"FOUNTAIN OF SORROW, FOUNTAIN OF LIGHT:" TWO REFLECTIONS

I. Fountain of Sorrow

“What have we gained and what have we lost?” is an apt analysis of the effects of the (literally) amazing technologies introduced in our day – and of the products of technological evolution and revolution throughout history. (A sonnet by the Welsh poet R.S. Thomas describes the labor-saving productivity of the newly-introduced tractor while lamenting how the roar of its motor shuts out the melody of the birds singing from the trees at the edge of the field, “bills wide in vain.”)

This gain-loss paradox occurred to me recently when a friend e-mailed regarding the new “Auto Awesome” photo enhancement app from Google. Auto Awesome apparently relieves the exhausted photographer of the task of rifling through all his photos, and digitally (instantly) produces a montage of pictures in which (for example) everyone is smiling.

Another friend commented that such a technology could well lead to a “brave new world in which everyone is smiling in every photo.” And, he added, “Jackson Browne could never have written the first verse to ‘Fountain of Sorrow’ in such a world.”

Here’s that verse:

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer,
I was taken by a photograph of you.
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more,
But they didn't show your spirit quite as true:

You were turning 'round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise;
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you,
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes.

I almost wept at this reading. Okay, I did weep. For one thing, “Fountain of Sorrow” has long been a favorite song, by the organically poetic Jackson Browne; for another, my friend spoke the lamentable truth: A “trace of sorrow” in a photographic image would be so easily edited out by the digital wonders of “Auto Awesome.”

What have we gained? And what have we lost?


II. Fountain of Light

Here’s a “gain:” E-mail. My friends Jeff and Warren and I—a friendship that reaches back fifty years—have an ongoing e-mail conversation. Sometimes we’ll go a week or two without picking up the thread, but no longer. The main reason I think e-mail is a gain is that I have come to believe that it actually allows for more depth and intimacy than a phone call. (Two exceptions: 1] Of course two lovers may find a ninety-minute phone call – spanning the miles that separate them – to be more intimate than e-mail. 2] E-mail has it’s dangers, especially when used to vent disagreements that are better talked out in person.)

In fact, it was in one of these e-conversations that Warren introduced us to Google’s Auto Awesome technology (see above), and Jeff replied with the reference to Jackson Browne. (My contribution was to steal their observations for this blog post.)

Our exchange caused me to visit again the whole of “Fountain of Sorrow,” a song I have never tired of. (The Canadians think that Leonard Cohen should win the Nobel Prize for poetry—and, what the heck, he’d have my vote; Jackson Browne is in the same league, that is, not a serious contender for a literary poetry prize, but a sublime creator of words and music with real meaning—real heart.)

But my favorite lines in “Fountain of Sorrow”—lines that I have felt deeply about since I heard them forty years ago—are not the profoundly revealing opening lines to which Jeff referred, but these, the very last lines of the song:

You could be laughing at me, you've got the right,
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright.

These lines have always spoken to me of friendship, love, acceptance—even gospel. They are indicative of what I receive from those who love me. (Remember, friends, the people who really love you do so in spite of who you are as much as because of who you are.) They could laugh – they smile.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, Warren and Jeff laugh at me plenty—in e-mail and in person. But, boy, do they smile. It’s what makes our ongoing e-mail—for me—a “fountain of light.”

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Here’s the song: Jackson Browne on “Austin City Limits.”     

A FRIEND REQUEST FROM GRANDPA

I have, of late, had a recurring vision. It is of an old man in a remote cottage, at his desk with a ham radio, sending messages into the night to his fellow radio operators. Except, I think, it is not a ham radio, but a computer, and he’s writing on Facebook.

The meaning of this vision for me is that, in spite of the important controversies plaguing Facebook,* it really is a superb (and still-developing) means by which people can communicate with one another. This may strike the reader as an understatement, but the epiphanic part of my vision is that, beyond posted photos of youthful drunkenness and minute-by-minute reports of children’s cuteness and what one had for lunch, Facebook – and whatever it evolves into – will certainly become a meaningful connection with the world - and, more to the point, with friends old and new - for the elderly and isolated.

Although people in both generations have wondered if “the parents” should get involved with Facebook (thus somehow invading the turf of the young and diminishing the cool factor), it is fast becoming as commonplace as the telephone. The use of the telephone, too, is part of my new Facebook revelation. Until recently, I supposed that the phone would be preferable to all other distant-communication technologies because, after all, you can speak directly to another human being. I’ve come to believe, however, that Facebook (and e-mail, too) offer more depth of communication – on an ongoing basis – than the telephone. Of course there are exceptions – a forty-five minute phone conversation between two people in love is undoubtedly more intimate than a series of e-mails, and it will always be good to hear the voice of an old friend. But a phone call, even with a good friend, will always come to that “er... uh... well, den….” moment (not to mention the delay and over-talking that happens with long-distance and cell calls – what’s that all about?); a similar juncture in an e-mail or Facebook message is an opportunity for more thought, or to go on to the next point. In that regard, an e-mail or Facebook message is more like an old-fashioned letter (and I mean old-fashioned – from the days when the letter was it), than it is like a telephone call. (Although it does seem odd to crow about a progression that goes from the spoken back to the written word.**)

