The 20 year journey.

The title of this blog "Back Home Again in Indiana" refers less to an actual physical presence and more to an ideological state of mind.  I do live here in Indiana, more specifically, in the small town of Saint Joe in DeKalb county.  I was born in Garrett, another small town in DeKalb county, and was raised in Fort Wayne until the seventh grade when we moved back to DeKalb county.  I still think of Fort Wayne as my hometown.

I have lived in other states at various times in my life.  When I graduated high school, I moved to Michigan to attend college and lived there for seven years before moving back to Indiana when my father became ill.  Later, I lived in Minnesota for a very brief period of time when my supervisory position at a small company that made parts for International Harvester was eliminated after Harvester left Fort Wayne.  A friend who owned his own business asked me to move back to manage that business.  Then in 2001, I closed a business I had owned and operated for nearly five years and moved to Alaska.  I lived and worked there for nearly a year while the psychological scars of having failed in business healed.  After getting turned down for a promotion and raise at the company I worked for, I decided it was time to come back home.

So I have lived in other areas only to eventually return home to Indiana.  However as I stated above, this blog is less about being physically present in Indiana as it is about the mental state of being home in Indiana.

I bought my first PC sometime in the mid 90's and went online immediately.  I was amazed at the power of the internet that allowed a person to make connections all over the world.  I remember that one of the first people I chatted with online was a fellow who lived in Australia and how excited I felt about that. Here I was sitting in the middle-of-nowhere, Indiana chatting with someone on the other side of the globe.

I found this fascinating and went on a quest to create a network of friends in every far-flung location of the world that I could.  While friends and family were creating local connections and  networks, I pretty much ignored them and sought out more exotic fare.  I was able to boast that I had friends on every continent of the world including Antarctica.  I feasted on this international banquet for years.

Slowly though, the realization built up that this international network served no real purpose other than an occasional ego boost for me.  I had no real connection with these people, mostly we just drifted in and out of each other's online lives.  We spoke hollow words, displayed false emotions and made empty promises to one another.  This might be a little harsh, because often I was genuinely happy for them when something good happened for them, and genuinely sad for them when tragedy touched their lives

But the truth is none of us had a genuine emotional investment in each other.  We mostly just said the right things and tried to be supportive in the limited capacity that the internet allows, but in reality we were just isolated islands of humanity casting messages in a bottle out into the ocean of the internet.  Strange how you can be connected to thousands of people via the internet and yet remain more alone and emotionally isolated than ever before.

Then one day something strange and amazing happened.  I was checking twitter deciding who to follow back and I realized that one of my new followers only lived about 2 miles away.  I was oddly excited about this.  I follow and am followed by thousands of twitterers worldwide, yet I was more excited to get a follower from nearby than I was from the any I got from anywhere else in the world.  It took awhile, but I finally realized I really wanted to build a community of people where I could create real connections.  I wanted real and solid friendships, people I could connect with both on and off line. I wanted to be able to make a difference to someone and to support and be supported by my local community.

So begins this new phase of my life.  I have (figuratively) been all around the world only to realize, like so many others, that what I've been seeking is in my own back yard.  So here I am,  back home again in Indiana.

I feel a little like I have a somewhat tainted online reputation now.  No I haven't done anything bad, really.  I don't spam or endlessly promote my online businesses and I've never hacked anyone's account.  I don't flame people, gossip or do anything malicious, but I have been seriously short on commitment and follow through.  I mean, how do you trust someone now who, until a short time ago, placed more value on quantity than quality.  Someone who recently would have preferred to spend an hour online talking to someone he didn't know to walking across the street and spending ten minutes chatting with a neighbor. (But then again you'd have to know my neighbors)

It's a journey, one I'm fully committed to making.  And if I seem a little awkward at times I hope you'll forgive me.  I'm still learning some of the etiquette surrounding this, trying to find my voice locally, trying to learn the ropes and not put up any false fronts.  I'm trying, I promise you I'm trying.