A "Daily" Camaraderie

Elsewhere I have a blog, Write Everyday, where I try to exercise this portion of myself on a daily basis. Like many intentions, especially those that commit one to "everyday", I don't always get there; I don't always get that exercise in. Normally, this is just the sort of a write for which I'd use that blog. But today, I'm not. I'm not because of camaraderie.

For years, I've played racquetball with with a group of guys (evolutionarily, four different groups in my time), and from the beginning, we all trusted that, baring work, one another would "be there". When I go to the "Y" for my workout routine I engage with no one usually. But there are nods of acknowledgement, and, perhaps, short weather-related conversations. At church on Sunday, despite encouragement beyond, I am satisfied with nods of acknowledgement. There is an expectation -and a satisfaction in acknowledgement- that goes with camaraderie.

I've recently had conversation with a fellow, a peer, who spends very little time on the Internet except to receive emails and forward jokes. He had a hard time grasping why people would want to spend their time in "virtual" connection. He is, himself, a very gregarious person. At the time the only explanation I had at hand -and he was courteous enough to accept- was that it is suitable to those of us who tend to be introverts. But since then it has occurred to me that wherever one gets engaged with others, a camaraderie develops, and with it, the concomitant expectations, obligations and satisfactions in the assurances of routine connections.

Over the past couple of years I have been preoccupied with other aspects of my life, and only recently have I re-entered the sphere of writing, such as I do. I have found changes in both myself and in the "places" I write, wrote. When I had first thought I might do personal essaying in blog format, I had landed on Gather as the place where I would write. It was at that time promoted -and was- a place where one could submit writing and expect to have it reviewed. There was the concomitant expectation the you would also read and comment on the work of others. Upon return to Gather, it was clearly become a place of virtual social networking akin to Facebook. In fairness, I should say that I have not returned yet to the "Writing" group where, perhaps, that is still going on. Perhaps the social networking is just an additional aspect of Gather now, whereas originally it seemed to be a side aspect without the prominence that has now.

I had said that I had also found changes within myself. I have determined that I can and will do my essaying in blog format, and that I will chance the virtual social network. And I will try to review and comment on the work of others as I find it. That's a commitment to social interaction, virtual though it may be. And so it is here, where I blog, where others blog; where "even" virtual relationships are made, "even" here where camaraderie develops, that I will post my letters.