Core To Core

How is it that we grieve so deeply for blippers we follow when they pass away and whom we have hardly or, often, never met in person?

We may think it a modern, technology-enabled paradox but it has an historical precedent in pen pals who never met during long years of correspondence due to insuperable geographical distances and/or restricted economic means. Do you remember the book and film ’84 Charing Cross Road’ by Helene Hanff?

My opening question, I think, is worthy of an attempt to answer on, this, my eighth anniversary of blipping.

I believe it is because this place encourages people to expose their core essence and to touch the core essence of others - we share (or can't help revealing) what we are all about. We see each other's most open, fully-activated and best selves. The power of that exchange forges bonds that prosper without need for physical acquaintance and when someone passes, then the pain of the empty comment box is both acute and chronic.

I have experienced this loss vividly twice here, with the passing of Chaiselongue and, more recently, Gillipaw. I remember telling someone in Ireland the day after Gillipaw died that I had lost a very good friend . . . whom I had met only once. They looked at me and tried to understand but it was beyond their ability to grasp - they would have had to be fellow blippers to do so.

What a treasure we have here, one mined from our very cores. May we love and grieve - they go hand in hand - in this place forever!