Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 21:34:42 -0500 From: Kafka Dreams To: void Subject: the voices in my head I woke up one morning last week to the sound of a man's voice speaking clearly and calmly to me. The voice said: "That which sustains us may eventually come to define us." I opened my eyes and the bedroom was empty even of echoes. I leaned over to the notebook I keep at my bedside and wrote it down, more by reflex than anything else. But as I slowly made my groggy way back from the realm of sleep, my conscious mind took up this refrain and began to have an internal discussion on the nature of "sustenance." When I tell people this and say the phrase out loud, the response I've consistently gotten is a bemused expression and the reply, "You are what you eat?" It is interesting to me that precisely that was NOT my first thought. _My_ first thought was of spiritual sustenance, e.g. writing sustains my soul to the point where I define myself internally as "writer." Further, my next thoughts involved working - what you do for a living eventually coming to the point where it defines your life. That's fine if you're in your dream job, but quite a different story when you're doing something you hate. (Perhaps this is just indicative of my own mental state though). The phrase has rattled around in my head for a while now, popping up in odd places. That which sustains hatred may eventually come to define that hatred. That which sustains our denial may come to define our addiction. Like anything that we chose to make important to ourselves, the concept is both strong and neutral - for some parts of our lives it is a wonderful thing, for others it's a dark and airless prison. On one level, an electronic mailing list is nothing more than a kind of consensual reality. Each thing you contribute to it (so that it actually is a list, which for our purposes I'll generally state is a group of people mailing each other) contributes to its definition. Each rule you use to bind it, each assumption you make about it, each and every thing you use to sustain it, defines it. A few years ago, the attitude on void regarding follow-ups weighed-in overwhelmingly against. So its maintainers filtered follow-ups all out for a few days to... um, well, I'm not sure what their goal was. But it certainly made people damn angry and the filters were removed. It's one thing to say "there shouldn't be follow-ups" and quite another to have your own follow-up vanish into the aether. I might have once said "don't have discussions on void" - I don't think I did, but I often misremember. If I did in fact say so, then I was wrong. I might have also once tried to define void with words and rules - if so, that was a mistake as well. I can tell you I don't believe that I've tried to do that again in a few years. But I know that I have tried to define void via force of will - contributing to it in the way that I would like it to be. In this way, I have defined it for moments and months, in some people's minds, in other people's archives. I have pushed and mashed at the void as well, flaming what I perceived to be stupidity and inanity, cutting short pointless threads of the sort that generally spiral down into "did not" versus "did too" kinds of arguments. I have often felt justified in doing so, and I have occasionally been praised for it as well (more often than I have been chastised). But I say now - tread lightly. For, each judgemental moment does come back. I've been pretty damn mean here. And if I let that sustain my ego and create my reputation, then it will begin to define me. But I don't want to be mean. I have not been the "fire-hose" in years now, yet that aspect of me still exists and people still perceive me that way. But I am not a gun to be aimed and fired. The philosophical discussion (which I notice appears to be degenerating a bit towards personal attack) is just a discussion. (Beware, I'm winding up to a point here). But, if you want to define the void as a place for discussion, then you will have discussions and it may become a place for discussion. If you don't want to listen to other people's discussions, ask them gently to take it off-list and eventually, list-members might get the hint. (I suspect this is the source of the "take it to elbows" rant, because elbows self-defines as a place for discussion and for a long time, void self-defined as "not elbows"). If you want the void to be full of witty repartee, provide some straight lines here and some clever remarks there, and the void may follow. If you want the void to be a depository for frequently re-posted posts (FREPP) and amusing things that get forwarded to you, then you will do so and possibly alienate those whose sense of humor is different from yours. You might try and forward only things which you consider of high quality and you may raise the over-all quality of posts to the list. If you want the void to be a place where you can send rants without fear of list-members taking up the argument, state your intention when you post and you may make it so. If you want the void to be all things to all people, well, you're probably going to be disappointed but it certainly might be fun to try. A caveat before you go, though: if you seek to define the void as only one thing, you will lose the members who do not necessarily want it to be that thing. For every rule you apply, there will be exceptions. For every definition you publish, there will be dissention. But the truth is, some of the possibilities are mutually exclusive. At that point, ask yourself this - why did you join void in the first place? To put a finer point on it, what aspect of how the void was first described to you made it attractive enough to sign on? If you joined it because it was JUST SO, why change it? If you joined it because you heard it was EXACTLY THAT, well then maintain a course toward that. (I might say it's pointless to fire a volley into the darkness looking for sympathy when you have already defined your target as a place of wit and wonder but I would likely be wrong.) By the way, if you made it all the way here to the end without skimming, well then damn I'm impressed. Kelly J.