There are various aspects of my personality that are quite distinct
from most people, though as I know so few people these days it can
be an easy thing to forget. One is a strong aversion to crowds and
groups in general. This seems to apply equally to what I do online
as it does to real life, though I'm not entirely sure if it's for
the same reason.
I do like interacting with others in many contexts, and even
working with people (though mainly with more physical tasks). But
there's a critical mass, a number of other people, above which I'm
simply repulsed by them, by their group, their hurd. It may be a
simple matter of control, that the more people are in a hurd the
more difficult it becomes to influence it, while its power to
influence you gets stronger. It's not simply a case of being told
what to do, I don't mind that at all so long as the authority and
responsibility is clear and set in stone (unfortunately it rarely
is to the degree that would make me comfortable), it's that I
should personally want to serve the hurd. It's a fear that I've
talked about before, of the hurd shaping my own opinions, often
bypassing the cold reasoning that I use to form them on my own.
In real life this is realised quite physically. Basically if I see
a large group moving in one direction, I'm often greatly inclined
to go the other way. A memorable manifestation of this was during a
shool trip to Melbourne (the photos that I tool back then actually
look a little dated now, which shows how time is marching on),
where at one stage we were let loose to explore the CBD in our own
little groups. Though I was with some friends, the need to separate
from the hurd grew increasingly strong. I kept making excuses to
leave them, sort-of hoping to lose them. It ended up fairly silly
in the picture that I remember of it, with me shadowing them from
the other side of the road. But as much as I was aware that my
behaviour was illogical, and as I remember it I was getting on with
them as well as I ever did, staying with them just didn't feel
right.
I don't remember exactly how many people were in that little hurd,
probably only five or so, actually I barely remember them at all,
but to the question of how many other people I can cope with being
in a group/hurd setting with, I don't really know. I think it's
quite possibly just one other person. Above that I can either
clearly dominate or be subservient, but if it's an environment of
shared responsibility then I just want to run away. Not that the
hurd needs to be responsible for anything important, indeed that
would normally lead to some sort of leadership structure forming
(though often not rigid enough for me).
This doesn't seem like it should apply directly to my interactions
with strangers on the internet. Certainly there the number of
others who I can cope with greatly exceeds one. But then I have
always favoured slow, low traffic, forums. Hence once I found
Usenet in its dying, many would say already dead, days it was a
natural habitat for me. Much more recently, Gopher has become a
similar case, and though I feel like I would welcome more feedback
here maybe that wouldn't really be to my benefit?
It might be quite different though. I do feel with very active
online discussion forums/platforms that it's a burden to keep up
with all the discussion. It is often frustrating to post something,
then come back the next day to find the discussion mutated quite
away from your point, which itself remains unadressed because you
weren't there to respond within the first few replies. Maybe both
cases are just evidence that I'm a control freak, a defeatest one
who would rather not have anybody to control than be unable to
control the people who he knows. But hey what's wrong with that
anyway?
To be honest this post was going to go in quite a different
direction except that one paragraphs ago I ran out of time to
finish it in the morning, and coming back now in the evening I feel
a bit different about the whole topic. It is a fickle sort of self
analysis that can't even support itself for the duration of one
day. Right now I'm much less apologetic - I would pride myself in
deliberately avoiding any hurd. It follows the average of human
thought, the core biases of instinct and emotion. One should avoid
it, or else perhaps even use it. Of course many human hurds are
directed by other interests: business, political, social. Hurds
direct other hurds. Like cattle hurding cattle. All quite
determined and purposeful yet of little intellectual separation -
idiots priding themselves on their domination of idiots, while
taking equal pride in their subservience to other idiots. Why would
I choose to involve myself in such a whirlpool of lunacy?
