Proximity is a determining factor in any relationship. Depending on those involved the effects can be different, but it always matters. The great big Internet is supposed to bring us all closer and make us all local, and it does, to some degree. But in all the ways that it makes the world smaller, it only serves to remind us just how fucking big it is.
While the virtual world can help us all stay close and connected and make the distance between us less important, at some point those virtual connections become real connections. And, if the relationship is strong and good, then we only want nothing more than to make a real connection again and again. But when you continue to do this with people scattered all over the globe with different ties to different places for different reasons, your ability to see any and all of them in that very real sense becomes distinctly, hopelessly, impossible.
Even a subset of the world as small as Dallas Fort Worth (which is REALLY fucking small when you think about the entire world) is HUGE when you factor in such things.
Look at this: my brother is about to get off work and bring his son over to my mom’s house where my other brother is with his two daughters. They are going to spend the evening together. I’ve talked to each of them many times today via Facebook, text message and on the phone. Each of them inviting me and encouraging me to visit. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing I was there too. But that’s an hour away, and an hour back. And, because I wasn’t told until too late, I’ve already got plans on the other side of the world. And when those plans are over, I have more going on in my own backyard.
If were in closer proximity to them, chances are that’s where I’d be tonight.
But “move there” is not the answer. Because, there will be another night, even tonight for instance, where I am “there” with plans and I get invited to something out “here” that I really want to attend. And then it’s the same situation in reverse.
So because of this, there’s a certain “something” between my brother’s and I that will go missing tonight. Something that, in a smaller, less connected world with either be fulfilled or would have never been known about in the first place.
If all of my family and friends lived within 5 miles of one another, my day to day life would be quite different indeed. This is one of the big appeals to country, small town living, and “big city” living and one of the major drawbacks to suburbia and sprawl.
But there’s really nothing we can do. Our lives are enriched by these connections, virtual or otherwise. And even if we long for them to be more “real” more often, that doesn’t discount their value in anyway.
They say that the human mind isn’t really capable of considering or truly acknowledging or feeling a connection to more people than a small village’s worth. And in our first days, that’s all we had — small villages. And this is why now, even when we hear of starving children in Africa, for the most part, we remain unaffected and unmoved. But if those starving children were right next door, or, close friends of ours, the situation would be much different, and we’d be much more active.
Maybe I just need to be more local.