The idea of me writing a blog was first justified by myself as an excuse to write, and if I worked to a weekly mandate it would be elevated from an excuse to a reason to. But the more time I have spent thinking about what I would write or what format this blog would take, I have realised that writing for writings sake is not my sole reason. It is also to finally encourage my own participation in the internet, which has long been for me a passive environment which allows me to mine entertainment, education and information. In the safest way I can imagine, on my own terms.

While I have always appreciated what the internet has done as far as opening avenues to all walks of life, culture and opinions as well as its ability to build communities otherwise impossible, it is a world I have always been cautious of. One that I am much more comfortable to enjoy the fruits of without my own participation.

I used to frequent websites such as Reddit, and just observe all the posts and conversations, never participating for fear of being compartmentalised into a fan of property X or a proponent of philosophy Y. The format of such websites and their communities seemed to me to distil people down to venn diagrams of likes, hobbies and opinions.

I stopped visiting these websites at all in the end, as I found it stole from conversations I would have with real life, real human friends. News brought to me by a friend lacked the excitement it should hold as I had already read the same article as him. Conversations lacked their muster as our opinions and perspectives could be attached to any number of the hundreds or so participating in a conversation online. Knowing that hundreds of people online share my opinions of the world did not bring a warm sense of comradery, but rather diminished my opinions, making me doubt whether they were truly my own to begin with.

I spent the last few years as detached from the internet as possible, as true an observer as I could be. Picking my entertainment and abstaining myself from even reading conversations and comments, let alone participating in them. Life was my place to engage humanity and enjoy their company, while the internet became my entertainment catalogue, never mind the billions of humans living inside it.

This approach applied to video games too, with little want to engage with the multiplayer side of things. Even when I did, I did not engage any more than what was required, unless it was with friends. Everyone might as well have just been well programmed bots in my head.

The internet is a giant endless conversation, one I don’t take part in due to my abstention from forums and social media that sometimes spits out entertainment for me to enjoy. Of late, this has me feel uncomfortable, like a voyeur, watching the internet through the keyhole. I caught myself in the mirror, it is a strange image, and made me realise I am still a participant in it.

It is impossible to be solely an observer as with each article, video or song I grab takes note of my presence, my experience of it, and adds it to its metrics. How many times I listen to a song or frequent a website builds an understanding to both its authors and its audience as to how popular it is. What I feared would happen from jumping into those online debates is happening to an even greater degree by my silence. Data piles up in the cloud that could be compiled to condense me to a pie chart, where I am 62% video games, 35% music and 3% pizza.

Of course I could ignore this and keep looking through the keyhole, but I keep thinking about the mirror down the hall. More and more I just want to knock on the door and sheepishly ask if I can come in. So that is what I am doing now, from this position of authority, a blog, that now throws the onus onto you, the reader, to consume it or engage with it as much or as little as you want.

My intention with this blog ‘series’ is to write in relation to a different piece of work each time. To begin, I have done so with ‘The Corridor’ by Thom Gunn, which you can read below.

The Corridor

A separate place between the thought and felt

The empty hotel corridor was dark.

But here the keyhole shone, a meaning spark.

What fires were latent in it! So he knelt.

Now at the corridor’s much lighter end,

A pierglass hung upon the wall and showed,

As by an easily decyphered code,

Dark, door, and man, hooped by a single band.

He squinted through the keyhole, and within

Surveyed an act of love that frank as air

He was too ugly for, or could not dare,

Or at crucial moment thought a sin.

Pleasure was simple thus: he mastered it.

If one he acted as participant

He would be mastered, the inhabitant

Of someone else’s world, mere shred to fit.

He moved himself to get a better look

And then it was he noticed in the glass

Two strange eyes in a fascinated face

That watched him like a picture in a book.

The instant drove simplicity away-

The scene was altered, it depended upon

His kneeling, when he rose they were clean gone

The couple in the keyhole; this would stay.

For if the watcher of the watcher shown

There in the distant glass, should be watched too,

Who can be master, free of others; who

Can look around and say he is alone?

Moreover, who can know that what he sees

Is not distorted, that he is not seen

Distorted by a pierglass, curved and lean?

Those curious eyes, through him, were linked to

these-

These lovers altered in the cornea’s bend.

What could he do but leave the keyhole, rise,

Holding those eyes as equal in his eyes,

And go, one hand held out, to meet a friend?

(Gunn, T. 1955. The Corridor. Poetry Magazine. June 1955. pp.137-139)