Finding You Are Not Alone - The Best Reason for Reading or Using the Internet

Someone once said that we read to find we are not alone - and we surely use the Internet for the same reason - to discover there are people with the same interests out there - among the many other reasons why we surf the Net.

Our thoughts are ours alone - they may originate elsewhere - from a TV show we watched last night - from a book we just read - a conversation we just had, but they are essentially ours - they exist in our own heads - and nowhere else in quite the same form.

If we want to know if there is anyone else with similar thoughts, we must either read, or talk and listen. We read newspapers for news of the day and in reading that news, we find our own thoughts and views confirmed or questioned. If we find that one particular newspaper expresses views that invariably contradict our own, we change to one whose views go along with our own - we shouldn't necessarily, but we usually do.

Finding out we are not alone in the world is what we do most - we communicate. I have taken to writing what I call 'imaginary conversations - no, I'm not going mad - as a way to find out what I know about a particular subject. After writing several of these conversations, I find from the Net that others have done the same - I find they are given a name - Socratic dialogues, and I find that lots and lots of people all over the world are doing the same thing. Where do I find this - on the Internet!

What we know, what we think we know, and what we don't know can all be found by means of dialogue - with others, or in writing. The world offers us few good ways of finding this out.

Visiting websites offers a way of finding out if anyone else has used this way - of using a dialogue - with others, or I writing. The odds are that someone else is doing the same thing that you are - is interested in the same things you are; we are not alone - ever!

But, unless you get out there and write - communicate, you will stay alone. Everyone out there is connected, if they want to be! Connect - communicate - interact - live!