In August of 1993, when I knew my marriage was ending and I felt tremendously alone, I discovered a world outside my physical environment when I first logged on to AOL. In those heady days, online chat was new and appropriately tagged as "electronic crack" by at least one writer -- a term I see from Google has now been applied to all manner of things electronic. Anyway, AOL, as subject to jeers and sneers as it has been, became a doorway for me into a much larger world than the one bounded by the misery of my dying marriage and my fears about what my life would become. I made friends, some of which I remain in touch with, I found the man I am now married to, learned of books that would appeal to me, had a chance to see the world through others' eyes. The process of divorce was no less painful but the world I discovered through AOL offered me new ideas about where my life could go, people in similar life positions I could talk to.
I remember sometime in those first years reading a piece in the NY Times in which the writer talked of being able to go online in the middle of the night when he was wracked with worry about his very ill daughter and he could find other parents like him who could console, commiserate and befriend him. He talked of the night filled with stories being sent out into the vastness of cyberspace by others like him who had a need to make contact with someone who would listen. I love that image of the night filled with stories, with narratives from which we humans shape our lives and find meaning.
Online chat stopped enchanting me almost a decade ago. But online community never paled for me and continues to occupy an important place in my life. And is something I think about fairly often.
Before Amazon, ordinary readers like us had no public space in which we could offer our critical opinions about books. Letters to the editor have been a feature of newspapers for decades and more, but few of us had our letters published, unlike now when I can add my comment to articles online in a host of publications. And ordinary politically engaged citizens now have places in which to make their opinions, desires, and support known. And while there is no arguing with the reality that we are bombarded with information and advertising more and more, we also have this increased opportunity to participate in a larger world in a meaningful way.
What brings this to mind today and in this context, i.e. looking at it from a psychological and ultimately Jungian standpoint, is a phenomenon in the knitting world which I am observing as well as participating in. For centuries knitting has had a community aspect to it -- women have no doubt gathered to knit together for as long as there have been women knitting. But the opportunities in the digital universe have vastly expanded the community aspect of knitting. One week ago, a knitter who has designed lace stoles announced the launching of her third Mystery Stole knit-along, in which knitters who subscribe to the email group will get a clue a week and knit a lace stole, more or less together. Since the announcement, over 1600 knitters, mostly women, from some 16 or so countries have signed up and even before the sending of the first clue, which happens in 2 weeks, have exchanged almost 1000 emails! So I ask myself what this means? What is it that draws us into these vast communities?
I am certain that there are other similarly engaging active interest oriented communities which thrive in this digital environment, but knitting is the one I know best. Starting with the KnitList, an immense email group on Yahoo, knitters have been connecting through email, blogs, and discussion groups. I was drawn in initially to the KnitList because it felt to me like I was sitting in a huge kitchen with my tea and my knitting having the opportunity to talk with all kinds of knitters. I could learn new techniques, find new sources for yarn and best of all have the opportunity to share in the lives of dozens and dozens of women. For an introvert like me, this was and is a kind of paradise as i could get some of my needs for relationship met in an environment in which I am extremely comfortable, on my schedule and in my comfy house.
Sociologists are busy studying social networks and virtual communities. But I am as yet unaware of any Jungians considering what this all means and how it speaks to the process of individuation. And this is what I want to think and write about from time to time in the weeks ahead. See, there really is a connection between the two parts of Jung At Heart!