Kodachrome you give us those nice, bright colors, bring us the greens of summer, make us think all the world's a sunny day, oh, my!

My online persona is who I am, now, after life has worn away the edges. It's who I want to be in the eyes of others, someone with value who is more than the sum of his parts, the product of his past, the quotient of his halves...the person in real life is a very lonely, very low, and an utterly despised shadow of himself. That person hides behind a carefully-wrought veil of dissimulation, half-truths, and subtle misdirection through verbal cues.

Here, online, the inner child gets to come out and whatever tattered scrap of light that remains within can burst forth in all of its compassionate and kindly glory. Here, online, I no longer need to wear the heavy plates of sin-blackened steel, I do not have to isolate, and I believe I am closer to the truer sense of sober and responsible freedom.

Does this need to hide on some level behind the anonymity of the internet just to function at the most basic level of existence so as not to be completely cut off from all human contact indicate some form of necessary psychopathy, then?

And yet...does this not also increase the collective sense of loneliness? I cannot touch or be touched through a computer screen save through the power of the words I craft in strings like a hedge wizard crafts magic formulæ, and that physical touch, or lack thereof, renders everything in shades of gray instead of color because I cannot be comforted by the light of the monitor, except in the most temporal, shallow way possible.

To deny any portion's existence, therefore, is to not truly be known, and it is only when we are truly known by another human being, that the magical alchemy of compassion and spiritual healing can begin because we measure our worth, for better or worse, through the eyes of others.

Eyes are windows to the soul, and when we look into the eyes of another, we're not seeing their soul, but a reflection of our own, and that is why we seek mercy. The eyes that mirror ours and reveal to us our own soul can reflect back either warmly or coldly, healing or destroying with a glance. Such an act cannot be done through the medium of the interwebz, and that is why, no matter how much I connect to others by the light of my computer screen, it nevertheless leaves me lonelier than ever, and more keenly aware of my exile.

It's a far gone lullaby, sung many years ago/
Mama, mama many worlds I've come since i first left home...