Virtual Bird Mate

"Come here; I want to show you something," my boss said to me the other day. He pointed out his office window at a bird and told me to watch it. The brownish-gray bird, a little bigger than a sparrow in size, was just then perched on top of the side-view mirror of a van. The bird hopped down so that it was facing the mirror; its feet clung to the rim just underneath the mirror and the bird had to flap its wings to keep from falling off of its thin perch. But it wasn't just flapping its wings to stay put. It was spreading its wings more widely and puffing out its breast more broadly than necessary while rubbing its open beak on the mirror.

I realized why my boss wanted me to see this: the bird was courting the van mirror. "He's been doing this for at least two hours," my boss told me. I watched the bird for a few more minutes as it hopped back up above the mirror, then flailed around in front of the mirror again, then repeated its actions. After a while, it gave up and moved to the mirror of the car parked next to the van, hoping to have more luck courting the virtual bird in that mirror. It was humorous, but also somewhat heartbreaking, to watch this bird try to build a relationship, try to connect with, a reflection.

There's a message somewhere in this, I told myself. An obvious one is that human industry messes with wildlife in innumerable ways. But that "lesson" didn't resonate deeply enough. I've seen other things--starved deer hanging from barbed wire fences, for example--that have driven that point home more successfully. The missive that seemed to fit best had more, I think, to do with connection, illusory connection.

The radio and television provide a sense of connection to people that is an illusion, but I think we mostly know that it is an illusion, and are therefore charmed as much as seduced by these media. But the Internet, I'm beginning to think, is more seductive in convincing us that we are part of something larger. On the internet, people who haven't seen each other for many years, and very likely will never actually see each other again, ever, "connect" through the Internet. I've become "friends" with many old acquaintances on Facebook, for example, though after a few exchanges of "what have you been up to for the last 15 years," we usually lose interest in each other and sort of forget that we had re-connected. Such re-connections are enjoyable and make one feel momentarily young and alive, but, at least in my experience, tend to be short-lived. Even Facebook connections I have with my siblings and other family members are, after a few ecstatic Hello-how-are-yous, left untended.

Another example of a mirror is this blog and some of the other blogs I read. I can update people on what is going on with Elizabeth, me, and the girls. I can read about other people's families, their travels, accomplishments, and even sometimes their sorrows. This is rather convenient and, again, makes me feel a sense of connection with some of the people I care about. However, a blog entry is a poor substitute for a conversation over warm cocoa. It is no replacement for a handshake, an embrace, an understanding glance, a shared laugh.

I suppose the bird-mirror/human-Internet comparison breaks down at some point: unlike the bird and the mirror, Internet communication does have at each end an actual human. In essence, with the Internet, there IS a bird on the other side of the glass. The sad thing, though, is that the glass barrier is there and the birds, for all our flapping wings, can not touch.