Hello; The Virtual World

Keeping it real in a virtual world

I am the least ‘virtual’ person I know, I have spent most of the past 20 years trying to just stay below the radar and get on with my life without recall to the frustration of operating within other people’s structures.

I have always been rather bemused at the need for people, who have virtually no life to speak of, then developing platforms to misrepresent themselves and start knitting other lives equally irrelevant.  Perhaps, I concluded, it allows them to dream and I am fully supportive of that. So I have lived below the smog of people posting what they had for lunch, when they went to the toilet and whatever else they think may enlighten the rest of their virtual buddies.  I know it exists because almost everyone I know is somewhere in the net promoting their work, themselves, their opinions or throwing their wishes out to the universe to see what comes back on its tide.

The movement of information through our universe has always intrigued me; I know the names of soap opera characters although I have never watched a moment of the show they are in. I know there is a virtual world of ecommerce, friendship, problem solving, recruitment to one cause or another and I love the ability to get out what you are doing and find the millions of other people on the net who share your particular interest.  I love that you can make a dress in Oldham in the morning and potentially people on every continent of the globe can be looking at it and giving feedback by the afternoon.

After years of rejecting requests to join bebo, MySpace, Youtube, Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and the countless others that have been, gone or remain I decided yesterday it was time to enter the virtual world because The Design and Sewing Studio has to be both fantastic, and part of the big beautiful world. In 2014 that means social media and the wonderful world wide web. Within about six hours I had a twitter account, a linked-in account, a Pinterest account, a blog and a web site, well actually two web sites, one the holding page under The Design and Sewing Studio and the other a test site where I am building the main site to go live in a few weeks.

My mind is officially a little bit blown!!!!

Okay so I think I will very quickly learn to love the virtual world but I do have to base it in some kind or reality, because that is what I enjoy.  I like to drink tea and share cake with my friends, I like to shake hands with the people I do business with, I like to hug people when I get very excited about a new idea and the energy around it bubbles up inside me, I like to walk round a room to view a canvas from lots of different angles or to crumple the fabric of a garment in my hand and see what it does as I release the pressure, I like my make-believe to be exposed for just that because if I pretend it is real it renders it worthless; I am very definitely not a virtual person…so how to ensure the virtual presence I am now building retains as much as possible of the pleasure of reality that I so enjoy……I will ponder it.

I wish…. to step into the virtual world only to the degree that compliments my flesh-and-bone life.