February 15, 2000 ~ Soulspeak

(Written in response to a posting in The Well).

A glow reflected off my face, illuminating my features, but I was in a different world. It was a world where I didn't have a body; I was just a series of thoughts and words traveling in the form of electric pulses across the wires of cyberspace. For that moment, I existed in my purest form, mere personality—thoughts and ideas embodied only in the form of a soul. My personality happened to be, at that moment, interacting with several other personalities who were lacking bodies as well. We were, appropriately, discussing spiritual things, in a place where the world of appearances and social presumptions did not apply. I couldn't tell if they were male or female, black or white, old or young, just that they had a light of life in their words, a tinge of experience and passion.

I was jerked back to my body with a tap on the shoulder. "Could you help me with my email?" asked the man in the chair next to me.

I taught him and guided him for a few minutes, earning his sincere thanks.

"I haven't talked to my daughter in years," he said, "I don't have a home she can call me at, or a mailing address that she can write back to me at. But I have email now!" he said, laughing. "Thank you. I can't wait to hear from her."

I have cancer. Could you pray for me?

So says the screen. A lonely soul, crying out from a laptop computer in her hospital bed. Tears come to my eyes.

I am dying, I am alone.

I know, love, I know. I will pray for you. I can't hold your hand, but I can hope for you. Cancer doesn't kill everyone.

I'M GAY! I KNOW YOU HATE ME!

In the chat room, the words blare across the screen, angry. I think I can hear him screaming, crying.

So? Someone says, I don't hate you. I don't care if you're gay or straight.

Neither do I. Can I help? Do you want to share your story?

My friend from England emailed me a while back. (I don't know what he looks like, I just know that he has a caring, sensitive personality).

He told me a beautiful story about how he bonded with a couple of doves which nested in the tree outside his window, how they would watch him through the window as he went about his daily movements, and how he found one of them dying weeks later, and tried to save it, but it was too late. How the mate now looks at him through his window and coos in a very sad and lonely way.

Every time my fiancée laughs, smiles, cries--I feel deeply thankful for that which was missing all those long months when the distance had yet to be conquered. For years, he was just a soul thousands of miles away. Glowing words on my library computer screen. An email. A story. A poem. Hours spent, fingers rapidly moving across the keyboard. Reading his soul from the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Twenty six letters and a few symbols were all we had. Sharing everything we could, with that distance. We "met" in a chat room. Yet still we fell in love.

Years spent without faces, bodies. Many tears which he never saw. No chance to catch his eyes.

Sometimes I wonder if other people realize what a privilege it is to look into another person's eyes.

The Internet taught me to appreciate every moment together.

Perhaps... One can imagine what a leap of faith it was to love someone whom I had never touched. To trust someone who's eyes I could not look into.

The Internet taught me a little about unconditional love.

The Internet taught me a little about how our skin color doesn't really matter. How physical ugliness and beauty are just illusions.

All of these stories are real. I think it is important that we realize that the people behind all these words on the screen are not just words. They are people. I too prefer conversation person to person, where I can look into the other person's eyes, see their "graying hair lined by the blue sky and mountains and see their lips flap." The value of that, though, would never have been fully realized to me, had I never taken the time to get to know about people online. I grew to realize that these words, these personalities... were entities that I truly cared for, truly loved. I wanted to know that all was well with them. It may be hard to do that in the non-physical context of the Internet, but it is possible. If you can learn to love people whose faces you have never before seen, then you have truly learned something about love, compassion, and humanity.

The Internet is a tool. Some people use it in ways that harm. Others, however, use it as an extension of their communication capabilities, yet another way to bridge the many gaps and distances that lay between one soul and another.

Thank you for your words, Shawn. They touched me.

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