Perspective Shift

For those individuals who have frequented online energy communities over the past few years, this won't be too surprising at all. For anyone else it will seem more like a smack in the face or stab in the heart, but I feel it's true. When I first was introduced into the metaphysical world as a whole, I didn't even know these online "communities" existed. However, over the years, once I hit teen hood I discovered the internet and the rest is generally history.

The issue I'm having is that even when I was a "noob" in these organizations, I stuck around because the information I was receiving was foreign, interesting, and exciting. I stayed so long that I became a "regular" and from there a "prominent" and "respected" member as a whole. My nickname was known far and wide over the vast internets, I even caught the eyes of some of today's most irritating skeptics and their websites.

This to me was enjoyable, it was something that I could set my sights on correcting, on making better. Teaching what I had learned became a passion. It wasn't too long before that passion became nothing more than an irritating, seemingly waste of time. What exactly went wrong? That's the obvious question most will ask, even if you already assume you know the answer.

Over the past three years I have been an on and off member to these OEC sites, as well as running and discontinuing the use of my own site "UPC." To me these sites were just missing something so important and so undeniable I couldn't stand even being around them anymore. That thing it was missing was purpose. There wasn't a serious purpose or reason behind these sites at all. What seemed to have happened was the uprising of the teen and immature member base at these websites and online groups. Of course it's not surprising, considering our curiosity for the unknown seems to reach it's peak around puberty, however, this posed serious issues.

People were becoming regular members but weren't taking into consideration why they were there. Politics were enacted to favor kids who wanted to feel important on the internet in forums and chat rooms. People were answering questions straight out of articles written by someone else. It's like talking to a scientist who is attempting to explain Quantum Physics to you straight out of a book, the scientist serves no purpose if they aren't trying to make discoveries on their on. They aren't doing anything to help you besides giving you paraphrases of the same material to read over and over again. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

These so called online "energy communities" were nothing more than idea boxes, of which the ideas were regulated by policies to maintain "order" by teens wanting to use a "power" they were given by some knowledge of HTML and web design. A productive spot for self betterment and education eh? Far from it. Now it seems to have gotten even worse. Many of the members who were genuinely interested in educating themselves and their peers have long sense been gone, or lost interest due to other things. Websites have gone down left and right, blogs are no longer active, people are just NOT around anymore. Bad? Of course not, it's the best thing that could have happened for them, because staying around these websites becoming nothing more than a sloth of hypocracy wasn't doing them any good spiritually.

Since the fall of so many websites the OEC is facing a serious issue, that issue is loss of interest and appeal. This no doubt comes from poor ploys in bringing people to the websites. Too many politics, too little personal opinion and idea. Everyone wants a "name" for themselves.

Fixing the "Issue"

I think, being as realistic as possible, the only way to correct this is for everyone to take a good look at themselves, and ask themselves what it is they want. If you are online, at these websites or looking at other websites for the pure reason of socialization, it's clearly not the place to be. There needs to be more strict, yet more lenient measures enacted. Websites need to be run like a college or university, where there is of course tons of socialization, but there are also strict measures enacted to enhance education.

From these measures students take it upon themselves to create study groups and the like. To anyone running a website right now, I would strongly recommend you take all of this in. Reduce your "discussion" restrictions to zero. Alter your teaching guidelines as far as topics to none, allow people to speak and brainstorm to their little hearts content. Curiosity is what got people here, creativity is what keeps them here, regulating that defeats the entire purpose of why they came.

I think that running study like groups would be great. These groups could have books set out to read, on multiple topics whereby a certain chapter is assigned a week and a paper and discussion on that is held after the discussion. People act as though rules are the worst thing in the world, that being strict yet open is horrible. But at the same time, without it there is only chaos, hurt feelings, loss of interest, and complaining. A certain amount of force keeps people around. No body wants to spend all their time at a college where they don't feel like they are even learning anything. Think about it...

It really doesn't apply to me anymore, I run this blog where I can and do talk about anything I desire, it's your choice to read it or not. I chat with a lot of website admins through e-mail these days but rarely partake in their "community" events. I just sit back and look in from afar, just waiting for someone to stand up and continue pursuing what got them here.