So i said that i watched something that made me think about The Night Listener again and that thing was a lecture by Jonathan Harris which was about connecting people and their stories, i'll put the link at the bottom if you're interested.
The first thing he talked about has been around since about 2007 though i've never heard of it but it was all amazing. Possibly a bit too anglophonic but such a lovely idea. It is a program called We Feel Fine and it searches the world's blogs for the phrase "i feel..." and it stores all the data of what people are feeling and what they are blogging about (apparently it logs about 20,000 people a day) then it can find where you are through your IP address and can tell you what the weather is like there. You can then go and search for certain characteristics like women in their thirties who feel melancholy whilst it is sunny in Kosovo, if that's what you would like. The way i'm expressing it seems to make it sound much more like a device that stalks you and helps you stalk people than when Jonathan described it but really i think it is beautiful. Maybe i should let Jonathan know, i'm sure he checks the data sometimes as he seemed really interested in people's stories so here goes; Jonathan i feel like your We Feel Fine program is absolutely lovely, it makes me feel that i am on the road meeting new people each with a story to tell, jumping in and out of their lives like Jack Kerouac.
People ask me why i blog rather write a diary if i don't tell people the url and this is my new fantastic reason. You can even click on each quote and it will take you to that person's blog - he talked about clicking on the blog if you felt empathy for the person which just makes him an even more beautiful human - and i like that people who feel the same or feel they can help can get in contact. Some people seem to think that the internet is massive and frightening but to me it is a warm cuddle of compassion.
On to the actual link with the last post then. What is so lovely about all of this is that it is passive. It has been around since 2007 and i have not heard of it, which means every time i have blogged "i feel..." i have not known that there was an audience and this must be true for the vast majority of bloggers. It shows people as they are being honest and candid and so gives true feelings and true stories, especially if, like me, people are writing without an audience or rather without catering for an audience. This got me thinking that this was a better thing to engage with than a soap. If people like real life stories ( i am still not sure why this is but i know that On The Road would not be so sublime if i thought it was made up (if it is please don't tell me i just refuse to research it in case my heart is broken)), as i was saying, if people like real stories then they should follow We Feel Fine because there is no end to what you can find out, you can just keep reading, television, films and novels are finite in a way this isn't and this is all true (which is apparently what we want). However exciting metafiction can be - like the release of a real Nikki Heat book from the fictional television show Castle - it can never trump real life with all its intricacies and magnificence.
Jonathan then talked about how the night sky is filled with constellations that are named after Greek myths and what stories we would have in the sky if we named the constellations. i had never really thought of the stars like that, as stories playing out across the sky. i don't know the constellations but i now feel driven to know them and go back to Zambia where the sky was darkest and the stars were brightest and just gaze up and watch myths all night long...i wish i was there right now in the silence of the Zambian night. He then talked about a program that tracked the world's media and the internet and made constellations through the stories and the words that were being used, i can't explain it like he did, if you like the ideas maybe have a look at the link at the bottom, but what i liked most about that was the fact you could put anything at the centre of the universe. and all the words, all the news stories, all the photos that were related to that swirled around it like cinnamon into coffee and you could get an absolute picture of anything you wanted. This made me happy. i want you to look at it and start lots of blog sentences with i feel, so we can all feel together.
Here is the treasured link, if you forward anything today forward this link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_harris_tells_the_web_s_secret_stories.html .
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