At work today a coworker showed me a funny little piece satirizing the Affordable Care Act. It compared the ACA to the hypothetical Affordable Boat Act, a law requiring every citizen to purchase a boat at great personal expense and to use it according to very strict government-mandated parameters. It described how this legislation would increase the cost of boat ownership, while threatening non-boat-owners with steep fines or imprisonment. It closed with the boldface declaration: “If the government can force you to buy health insurance, it can force you to buy a boat. Or anything else. Yeah, it’s that stupid.”
It made an excellent point, since health insurance and boats are exactly equivalent. A boat is not a luxury, but a necessity for living a secure and productive life. After all, our entire nation is covered with water. There is no land, so anyone without access to a boat is forced constantly to tread water, exposed to all the associated risks such as drowning, hypothermia, and attacks from aquatic predators. Tragically, because of the high costs of boat ownership, thousands of Americans tread water for significant portions of their lives, resulting in a vast loss of productivity as it is difficult to get much done in the water. The extremely high cost of all this risk is paid by taxpayers, since boatless individuals cannot get out of the water themselves.
The vast majority of boatless people are young adults, due to the fact that every child is unceremoniously pushed off his parents’ boat as soon as he reaches an arbitrary age, whether he can afford his own boat or not. Since these kids are often still in college or recent graduates when this happens, it can make the search for a job very difficult - they have to find one that will provide them with a boat, or face years of treading and the aforementioned risks. Not to mention never having dry socks. Unfortunately, many young people don’t understand the risks they face by not getting a boat as soon as they can. Many end up maimed by sharks because they foolishly believed they could live without a boat. I myself lived without a boat for a few years in my early twenties, and during that time had many close calls with sharks and other dangerous creatures of the deep. Some of my friends were not so lucky.
Making matters worse, boat sellers refuse to sell boats to anyone who’s already wet. Any period of boatlessness can result in never having access to a boat at all, even if you can afford it. Also, boat sellers often charge more to customers who have more of a need for a boat, such as those who can’t swim or those who live in areas of particularly tempestuous sea. Couples who are not legally married often can’t share a boat, and must each buy their own, resulting in a huge financial strain on same-sex couples.
Since the cost of boat ownership is prohibitively high, most people can only get a boat if it’s provided by their employer, and not every employer provides boats. This means that many people choose their jobs solely on the basis of whether they will provide a boat - and that entrepreneurship is especially discouraged, because most small businesses can’t get off the ground if their proprietors are too busy fending off sharks and gasping for air. The cost to our economy and to innovation in general is immeasurable.
On top of all that, the current system is detrimental even to the boat-owning population. Boat sellers often get away with selling inferior boats because there is no law preventing it. Basic boat parts are left out or available only as extremely expensive add-ons. Many boats are sold with the condition that the owner only sail in certain restricted areas. The existence of so many people treading water affects the lives of boat-owners as well, since their bodies block major travel routes and are a threat to public health.
Yeah, it’s that stupid.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Trouble at the Intersection
It’s a humid Tuesday evening in late Spring, and I’m driving home after a particularly long day at work. It’s been warm all day and I’m in long sleeves, so I roll them up and roll the windows down, enjoying the breeze and my freedom. The album Come On Now Social by the Indigo Girls, one of my all-time favorites, is playing loudly on my CD player. The song is track four, called “Trouble.”
I stop at a red light, and suddenly become very tense. I turn the music down to a very low volume just before Emily Saliers sings these lines:
And when the clergy take a vote
all the gays will pay again
‘Cause there’s more than one
kind of criminal white collar
I nervously look around at the cars stopped around me to see if anyone else has their windows down. Then, very quickly, my anxiety is joined by shame. Why should I care who hears my music? It’s certainly no more objectionable than some of the obscene lyrics I’ve heard pouring out of other people’s car windows. I feel almost like I'm betraying one of my favorite bands by being bashful about listening to them in public, and betraying myself by caring more about the judgment of strangers than my own enjoyment of life and of art.
