BoringLOG – Crashing in Cyberspace – One Week On

27th April 2007

The cows are lowing in the meadow, the sheep are bleating on the moor, and my beautiful mossy green lawn has been laid to waste by rampant moles who gathered round the sonic trap like spaced-out clubbers at an all-night rave…oh, God, sorry, I don’t have to write that c*** any more, do I? Mother Nature on acid.

That said, I am feeling a little despondent today and a drop of LSD could do the trick, I suppose. I have been pottering around Purplecoo dropping in here and there on people and I’m afraid I am now suffering from emotional and mental flatness. The trouble with cyberspace is that I find it totally overwhelming. I am officially classified as A Hyersensitive Person. Which basically means hellish to live with. And frequently exhausted - and exhausting. Maybe my husband’s a saint after all. Saint Nicholas – Patron Saint of? (answers on a postcard please). He’s stuck with me long enough anyway. And I put him through a merry dance for a few years. Hypersensitivity also means that I pick up on vibes that probably aren’t even there. It’s like being some sort of transistor radio. God knows what it would be like to be psychic. You wouldn’t be able to move for other people’s lives and ghosts flooding your own channels. I think I’d just explode. I had an English friend in Italy like this. It was a real burden for her. There are mediums in my family and my maternal grandmother had an uncanny sense of prediction, but I am not one of those. For me it’s more about feeling swamped by the energy of others, positive or negative and positively or negatively – depending.

I wrote a blog during my time on The Dark Side on a similar theme. I hardly dare look at it as I am no doubt repeating myself and would therefore be a useless columnist. But in the same way that I found city life, ultimately, so wearing and in the same way I can’t even look at the weekend papers through the sheer bulk of information they represent, cyberspace is, in reality, my worst nightmare. I love people and am incredibly nosey about them and bombard strangers with bizarrely detailed questions about their cleaner’s great-grandmother’s hamster. So here I am trying to whiz around like Westerwitch on a motorized broomstick trying to get to know you all and read all the details of your lives and your innermost thoughts – and remember it all! Who was the one who decided to go for a walk on the beach rather than pull out the greyhairs spotlighted by the spring sunshine? Who was it who went to Eyam plague village (up the road from me?). Who was it who was writing from Rodmell in West Sussex, which I always used to pass through on my way to the beach in the headier days of my youth? Who was it who posted a picture of a pheasant on their (rather nice looking) lawn? Who had the problem with the couch grass (I know he was male)? etc etc etc. Now, while trawling, I have the added complication of feeling a compulsion to look at everyone’s ‘profiles’. Fascinating, but just more time-consuming and dispiriting. Everyone just seems so talented and well-read and just when you think you’ve had an original thought you realise someone’s already written about it, more beautifully and interestingly than you ever could. And that’s just Purplecoo – there’s a million more other bloggers out there scribbling down their thoughts and sending them elegantly, stylishly, funnily, boringly off into the ether.

Then you have a quick shoofty round the news websites and find another overload of info, even the journos now doing blogs as if writing a column isn’t enough. And why write a blog when you write a column? Oh yes, silly me, they’re two quite different things, aren’t they?

Oh, and now I’m being told that blogging’s passé anyway. So what will be the next big thing, then? Pen and ink? Or maybe chalk and slate? I always did think the old ways were the best ways. And it would help keep the rural post offices open too. Now there’s a good original theme…

Enfin bref, as they say in France, I am feeling flat and bereft of inspiration. Talk about being a tiny fish in a big sea. I have to remind myself now why I came to the countryside – to get away from all the unwelcome ‘noise’. Noise of the planes, noise of the cars, noise of the neighbours - this I can escape: but the noise of incessant advertising and media and promotions and ‘information’ being shoved through my door or attacking me every time I set foot outside (in London) or turn on the telly or the computer or open a magazine and have a load of unsolicited flyers crash to the floor at my feet – this is harder. So much wasted paper, so much wasted ink, so much wasted money, so many wasted words. All meaningless, all not very green. And to think that I used to work in the world of communications….before the world went mad.

So I think I need to take a break, step outside onto my lovely green, mole-free lawn, look at my lovely green hills, take a deep breath of the lovely clean air and listen to the only noise I want to hear right now – the twittering birds, the bleating sheep and the lowing cattle. Ah, peace at last.

