Context

[caddyman]

I haven't been paying too much attention to a lot of posts recently. For one reason or another my time has been spent on other pursuits. I have taken to skim-reading posts and just going into detail on those that catch my eye. It's nothing personal, I daresay I'm doing nothing that most of you don't do from time to time.

The downside of approaching LJ in this manner is that sometimes something happens and I miss it, so another entry crops up and I have no immediate context. This can be annoying, but it is generally easily rectified by a quick bit of delving through the relevant journals.

What is interesting, though and very illuminating, is how sometimes the lack of context highlights character. When you have the context it is easy to see why someone reacts the way they do, why they say the things they say and so on. Context is the paper on which we write and from which we read and it allows us to explain behaviour, see reasons and forgive transgressions. In doing this we mask the essential nature lurking behind the persona of the writer. This person is reacting thus because of this, and has said X because Y happened.

Context is a double-edged tool with which we chisel and polish the personality of the writer and imbue it with our own perceptions. Strip out the context and we see in sharp relief highlighted aspects the essential person. No mask.

It's quite instructive. I am beginning to see some of my friends in quite a new light.

Comments

[littleonions.livejournal.com]

You'll get the bends thinking so deep.

[binidj.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued and nervous in equal measure.

The Blog of Dr Moreau

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD! We're all just lab rats for him to observe...STOP LOOKING AT ME! STOP LOOKING AT ME. (runs and hides under his water bottle)

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

Fascinating

[romney.livejournal.com]

So whatyou're saying is that while a brief glance at my postings and comments will judge me an idiot, it takes deep contextual analysis to actually confirm it?

A poor way to communicate

[westernind.livejournal.com]

I don't much like the online written medium for this very reason. I use LJ - well, because everyone else does, to keep in touch, that sort of reason. Unlike some others (you?), for me the practice of the writer's craft has no part. This is because my primary mode of communication is kinaesthetic. I read people just as much as I listen to what they say, I understand why they say things, I hear what isn't being said. When it's working well, it's almost akin to telepathy. All of that is lost online.

Or if you're looking at posts in a writerly way, I guess another take on context is as in the classic Barthes essay, "the death of the author" - is that what you meant?

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Surely what you read is only going to be what what they say translated in your eyes.

So in effect, you may well see people in a new light, but that is not necessarily the case.
Much of what I write (as I can't speak for others) may talk about one thing, but influenced by plenty of other facets that aren't going to be present in the text.

- if that makes, like, sense, y'kno?

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

"I am beginning to see some of my friends in quite a new light".

And what would that light be ?

(He asked in a somewhat hesitant and cautious tone of paranoia)

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more re context and writing. Writing is an act of artifice but so is any form of communication - face to face communication is often - not always - about un/semi-conscious acting to gain approval of those immediately surrounding one; roleplaying in fact.

Writing has the power of being faceless. Remove the background story, the softening of judgement that friendship and tolerance often require as prerequisite, and the words chosen can be very revealing.

But such analysis is too stark to be popular;-)