My eldest will enjoy reading this Blog entry. It’s about the joy of electronic information and the catch up opportunities afforded by the Web. Her Godfather got in touch via that well known Social Network site yesterday. Now that was a shock as it must be nigh on twenty years since I last spoke to the Godfather. Well it must be twenty years as I had my first work related mental health episode in 1998 and that’s fourteen years ago.
The thing is I can’t pin down the exact date as I remember meeting up for a beer and a meal and cannot imagine that I would have travelled all the way from the coast for that. No, that get together must have been when we were living in the valleys. It would have still been a jaunt with a thirty six mile round trip, but not as onerous as from where we now live. If it was ‘from the Valleys’; then that dates the catch up at about twenty four years ago. I did try and meet again as I remember the impact that the row of wheelie bins had on me in the street when I called by and how nicely the table was laid when I peeked through the window in the absence of an answer.
The friendship at the time must have been good, as I’m not the type of chap who would pick any old person as a Godfather. I have always seen the duties as quite important. I try to keep in touch with my Goddaughter; and from time to time send a small gift for her daughter. My Goddaughter has a special place in my heart, and I suppose that this is one of those things that can sometimes fall by the wayside when people move away. Our lives are busy and time passes by so quickly. It’s not wholly our fault but we begin to neglect our responsibilities. I certainly neglected mine.
The strange thing is though, that although we are busy we find time online. At a time when there is so much going on, we somehow manage to interact more often and more remotely due to the astonishing advancement of computer systems. We now seem to be better informed. Most of us know what is going on, and what is happening to whom in ‘our village’. That being a social interaction of let’s say one hundred friends and family. Knowledge exchange, sometimes in small sound-bites is one of the big things about Social Networking. The interesting thing is though, that Electronic Social Network systems can have a duality of effect; they can lead to ‘dysfunctionality’ whereby people spend too much time on line and acquire a glut of almost false friends, in many ways like some form of trophy hunting, while paradoxically they can bring people back together. The Godfather still plays Chess whereas I don’t. Maybe if we ever move back to South Wales I can settle down with a beer or a glass of wine and play a game. Better still, maybe if Jeffers visits the Principality I can arrange an international. It could be billed; ‘the Godfather versus the African’, two friends who are Continents apart. But due to Social Networking I can now contact either at any time.
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