One of the things we talked about today on the Bedlam Farm Zoom Weekly “Let’s Talk” is how technology has affected our lives.

There are miraculous and beneficial things about technology (I couldn’t live on our farm or do the good we do without it), and there are profoundly disturbing and destructive things about it.

I naively thought it would support democracy, but I didn’t grasp that it might also undermine it.

The Zoom project, let’s talk to me, is crucial; it is an experiment to see if we can’t bring back or support the civility, kindness, and humanity that is often threatened by our obsession with online communications.

I realized I was struggling to grasp the meaning of some of the messages I was receiving, and my blog readers were struggling to understand some of the messages I was sending.

I want to know these people face to face as human beings, not remote voices and images on the computer. The first four sessions reinforce my belief that we humans who communicate mostly online need to speak to each other once in a while and get to know one another. Several people on Zoom have different political and cultural ideas; we have no problem discussing the essential things in our lives.

This sounds grandiose, but it’s what I think the country needs most – to find new ways for us to speak to one another and to know each other beyond conspiracy theories, anger, fear, and arguments.

It’s my experiment in keeping humans involved in speaking to other humans.

Diane Soder-Graves is a long-time blog reader and the author of many intelligent, thoughtful, and exciting messages. She is also in touch with Maria, and two weeks ago, she sent Maria this painting she did of Maria with one of our Imperious Hens.

Until she came onto my Zoom, I didn’t know she lived in Minnesota.

Diane popped up on my first Zoom session, and she was just as wonderful as her messages suggested – cheerful, funny, intelligent, creative. An IT consultant, she is beginning to emerge as an artist, the creative spark is on fire.

She is a person worth knowing, not just in e-mails and blog posts.

I invited her back, and she returned this morning. Maria joined and showed Diane’s picture to everyone in the Zoom meeting. I thought I saw Diane tear up; she was pleased another artist liked her work; it encouraged and strengthened her confidence.

We are now friends with Diane in real time; she is a pleasure to know and speak with, full of ideas and thoughtful observations. And she is someone who follows our blogs and posts when she has something to say.

I love this chain of connection, Maria, the blog, the Zoom, the art, Maria’s blog, Maria’s art and life.

The circle turns in this way. This is how it’s supposed to work. I was getting angry and sometimes nasty; I’m beginning to be reminded that there are countless good and decent and civil people out there; we just have no way of knowing them, and the media doesn’t seem to know they exist anymore.

If you are not a sociopath, whiner,  or traitor, and if you love the truth,  you will never make it to the news.

So we are making our own news here on this blog.

We now know Diane in several ways – as a blog reader, a Zoom friend, and a fellow artist. We have a lot to talk about, and talking about it with her face to face is radically different than only talking through blog posts.

Now I would know Diane if I ran into her on the street. And I know here as a face and a person.

And I know she is a gifted artist, just coming out as she mulls life after retirement. This is what being humans means, not just arguing but knowing each other, supporting one another so that when differences arrive, there is a foundation for working them out.

Thanks for existing, Diane, for painting this wonderful painting and for coming onto our Zoom page and getting to know the real one in the other dimension.

That is the Zoom idea, tanks for bringing it to life.