The Lost Realm

A few people have wondered exactly why I’ve chosen to write all of this, and why I’ve chosen to put it online. That’s a pretty good question, and one that I’m not sure I really have a simple answer for.

I write to work through my thoughts and feelings. It’s a way of making ideas concrete. Things inside your head seem clear enough until you try to organise them within rules of language and grammar, and then you realise exactly how little you understand yourself. For me, writing is a good way of going through this process.

The reason for putting it all online? That’s a little more difficult to explain.

The online world is a place in which I used to spend the vast majority of my time. Anyone that has known me long enough will know that. At one point in my life, I’m not sure that I really existed in the real world at all. I feel comfortable here. That makes me more able to write what I want to.

The online world is also a place of brutal honesty. If you say something stupid here, there are always going to be people around to call you on it. The nature of the online world trains you to tell the difference between fact and fiction. That makes me more honest with you, the reader.

The online world is permanent. Every word that I place here is being copied by more systems than I can count. I can’t revoke anything that I say, and it will be available to read long after I’ve ceased to exist. That makes me more honest with myself.

Everything I write here is for my own benefit. I need somewhere to find myself, and for now this seems to be it. So far, I’d say it’s been working quite well.

Filtering through your possessions to find those that don’t belong to you is a very strange process. You end up on a nostalgic trip, dipping into memories of your childhood and of people and places that you’ve encountered along the way, but you also end up finding things that you wish you hadn’t. Photographs, birthday cards, love letters: little momentos of a life that no longer exists. These things don’t bring the same smile to your face.

“I will always love you” is a phrase that really shouldn’t be written without conviction. Perhaps it should simply remain unused. Forever and eternity are powerful words, and the human condition and temperament does not lend itself well to them. Life is fleeting and temporary; thoughts and feelings are emphemeral. How can we hope to do or hold something forever? How can we trust others to remain constant to their word when their very existance is transient?