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Tag: communication

Farewell to Facebook

Published on November 15, 2016

I think I will 1) stop writing and reading on FB altogether, and only post to it from my blog, 2) communicate directly with people I wish to interact with, and 3) acknowledge that written messages between persons without shared understanding of the other’s intent are almost always misinterpreted, particular when one party is trying to inject levity into a subject the other takes very seriously. Point is that everyone on FB takes themselves too seriously, and really doesn’t laugh at anything unless it’s at someone else’s, and certainly not their own, expense. But then again, in this world some things aren’t funny anymore. And in some cases, they never were. THAT to me is the problem with people who despise political correctness – they no longer have the option to feel superior at someone else’s expense, but must rely on their own merit for self-respect. Of course there are exceptions, and it is not possible to legislate good taste, compassion, consideration or respect. Therein lies the dilemma: getting along, and coexisting, is up to each of us, individually. Anytime you create a “we”, you’ve built a wall.

© 2016, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Somnambulism in the Rain

Published on August 4, 2014

Conducting one’s life outside the immediacy of meatspace is ALMOST as exhausting as if one had to actually physically travel to conduct conversations with one’s geographically far-flung “friends” in the flesh. I’m so tired of the forced interaction and the need to constantly be entertaining, provocative or at the very least annoying – but once you remove sensation, disruption, shock and awe and the whole Sturm und Drang from virtual reality, all you have left is ennui, disconnection, general malaise and overall pathetic disinterest (both incoming and outgoing). They say, or at least they used to, that to be “interesting” you need to be “interested”. Well, I just can’t dredge up that kind of enthusiasm when I know that the minute I myself border on the every day, average and non-controversial, all those “listeners” out there in that land will with a quick carpel-tunnel click be on to the next car crash, celebrity rehab, political faux pas, Freudian slip or meme misquote. Honestly? Is maintaining a daily conversation with the world necessary or even possible? How urgent do our lives need to be? How important ARE we, anyway?

© 2014, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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I don’t believe that we have met

Published on April 17, 2013

I don’t believe that we have met,
and yet, you know my name
and act as if you know me well,
at least enough to speak
informally, as if to say
what protocol exists
you can brush quickly to the side
without a second thought.

I don’t believe that we have met;
I surely would recall
the way in which you take control
and seem to think it right
that those around you should pretend
your mastery extends
to every subject known to man
(at least those worth the time).

I don’t believe that we have met,
and yet, it seems to me
that there is, just in your approach,
the taste and smell of death:
a shadow cast around yourself
inside which none dare go,
a graveyard for outside ideas
beyond your status quo.

I don’t believe that we have met,
for I don’t know your name;
although you act as thought I should
consider you a friend.
I wonder just how many souls
surrender to your charm;
and how we managed to survive
until you came along.

I don’t believe that we have met,
and yet, you seem to claim
some hold on me and on my thoughts.
You know my history,
but bluffed your way through study hall
and did not comprehend
that just because you think it,
does not really make it so.

17 APR 2013

© 2013, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Speech Between the Fallen – a cywyyd deuair hyrion

Published on December 10, 2012

Must I explain it once more?

Try hard to fight the boredom
that most likely will ensue
the moment you think useless
any viewpoint but your own,
and on your cragged and stony
field, let germinate a seed
of mine. I am not pleading
with you; I have friends enough
without you: fine and tougher
allies than you’ll ever make,
trees that strong winds have shaken
but whose roots remain well sunk.

This no rambling, drunken
speech from one who laughs too loud;
nor cryptic verse of clouded
rhyme enmeshed with metaphor.

I’ve said it now so poorly
that it makes no sense at all.

How low we both have fallen!

10 Dec 2012

© 2012, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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Face to Face

Published on August 26, 2009

We reconnect through wireless means –
no strings attached, just memories
like wisps of smoke we can’t inhale
without a self-accusing stare.

Like ghosts, we shuffle wall to wall
and watch as life unfolds somewhere,
where we could be, on different paths,
some roads less traveled, others not.

We fondly look in retrospect
at days long gone, and former lives;
our innocence, perhaps, our joy –
some part of us we think now lost.

It’s just illusion that we weave,
this semblance of the village square
that in an instant may be gone.
It’s really just us, standing there.

And what do we have left say?
Not much. We share our politics,
or random thoughts about the world
that make us feel as if we care

beyond this circle in the dust
of wild electrons spinning ’round
that gives us substance in this mist
and makes us seem alive again.

26 AUG 2009

© 2009 – 2014, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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@everyone

Published on August 10, 2009

It’s all exposed online, you understand.
My life is more or less an open book:
my birth, my education, then my work,
and shared, too, all too soon, sickness and death.

The details that might make my trip unique
are no more poignant, pithy or sublime
than those comprising your own story-line;
if you want juicy gossip, look within.

This fascination with the small details
that keeps us all so spellbound with delight
as constant updates try, in little bites,
to feed our self-important appetites:

where does it end? And can such urgent lives
except in death expect to find much peace?

10 AUG 2009

© 2009 – 2013, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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One Horse Town

Published on November 29, 2007

Lucky it’s a one-horse town: it cuts down on the horse-shit;
but watch your walk, you’re bound to step in some.
And any fool can tell you there’s no trick to finding trouble;
it comes up on you ugly, mean and dumb.

The world ain’t too much different from one small place to the next;
you get around enough, you learn just what you can expect.
It really doesn’t matter how you think things ought to be;
they’re usually off target, more or less, to some degree.

Lucky it’s a one-horse town. It keeps the sidewalks cleaner;
but folks avoid the middle of the road.
They walk the straight and narrow down their own side of the street
and don’t wander out beyond the status quo.

But it’s not too much different, this place, from all of the rest;
it’s the absence of comparison that makes it seem the best.
It really doesn’t matter what they think, or if they even care;
so long as you sit here, and they stay far off over there.

Lucky it’s a one-horse town, it simplifies the transit:
there’s only one road out to anywhere.
And you don’t have to worry over what to pack for traveling;
you just need shoes, so bring an extra pair.

The grass is not much greener there than it grows right here;
it’s just different fertilizer and new kinds of smoke and mirrors.
You know, it really doesn’t matter where you think you’re gonna go;
different day, the same old horse-shit piling up along the road.

29 NOV 2007

© 2007 – 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.

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