A lot of the show focuses on human nature and the impact of technology on the functions of our lives. In one episode, the protagonist loses her husband in a car accident and uses advanced technology that "recreates" loved ones, formulating their personalities based on their internet presence - tweets, facebook posts, e-mails, etc.
The created "humans" are perfect in image and eerily spot-on with personality. But something about them isn't right. One scene has haunted me all weekend - the wife is standing in a hallway, upset about something, and the newly-created husband stares at her, unable to offer the comfort he did when he was alive. She starts beating her fists against his chest and she looks at him and says "you just aren't enough".
And that is wildly true and honestly, stabs me a bit to my core -- who we are behind a computer screen is not enough.
It's not enough to satisfy our needs to be known -- because that IS a need, and one we were created with. And it's not enough of giving ourselves away for other people -- because that IS what we were deisigned to do.
Our world and our fears push us to settle for the shadows of relationships instead of the real deal.
And it's just not cutting it.
It's so easy to THINK that you are being known online. It's easy to feel momentarily part of someone's life when they "like" your life-event, or retweet something you enjoyed, or comment on a photo with a memory you've had.
But what is missing on the internet are those vulnerable moments when your knees crumble and you don't have a second to catch yourself. You're missing the conversations born from pure spontaneity, from emotion and reaction and presence. You miss the beauty of being looked at in the eye, or the sound of someone's breath, or being held when you need that. You miss the awkward misunderstandings and the risk of disagreement. You miss the volume of a laugh or tear-filled eyes or the shampoo-smell of someone's hair when you hug them -- and all of those things are beautiful. They are less easy than being known online, but they are infinitely more good.
You're probably thinking right now is that there is a lot of hypocrisy in this post. Here I am again, behind the curtain of a computer screen across time and space. And yet, I write it all the same because perhaps you are in this boat with me, and I write it because I need you in this.
I need to be reminded that there is a glorious good in being known face-to-face.
That is not easy for me. It feels like this great risk, being transparent when there isn't a zillion miles and an internet connection keeping me at arms length. I simply need to be reminded -- when I struggle to say I'm struggling, and when I put on a happy-face by default, and when I become Interviewer Emily asking a thousand questions to deflect any from being directed my way -- I need to be reminded in my fear that glorious good comes from being real-life known.
It's the only thing that's really enough.
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