At one point, probably a year or two ago, I deleted my entire watch list. I was getting 30 deviations a day, and I was literally unable to keep up with it all. I said, to myself and probably on my journal (although maybe not, I only have 10 entries total), that I would only read the writing of people who had already read mine.

I just went through my scanty list of favorites (you all know that I fave like once every three months, right?), and I was remembering all those lost friends. I've been on dA for four years. Most of the authors of my old faves haven't logged in three of them. I wonder what they're doing? Have they just made new accounts and didn't mention it to us? God forbid, might one be dead? Many of them left final journal entries: "I hate life, nobody cares." These entries have no replies.

dA is a place where we all connect, share our art. Log in, and you're guaranteed a conversation on a higher level. Did these people, like me, stop reading their deviation alerts? Stop reaching out? dA is a microcosm of our larger society; it's easy to assume that most people here are from America, or at least an industrialized nation. Isn't this isolation, this lack of reaching, a disease of our larger culture? We hop online to bridge those interpersonal gaps, but sometimes that just isnt' enough.