As the light turns green and traffic begins moving again, I feel more relaxed; specific lyrics aren’t as likely to be heard by passersby when the car is in motion. I turn the volume back up, and begin to examine my feelings as I drive.
Those four simple lines blatantly invoke the “Big Three”: the taboo subjects almost guaranteed to spark controversy, conflict, and hostility when brought up in the wrong company. Those subjects are religion, politics, and sex. They’re not only powerfully loaded subjects on their own, but almost always interlinked in some way. When two or more of the subjects intersect, they feed off one another and magnify each other’s discords.
With a sense of grim foreboding, I remember that it has been almost five years since Jim Adkisson walked into a Tennessee church and opened fire. The reason? The church was of a liberal denomination, and Adkisson blamed liberals for what he perceived as the nation’s ills. It was neither the first nor the last time that a citizen of my country has sought to murder others for their political beliefs. As I contemplate, several other specific incidents come to mind of people attacked and sometimes killed for being of a certain political party, a certain religion, a certain gender, or a certain sexual orientation. I’m sure you, too, can think of several similar stories without even trying; our news sources give us new examples almost on a daily basis.
Thinking of these stories, I suddenly feel less ashamed of my nervousness at the intersection. I live in a world where people are indeed endangered by their politics, religion, and sex, and it is not unreasonable to be cautious about bringing up such subjects among strangers. However, in the future I will attempt to be more courageous. After all, if I can be attacked for who I am and what I believe, I can just as easily be loved and celebrated for the same reasons. And so can all of us.
A few minutes later, track five plays on my CD player, and Amy Ray sings:
I know your heart’s in danger
And so is your life.
I said you learn to trust a stranger,
Stop and rest for the night.
Set your site up in the headlight
The moon won’t be enough.
Light the embers of another
And the night won’t seem so rough,
Sister.
I stop at a red light, and suddenly become very tense. I turn the music down to a very low volume just before Emily Saliers sings these lines:
And when the clergy take a vote
all the gays will pay again
‘Cause there’s more than one
kind of criminal white collar
I nervously look around at the cars stopped around me to see if anyone else has their windows down. Then, very quickly, my anxiety is joined by shame. Why should I care who hears my music? It’s certainly no more objectionable than some of the obscene lyrics I’ve heard pouring out of other people’s car windows. I feel almost like I'm betraying one of my favorite bands by being bashful about listening to them in public, and betraying myself by caring more about the judgment of strangers than my own enjoyment of life and of art.
As the light turns green and traffic begins moving again, I feel more relaxed; specific lyrics aren’t as likely to be heard by passersby when the car is in motion. I turn the volume back up, and begin to examine my feelings as I drive.
Those four simple lines blatantly invoke the “Big Three”: the taboo subjects almost guaranteed to spark controversy, conflict, and hostility when brought up in the wrong company. Those subjects are religion, politics, and sex. They’re not only powerfully loaded subjects on their own, but almost always interlinked in some way. When two or more of the subjects intersect, they feed off one another and magnify each other’s discords.
With a sense of grim foreboding, I remember that it has been almost five years since Jim Adkisson walked into a Tennessee church and opened fire. The reason? The church was of a liberal denomination, and Adkisson blamed liberals for what he perceived as the nation’s ills. It was neither the first nor the last time that a citizen of my country has sought to murder others for their political beliefs. As I contemplate, several other specific incidents come to mind of people attacked and sometimes killed for being of a certain political party, a certain religion, a certain gender, or a certain sexual orientation. I’m sure you, too, can think of several similar stories without even trying; our news sources give us new examples almost on a daily basis.
Thinking of these stories, I suddenly feel less ashamed of my nervousness at the intersection. I live in a world where people are indeed endangered by their politics, religion, and sex, and it is not unreasonable to be cautious about bringing up such subjects among strangers. However, in the future I will attempt to be more courageous. After all, if I can be attacked for who I am and what I believe, I can just as easily be loved and celebrated for the same reasons. And so can all of us.
A few minutes later, track five plays on my CD player, and Amy Ray sings:
I know your heart’s in danger
And so is your life.
I said you learn to trust a stranger,
Stop and rest for the night.