I want to emphasize that I am speaking of e-mail or Facebook messages that go beyond the trivial; what I have in mind are little essays of communication, again, like letters. (When I get an e-mail from a friend, I’m disappointed if it’s brief. Am I running against the tide?) This is not to say that there is not an appropriate place for the quickly-dashed Facebook report, even from the old guy in the little cottage. (I just posted, “Hey, we get to fill our krumkake tubes with whipped cream on Christmas Eve!”) I guess my point is that the combination of off-hand quips and weightier conversation that the Facebook/e-mail medium makes possible offers a sense of connectedness that, while no match for sitting across a pub table with someone, has something of the immediate feel of real communication. It has the sense of keeping you connected.


OK, I’ll say it, maybe I’m thinking of either Caryl or myself alone -- widowed. It seems that Facebook and e-mail would go a long way toward enhancing the quality of life of the elderly – especially the isolated elderly. So I'm not talking about an amazed, “Hey, Granny’s on Facebook!” but, rather, “Geez, Granny’s on Facebook all the time – she uses it more than I do!"


Studies show that the home-bound elderly receive, on average, one visit per month – from anybody. Facebook and e-mail can reach into that void with real depth of communication, and, all right, maybe even a report every-once-in-a-while – between old friends – of what one had for lunch, or a posted picture of a cute grandkid.

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*Issues of privacy and “tricky” advertising are very important and need to be addressed with more urgency than they have been so far; thus, my endorsement of Facebook is not without hesitation.

**Tim Wu, in his new book, “The Master Switch,” reports that when the telephone was invented, the telegraph magnates laughed and said, “Well, maybe it can be used to tell someone that they have a telegram waiting.” Later, they tried to kill the new technology.

What happens when all those aging computer users start to forget all those passwords and user names, stranding all that information on their hard-drives or in the ether? Another issue for another time.

 I also opined on Facebook in this earlier blog post.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS WEATHER?... AND THE QUADRATIC RECIPROCITY THEOREM?

A recent study (as reported in this New York Times article) indicates that the more we engage in conversations of some length and depth (what the study calls “substantive” conversations) the happier we are, and that people whose social interaction is heavily weighted toward “small talk” are less happy. According to the article, the study doesn’t answer the obvious question: Is it that happy people engage in deep conversations, or that deep conversations make us happy? (That, apparently, is the subject of some follow-up research.)

In a BBC interview, the author of the study acknowledged that healthy-minded people certainly engage in conversation at both levels, but that small talk for those in the happy group is probably limited to about 10% of interactive time – kind of like “How ‘bout them Yankees?” at the beginning of a cocktail party discussion before entering deeply into a twenty-minute tete-a-tete on the relationship between the current value of the Euro and the New York Stock Exchange.

Although my example sounds flippant, my intention is not to mock. I am one who hungers for conversation, and I find this research encouraging (though I am happy to report that the study comes to no apparent conclusion about the importance of the deep conversationalists knowing what they’re talking about!).

Interestingly, the study doesn’t delve into its application to new social networks like Facebook, etc., but it certainly hints at some logical conclusions: I enjoy – to a degree – the clipped and often witty Facebook exchanges between and among dozens of friends – including (though to a lesser extent) friends of friends. They even elicit witty repartee from me. But this kind of interchange seems to have a built-in fatigue trigger – after a while it’s literally no fun. With close and long-time friends, I switch to e-mail or telephone and – although they must speak for themselves – I’ve never received an e-mail from a friend that I thought was too long. I contend that a multi-day braided e-mail conversation among three friends discussing a subject at some depth approaches the same kind (though surely not the same degree) of fulfillment as a lengthy confab over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. (I’m not the only one who may be a challenging Facebook friend because of the difficulty of keeping those short “comments” from turning into something like little essays.) As an old friend said in an initial Facebook exchange: “Hey, this is just like e-mail – only less convenient!”

At the risk of damning with faint praise, Facebook has its place -- and I'm increasingly glad to be part of it. When you think about it, Facebook is almost a literal (and, I think, positive) response to John Updike’s existential invitation: “We are all so curiously alone, but it’s important that we keep making signals through the glass,” so I do not conclude (from this study) that happy people are on e-mail and unhappy people are on Facebook. I conclude, rather, that too much Facebook (or Twitter, or “how ‘bout them Yankees” or People Magazine) can bring you down. (One can quibble with the exact figure, but 10% sounds about right.) Like the couch potato (in me) who needs to get out into the sun, the Facebooker (in all of us) needs to "hie thee to a coffee shop" and have a good old-fashioned bull session.

(I'd love to hear your views on this.  Maybe on Facebook!)