Comments on: Incommunicado

By: Sholeh

Sholeh — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 07:39:16 +0000

Sarah: hahaha anything-less…Also, I totally agree about the whole “maintaining a link to the community” thing. It is almost necessary if we want to have Baha’i friendships when isolated.

Joe: yeah, I was really happy last summer when I finally met my neighbors at a block party. It is so strange to me (as a adamantly southern girl at heart) that I don’t know or SEE my neighbors!

Leslie: I agree…I feel devalued when I am spending time with someone and they are constantly answering their phone or utilizing some kind of technology to the detriment of our time together. Re: coffee- RIGHT ON. With phones off. Lets do that.

By: leslie

leslie — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:24:51 +0000

i totally agree with all being said! especially the part about quality sacrificed for speed, and about not knowing our neighbors, although, i would add-how well do we know our AIM friends as well? all these new-fangled communication techniques are impeding our work towards unity, i think…plus, i just feel devalued when i am with a person who can’t stop texting or answering their phone…grr. arr.
course, this is more i’ve said to you here, sholeh, than i did when i saw you in person last….the irony. let’s do coffee. in person. wiht our phones off. talk. love!

By: george

george — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:10:31 +0000

All valid questions, and something our generation gets the privilege of sorting out. Glad that you took the time to blog that article. I like how your friend has struck a balance by abstaining from the internet once a week. I think weekends free from it might emerge as a trend.

And I really like the new site design!

By: Marco Oliveira

Marco Oliveira — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 01:52:21 +0000

Happy Naw-Ruz!

By: Joe Hart

Joe Hart — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:37:56 +0000

I was just talking about this tonight, actually. Everybody has their AIM friends, their MySpace friends, and their cell phone list, but how many people know their neighbors? You know, the people across the street? In our quest for convienice we are also lending ourselves to extreme selectivity in our friendships, and I think it’s behind a lot of social misunderstanding these days.

I don’t know where my philosophorant is going, except that, contrary to matronly advice, maybe we -should- talk to strangers once in a while. Can’t hurt, hm?

By: sarah

sarah — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:15:22 +0000

A couple of years ago a friend of mine lost internet in his house, so we decided to start sending each other letters. This lasted for a while after he got internet back, and I think that it definitely strengthened our long distance friendship.
I think that this issue is interesting from a Baha’i perspective, where our numbers are so limited and we all have a tendency to spread ourselves all over the globe. I haven’t had a really close Baha’i friend who lived close by since I was 13, and it is my ability to maintain relationships easily with people who live far away that has really helped me to stay anchored in that community. Of course, this absolutely isn’t ideal, but I take what I can get.

On a completely unrelated note, I go to school with Anna Quindlen’s son. I once went to a play in which he got completely naked on stage, and Anna Quindlen was sitting right behind me. I don’t think that he has issues with being faceless. Or anything else-less.