[MD] is-ness

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Marsha]
What I wrote was personal.  True.

[Arlo]
Phatic. This is what we in linguistics call expressions that serve 
social functions, rather than strictly conveying information. And it 
is not "fluff" or "filler" or "unimportant". Phatic expressions 
perform the important task of social cohesion. For how many hours a 
week we spend reading, writing and thinking about posts to the list, 
it is little wonder to me that we also invest a part of our personal 
selves here. I am happy to hear about walkabouts, mentions of kids, 
family, life, work, play, bars, etc. because they are the color to an 
otherwise empty coloring book of characters. Granted, if it were all 
social, perhaps we'd find a more compatible forum interacting with 
people "like us", rather than bucking heads over the elusivity of 
"consciousness". Indeed, it is what likely all drew us into Pirsig's 
narrative, which was not just apersonal philosophy but a deeply 
personal narration that made his philosophy "real", grounded it in 
the daily activity of motorcycle repair, boozing and rotisserie 
assembly. I imagine that everyone on this list has other listies 
they'd call "friend", people they would miss (not just 
intellectually) if they left the forum. And this is a good thing, not 
a bad thing. In this wonderful electronic world of ours no one is 
forced to read everything, we can use simple but sophisticated search 
programs to highlight posts that contain certain words or phrases, or 
even less technological measures such as passing over posts by people 
we've learned don't really pull us in or reading every post by a 
particular contributor. Bottom line... there is no imbalance here 
that I see, share what you wish to share, most receive it in good 
spirit, others can ignore it (or learn to).