Feb 13
25
I’m having a teary eyed moment as I write this post. An old friend of mine made a decision to have his chronically ill fifteen year old dog put to sleep today and I’m feeling a deep empathy with his sorrow. I know he loved his dog and that for the past decade and a half, that dog has been his best friend and constant living companion. I am really quite upset, even more so for thinking about it again.
Here’s the weird part. I haven’t seen this friend since I was in high school. Back then, gangs of us would crash into each other at punk gigs in bars that didn’t ask for ID. I’m not sure I was ever sober when I did see him, come to think of it. We were an angry tribe of suburban youth and though I haven’t seen this person in person for a quarter century, I’m really upset right now because I know he is really upset right now.
I am almost always a very rational person and feeling this upset about an old friend’s loss of a dog hardly seems a rational thing. On the surface anyway…
Looking a bit deeper, I realize I’m reacting for three unique reasons. The first is affinity. The second is relational. The third is communal. I also realize that those reasons amply explain the enormous success of social media applications that let people share.
This person and I grew up in different parts of the west end of Toronto. Like most self-identified punks of our generation, we were hardened little street thugs with a strong sense of positive social values. We were the nicest bad kids ever, attracted to a counter-culture built on playing fair, being honest, making music, and drinking beer. That’s all we needed to have in common back then to feel a continued affinity with each other twenty five years later.
I can relate to this person. We’re about the same age and I live with a cat named Hypertext who has been my constant companion for nine years. I’ve recently thought about her health and how I would feel if/when the inevitable happens. I am likely transferring my own anticipation of lose on a very real one currently being experienced by my friend. The friend for whom I have an affinity even though I haven’t seen him in twenty five years.
I am feeling an affinity for a person whose experience is similar to one I anticipate having myself in five to ten years, and I’m doing it in a public place. I am among others who are also expressing their feelings for this person in the same public place. For a short time, we are a community relying on each others words and ideas to fill in spaces our own words or ideas have left empty. We are sharing the same experience with this old friend in real time and that real time experience amplifies and defines our relationship with our own feelings. I’m not suggesting they are less valid in any way. Indeed, they might just be closer to our real cores than the closeted facades all of us tend to wear in public. The communal experience allows us the space to stop, think, emphasize, and share our feelings with that person and each other.
There are several marketing messages in this piece, none of which I’m gauche enough to expand on further. I am, after all, writing about my relationship with someone else and their sorrow over the loss of a dear companion. But I’m feeling it, much deeper than I expected to or really want to. Therein lies a wealth of human nature.
Jim Hedger
Jim Hedger is an organic SEO and digital marketing specialist. Jim has been involved in the online marketing industry since 1998 and a SEO since 1999. Best known as a broadcaster, interviewer, content writer and search industry commentator, Jim is a frequent conference speaker and organizer. He hosts the search focused radio show Webcology on WebmasterRadio.FM and is a WebmasterRadio.FM conference interviewer. Jim brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, passion and creative thinking to each project. Preferring a teamwork approach, Jim strives to inform and train his clients and their staff to run and maintain their own search and social media efforts.
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