Set your site up in the headlight
The moon won’t be enough.
Light the embers of another
And the night won’t seem so rough,
Sister.
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Something Beautiful
“Can you do something for me?” I said. I held his hands in mine as we both sat on my bed. “Not because it’ll do something for you - not because you’ll enjoy it - but for me, because it’ll do something for me. As a gift. Please?”
“What do you want?” he said. His face said that he wanted to say yes, though he didn‘t know what he was agreeing to yet.
“Be with me.” Stay with me, I thought. “Hang out with me. Tonight, or tomorrow... just, sometime. Be with me. Please.”
He didn’t answer, and I felt the weight of my anxiety and the sadness that had been hiding behind it. The loneliness that was always so much more sharp and sickening when coming on the heels of true connection. I laid back, still holding his hands. He didn’t answer, but looked down and away, wearing the frown that I’d come to recognize as concentration. I had never felt like he was farther away, and he was growing more distant by the moment. Be with me, I thought, for wherever he was, it was nowhere near where I was. We hadn’t been together all evening; we'd shared the same room, the same activities, but not the same experience.
My foot caressed his leg. There was a widening chasm between us that physical touch could not close. I tried to speak of it, to see if he felt it too. “Lately I just feel like I’ve lost track of you somehow, and I want to find my way back to you.”
I closed my eyes, waiting for his response, trying to reassure myself. Surely it was in my mind, an unfounded anxiety born of my irrational insecurities. His next words would be to comfort me. He would reach across the chasm and be with me again. I only had to be patient and trust that this moment would pass.
“Maybe...” he said. His voice was quiet and dark. “Maybe this isn’t what I want.”
My hands tightened around his, and I opened my eyes. I sat up straight. I looked into his face. “What?”
He continued looking down, but didn’t pull his hands away. He allowed me to cling to them, as if reluctant to let go himself. “It’s just taken me this long to figure out what I want,” he said.
I held his hands even tighter. “And you’re basing this on... what, a week and a half of dissatisfaction?” I couldn’t keep the twinge of accusation from my voice.
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t think it’s worthwhile to wait and see if it gets better?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?” I still held his hands so tightly that it might have been hurting him, and he neither pulled away nor returned the pressure. He finally looked me in the eyes, though. “I know...” I shook his hands slightly for emphasis. “I know that we can make this work.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He bent to press his forehead against our hands, still locked together by my one-sided grip. I looked down at the top of his head, his hair spread out across his back. I like when you put your forehead on me like that, I’d told him once. It makes me feel like you trust me.
I let go of his hands and pulled away from him, wrapping my arms around my own waist instead. He stood up and took a few steps back from the bed, as if afraid of me, or perhaps afraid of hurting me.
I bent forward, my back curling around to encircle my gut, which was clenching like a fist grasping desperately at something that had suddenly slipped away. The chasm was real, and was opening up before my eyes. I was beginning to see, for the first time, that perhaps it could never be closed. Not by me. Not alone. Because there was nobody on the other side to reach across to.
He had already left.
***
Something beautiful is hidden in everything that has ever caused pain. You'll never find it if you only look for ways to numb yourself.
Friday, April 26, 2013
The Game of Losing and Finding
Colie, who is almost three years old, needs to put on his shoes so we can be ready to go out in a few minutes. The shoes are clearly visible on the living room floor, but he wanders around the room saying "I can't find it!"
"Yes you can," I say. "You're not looking hard."
"I don't know," he says, while carefully turning his back to the shoes. "Is it... behind me?"
I sigh impatiently.
Suddenly Colie spins around and flings his arm forward to point directly at the shoes. "Aha!" he shouts excitedly. "There it is!"
***
Ever since she was a kitten, Tetra has loved receipts. Crumple one up and throw it; she'll run after it like a cheetah after a gazelle. When it stops moving, she'll strike it with her paw to send it flying and resume the chase.
One day, after playing this way for a solid twenty minutes, she abruptly stops and walks nonchalantly away from the little ball of paper. Her whole demeanor seems to say "Receipt? What receipt? I didn't see any receipt."
