectual and emotional capacity and may have terrible outcomes (resentment, betrayal, misrepresentation or outright failure). Pulling someone from a burning car or repositioning a seizing epileptic means you could be holding a person as they die. Even offering advice or resources to help someone access new possibilities means that good intentions may go unappreciated, resented or radically change the relationship.

When someone embraces that risk and offers help with open arms, exploiting that instinct is a vile, selfish and almost unforgivable act. It severs the connections which weave our lives together. Those connections can hurt, but they also give our lives meaning and depth. I wouldn't be able to bounce back into life so quickly if I couldn't ask other people where my life was when the brain shut off. I'm grateful for everyone who take on the risk when I'm helpless and confused. It's nice to not have to go at it alone.