If a valid feeling is found...

the sentence is said to represent one person who feels that way.

That sentence comes from a great essay by Nell Boeschenstein that Miss tail just forwarded to me. It's ostensibly (I think) about permission to use pieces of information supplied by people about themselves in a context those people weren't aware of. I'm pretty sure Miss T. sent it to me though because we (she and I) have been having an on-going set of conversations about what happens when virtual people meet reality people - whether or not the (practically guaranteed) dissonance between the attachments a person is capable of forming on-line versus the attachments one is capable of forming in "the real world" creates more of a barrier than a bridge to an on-going relationship which is also explored in the piece. The thing is, I read the article and thought "Awesome. This is a well reasoned, insightful, interesting story that seems pretty in line with some things i think about 'all of that stuff'" BUT then I went to the website mentioned in the article and i have to say. i was surprised/amazed by how beautiful it is. I mean, yes, it's clearly an "experiment" but it's also such an absolutely captivating rendering of a nuanced idea, I'm sort of blown away. Sentiment used to service art. Not all that different than other "great" artists dragging their subjects out of context to present them to the public as "depictions" rather than living people. Now i'm re-reading the article because i'm not sure I agree anymore with what i think the author is saying. i'm re-reading it however because i'm a big ole girl and I want to "give the author a chance" to prove that it is I who missed something in the initial reading and that we are, in fact still on-the-same-page vis a vis me thinking she's brilliant/on to something. Honestly, I don't even know this person but I'm somehow worried I'll hurt her feelings if I change my mind about her extraordinary insight! Humans are weird.