Moments later, upon casually turning her head, she catches sight of it out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly on the alert, she crouches, tail twitching, and the hunt is on again.
***
It's not just animals and children. People love to feign ignorance in conversation, either to make a point, to prod someone into explaining their position, or just as a joke. My mother's favorite game involves deliberately misunderstanding what others are saying.
"It's almost time to start planting zucchini."
"Zucchini. Isn't that a long flat noodle?"
"No, Mom, that's linguine."
"Oh. I thought that was an expert on languages."
"That's a linguist."
"Really? Huh. I always thought that meant..."
"Shut up, Mom."
***
Why is it so fun to pretend not to know what you know? Why do we get so much pleasure from feigning ignorance? From whence comes that secret delight when the moment approaches, you turn, open your eyes up wide, and "discover" what has been obvious the whole time?
Maybe we just like to fool people, but that doesn't explain why we enjoy blatantly faking it as well as subtly deceiving. I'm more inclined to believe that the process of learning - the journey from ignorance to knowledge - is so intensely fulfilling that even play-acting the process is enjoyable enough to be a fun game. Acting and re-enacting the moment of discovery over and over again prolongs the excitement and the thrill of the chase.
Why is it so fun to pretend not to know what you know? I don't have a clue, but I'm looking forward to figuring it out. Maybe it has something to do with the pleasure we get from learning something new...
"Yes you can," I say. "You're not looking hard."
"I don't know," he says, while carefully turning his back to the shoes. "Is it... behind me?"
I sigh impatiently.
Suddenly Colie spins around and flings his arm forward to point directly at the shoes. "Aha!" he shouts excitedly. "There it is!"
***
Ever since she was a kitten, Tetra has loved receipts. Crumple one up and throw it; she'll run after it like a cheetah after a gazelle. When it stops moving, she'll strike it with her paw to send it flying and resume the chase.
One day, after playing this way for a solid twenty minutes, she abruptly stops and walks nonchalantly away from the little ball of paper. Her whole demeanor seems to say "Receipt? What receipt? I didn't see any receipt."
Moments later, upon casually turning her head, she catches sight of it out of the corner of her eye. Suddenly on the alert, she crouches, tail twitching, and the hunt is on again.
***
It's not just animals and children. People love to feign ignorance in conversation, either to make a point, to prod someone into explaining their position, or just as a joke. My mother's favorite game involves deliberately misunderstanding what others are saying.
"It's almost time to start planting zucchini."
"Zucchini. Isn't that a long flat noodle?"
"No, Mom, that's linguine."
"Oh. I thought that was an expert on languages."
"That's a linguist."
"Really? Huh. I always thought that meant..."
"Shut up, Mom."
***
Why is it so fun to pretend not to know what you know? Why do we get so much pleasure from feigning ignorance? From whence comes that secret delight when the moment approaches, you turn, open your eyes up wide, and "discover" what has been obvious the whole time?
Maybe we just like to fool people, but that doesn't explain why we enjoy blatantly faking it as well as subtly deceiving. I'm more inclined to believe that the process of learning - the journey from ignorance to knowledge - is so intensely fulfilling that even play-acting the process is enjoyable enough to be a fun game. Acting and re-enacting the moment of discovery over and over again prolongs the excitement and the thrill of the chase.
Why is it so fun to pretend not to know what you know? I don't have a clue, but I'm looking forward to figuring it out. Maybe it has something to do with the pleasure we get from learning something new...
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 6: Wisdom
After many experiences that might have been a bit easier with Facebook, it's natural that I would come to doubt my decision. Was it really wise for me to exclude myself from what had become an essential communication method among my friends and family? It was beginning to seem like life without Facebook was as isolating as life without a phone: I was out of the loop, inconvenienced, having to go out of my way to find out what others knew so easily, or even forcing others to go out of their way if they did want to make sure I was informed.
My friends would make a big deal about things like sending me pictures, telling me about upcoming parties, or filling me in on important news about their lives, making it clear that they’d be saved quite a lot of trouble if only I hadn’t quit Facebook. Rather than social media making a normal life easier, it seemed that it was making life normal - much as drug users or drinkers begin by using their drug to enhance life, but later find that they need more and more of it just to feel normal.
