I was in Salt Lake’s best used book store, Sam Weller’s, last weekend. They had a whole section of old calendars and date books. I was looking through this section and I was wishing I could find a diary. I wanted to peek into the life of someone. I wanted to take home a handwritten journal that documented the life of a stranger. I wanted to hear their personal thoughts and know their intimate secrets.

At the time, I was clueless. At the time, I was just consumed with finding an interesting document of the thoughts and feelings of an ordinary person. I made absolutely no connection to the weblog phenomena at all. Sifry’s Alerts logged over one million weblogs on September 27^th. There are over one million journals, diaries, calendars and date books online right now, with more every day. Over one million people are out there, crying to be heard.

In the future, technology will be so advanced, that people will go home and want to touch a piece of wood. David Bowie (paraphrased)

Something is wrong with this society. I don’t know what it is, but people are LONELY. I’m not talking the normal loneliness that comes at times. I’m talking about a chronic loneliness that eats away at the soul. People are HUNGRY to talk. It only takes a kind word, a polite nod or a look straight in the eye to start the floodgates. I have been blessed with hearing the stories of many strangers and right now there are over one million more that are begging to talk to me.

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. Ann Landers (1918 – 2002)

I don’t really blame the television. We turn on our televisions and the voices make us think that someone is in the room with us, but those voices aren’t fulfilling the need. They are one-sided and they can’t hear us when we cry. They don’t even have the decency to stop talking when we weep openly. The fact of the matter, however, is that it is us who choose to turn the television on instead of seeking companionship when we are lonely. Are we so out of step with our emotions that we don’t know when to turn off the TV?

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), An Ideal husband, 1893

What is going on in our society? What is different? Was it always like this? Were humans always so lonely that they clung to the stranger who would hear their words? Is loneliness the definition of humanity or is this a new occurrence? My prayer was answered. I found one million journals to read and they are unfolding to me every day. Be careful what you wish for…