Tone of voice

contributes significantly to conversation and communication. So does body-language, inflection, gestures and, most of all, the presence of another person. This is the down-side of blogging. All of these things have to be supplied. I supply them for the blogs I read; and you are doing it right now.

Now, a couple of observations: for all the talk about how "community" is now emerging into digital realms...it seems to me that, for all the benefits of blogs like this and others, there is a fundamental built-in limitation: the all-pervasive and essential human element. No matter how you cut it, we are still typing at each other instead of talking. The dynamic is much the same as it was when we sent folded paper letters in envelopes, or when we faxed, or or or... You get the point. The human element can only come through to a certain extent even in the best of digital, online blogger realms. Another observation, or rather, a question: are we any better off for it? Really, are we?

It seems the technology (cliche alert) is indeed driving us apart. Who knows how many people are nightly, by themselves, typing a conversation into a computer monitor, like me, (or reading one, like you) and in the process something is lost.

Hopefully in the midst of all this fantastic technology we will not surrender that which makes community community: people. Online IM, chatting, blogs, email, whatever, are poor substitutes for the real thing. Were you to hear my tone of voice, which you can't, (you have to supply it remember)you would have heard it rise a little, with a touch of angst and a furled brow for good measure. Got the picture in your head? I think I've made my point.

On that note, greetings to all those of you with whom I have shared many a conversation, and to those of you I have yet to have coffee with..to you,

Grace and peace (typed for now, one day face-to-face).

And so to bed.