Goodbye, Dear Friends

A quick note before this post: If you wish to listen to the music I was listening to when I wrote this entry, click play below to hear Bear McCreary's - Passacaglia. I feel that it does help in setting the mood.



- Mr. Joatmon

It never ceases to amaze me how deeply our emotions can get entangled into the lives, hopes, dreams, sorrows and joys, of not only people we have never met, but people that are not even real. You can harbor love, hate, detestation, pride and loathing for someone who, in all reality, is noting more then the brain-child of a gifted writer and completely devoid of any corporeal substance. Yet, this is completely normal.

You have spent hours in getting to know these folks just as you have your family and acquaintances. You have heard them tell you all about their triumphs and losses. You can recognize their voice in a crowd. You know their temperament and often their favorite foods and locations. Their past has been displayed before you to assimilate and digest, so you know where they are coming from. You have felt embarrassed for them when the situation has been uncomfortable and you have cried with them when they are hurting. Even though these people are no more real then the monster under the bed or the Easter bunny, you give them willingly of your time and feelings - something that, is in fact, quite real and tangible.

Some will ask how you can get involved to such a degree, as to become emotionally attached, to a figment of anothers imagination ... and that question is valid, if not somewhat callus. For those of us who opt to let themselves become bonded to these formless friends, the answer is straight forward - there is a connection between you. A transparent relationship that defies reality and physicality. You are connected at an emotional level, and why not? In this type relationship, that is all there is.

Why do we make these connections and forge these relationships with the imaginary? Because, in the simplest sense, we are supposed to - that was the authors intent from the start. To catch us by the ethereal threads of our minds and hearts and manipulate them to a certain 'end'. To guide us to a destination of not our choosing, via actual or implied images and through words, in print or audible.

Why do we let this happen? Because we hope that, by the end of the journey, we will be better for it. Better informed. Better enlightened. Raised up. Shown new realities. Been angered to action or moved to emotional release. Whatever the outcome, we chose to start this voyage with the intention of gleaning something from it ... and it is up to us as to what that something is. For everyone is different and each will 'see' the portion that best applies to them and act accordingly to it. Disbelief. Amazement. Satisfaction. Tears.

These friends we have made, are more then the words on the page or two dimensional images on the screen- flat and uninteresting. To us, they are as real as we choose to flesh them out in our minds and hearts. Yes, the people on a screen are often easier to connect with because they do have a face and a voice - as real as the actor that portrays the character but no less as engaging as those that well arranged words on a page will illicit within our minds-eye.

With the all the above stated and in it's clumsily arranged manor (as is my fashion), I want to say 'thank you' to all involved in the creation of some of my newest fantasy friends and comrades. Form creation to final execution, your work has been greatly appreciated by this observer of your gracious efforts.

To all my friends aboard the Battlestar Galactica, I bid you a saddened yet hopeful, Goodbye.

You are finally home ... rest ...

... and know ...

... you are already missed.