Comments

Exmoorjane said…
Hi there - you know you and I do have a lot in common, far more than the view..... I couldn't find your blog before, which is odd - particularly as it says you've had one here since February. But, back to the point - I know EXACTLY what you mean about being overwhelmed. I love the Net but hate it too. Too much information, too many people, sensory overload, aaaghhhhhh.....
And the same with blogs - I have an appalling memory and one thing I do love about this site is that you can pop back into a profile and remember who and where people are......yes it's that bad! I have this awful sense that I must be polite and respond to everyone and keep up to date but, really, it's impossible.
Yes, I have been 'into' natural health since childhood - my mother was a homeopath. I did a SHEN course once and that was wonderful - would recommend it as a good and unscary place to start with energy work. Mind you, there was a split in the SHEN community (remind you of anything?) a few years back and some now call themselves Kairos therapists. There is a wonderful woman in Edinburgh, called Carol Logan, who runs courses. This is getting long - if you want more info, drop me an email....jane@janealexander.org (there is something I have been wanting to tell you anyhow, so please get in touch whatever....)
Inthemud said…
St Nick, patron saint of Children, women and pawn brokers I believe!
I know what you mean, this does all leave uus with a certain flatness, I get excited and high when I get lots of comments but get down if no one comments. I too need to get out into the fresh air and sometime soon get back to real life.
Un Peu Loufoque said…
ooh tricky one, there are about 12 saints called Nicolas.I think best thing for you is a walk in the sunshine. Turn off the computer, have a warm bath and an early night with a mug of camomile tea and lavendar on the pillow.
Suffolkmum said…
Gosh, HOTH, we have alot in common too. I got a psychic moment reading your blog! I have the same problem - and it definitely is a problem - I could've written that, but there you go, you did it far better than I could have done! I so know what you mean about being swamped by information and then being compelled to read it all. After a long day on-line I can hardly sleep - and it is so daunting thinking of all that talent out there ...
Well it was at least therapeutic for me to read this, so thanks! (I also love France and Italy and have spent a lot of time in both places!)
Suffolkmum said…
Sorry, me again, meant to say - lots of mediums in my family too - that extra thin skin must be genetic.
Carah Boden said…
Hi SM, it's fun finding the people you can really connect with isn't it. I had a feeling you were one of them...

Wish I could have a hide like a rhinocerous though. Would make life so much easier.
toady said…
Hi, take a nice walk across your grass in bare feet. There are some very talented writers on here but don't let it put you off. Dip in and out it's not compulsory. Toady
Inthemud said…
Hi , Thanks for your comments, there is something special about the old cars, the smell too!

I'm nr Billingshurst, so not far from Arundel, go that way quite a bit.
know exactly what you mean about the overload and sometimes feel it is all too frantic and loud (I am not good with noise). The funny thing is that just before i read your blog i had been reading your profile and thinking how interesting you sounded and how dull mine is. so you see we are all at it!
my husband has accustomed himself to my version of hypersenstivity. I think i am quite calm myself, it is just that he is the master of the non-response.
Pipany said…
Yes, here's yet another one saying how similar we sound, HOTH - VERY thin skin, overly-sensitive to emotions around me, white witches on one side and Romany blood on other, lots of psychic experiences in family, panic if don't read all blogs and worse if no comments as see this as confirmation that what I write is crap even though I know we can't all keep going at this pace....shall I go on? BUT - I think you write really well and I like the fact that you eventually know who you gel with (it's late and I'm rambling...!) Keep on blogging, but when you feel like it xx
Kitty said…
I'm having information overload just trying to read all the blogs, don't want to miss anything but have spent all morning puprle COoing and am only halfway down the list! Bye bye Monday.
Woozle1967 said…
You've said it all - and I think from the other comments on here that you'll see we all feel the same at some point! Great to be "normal" isn't it? J and I work the Bakewell Show in August and stay at Monsal Head. We love it up there. Keep sharing your life - I love reading about it. I am a people watcher/listener/whatever, and being in the countryside (as wonderful as it is) can be lonely, and this is the benefit of these kind of sites - opening our lives to each other.xx PS, my nan had certain "abilities" and years ago I was told by a medium that the gift would pass to me. I am still waiting..... but, like you, am sensitive so maybe that's what she meant? Who knows?xx
countrymousie said…
Heck - only just found your blog - lost in the midst of bloggers. I have all sorts of sensitivity problems - over sensitive hearing -huge problem as you can imagine - I hear people in other rooms - their conversations - the ENT consultant has a wife with the same problem so at least he was sympathetic. I am known as a white witch in the family - mum and grandmother the same. Have found many like minded people at Purplecoo, so less isolated now. I drive poo GOH up the wall as you will know.

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