And it wasn't just me feeling that effect. My quitting Facebook affected my friends' lives as well. Just knowing me was making my friends’ lives harder, because it was an uphill struggle for them just to keep me informed of basic social goings-on. I was dragging them down every time I so much as asked them “what’s up with you lately?” and forced them to recap what had already been communicated in several recent status updates. My dad even made some off-hand comments about how, if I was the last to find out about some important development among my friends or family - say, a birth, or a death, or some other important news - it would be my own fault, for not being on Facebook.
I bought into that philosophy, and almost gave in and rejoined Facebook for the sake of my friends and my social life. After all, who was I to turn up my nose at what was obviously an important part of modern life? Who was I to make life harder for others just for my own petty, stubborn reasons?
But soon I shook those kinds of thoughts off, because they’re not based on anything resembling fact. I’m not the only person in the world without Facebook, and I’m not exactly hard to reach. I read and respond to emails, I answer my phone, and I’m active on other social networking sites such as Twitter and Google+. Not only that, but I get out. I get together with friends and family in person as frequently as my schedule and theirs will allow. I’m not inconveniencing my friends by forcing them to communicate with me in ways other than through Facebook; in fact, if someone insisted on rejecting all forms of communication other than Facebook, they would be far more guilty than I.
In December of 2012, fourteen months after I quit Facebook, I went to a wedding. The invitations were sent out over the summer, detailing the time, date, and location of the event, and instructing guests to bring food - the reception would be potluck-style, rather than catered, and would be held at the church where the ceremony was to take place. Simple enough, but not everything goes according to plan.
Less than a month before the date of the wedding, it was decided that the reception would take place at another church, some four miles from the ceremony, because of space restrictions. This is not especially difficult, provided the information is conveyed to all the guests, especially those who would be bringing food that would need to be refrigerated or kept warm.
Here’s how the bride and her family decided to inform their guests of the change in plans: they updated the event’s Facebook page. That’s all. No mass email was sent out, not even a phone call. People would be traveling from far and wide to attend this wedding - some even from overseas. One would think that a greater effort to communicate changes in the plan would be called for in an event of this size and significance. Weddings, even low-budget, casual ones, are pretty high-tension affairs, and preparation is the key to prevent catastrophic destruction and hurt feelings.
This is my plea to all Facebook users, and anyone finding herself overly dependent on one website or one technology: don’t assume everyone has access to it. Spend some time thinking about how your friends and family members and other associates prefer to communicate, and make at least a small attempt to consider that when deciding how to spread your important news. Over-communication is preferable to under-communication when it comes to things like wedding plans, parties, births, deaths, or changes of address and phone number, and it’s better to waste some energy on redundant communications than to have someone not get the message because they happened to be paying attention to different lines of communication than you.
It’s a big, complicated world out there, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to any given problem. If you want to stay in touch with a lot of different people, the best way to do it is to use multiple methods at once - not to just stick to one and expect everyone else to use it too.
***
I emerged from Facebook a little wiser, a little more jaded, perhaps even a trifle more isolated - but with a new understanding of how insidiously a social network can infect a culture, until it seems as invisible and as necessary as the air we breathe. But it’s only as necessary as we make it: I managed to escape, and so can you. All you have to do is make the break, and stick to it. It’ll be hard, especially at first, but I believe that we are greater than our technological addictions give us credit for.
And if you decide to stay, at least take the time to reflect on the other ways that you communicate with friends and family - if you have other ways - and try to create a balance. There are so many different ways to communicate in this technological world. It would be a shame to miss out.
My friends would make a big deal about things like sending me pictures, telling me about upcoming parties, or filling me in on important news about their lives, making it clear that they’d be saved quite a lot of trouble if only I hadn’t quit Facebook. Rather than social media making a normal life easier, it seemed that it was making life normal - much as drug users or drinkers begin by using their drug to enhance life, but later find that they need more and more of it just to feel normal.
And it wasn't just me feeling that effect. My quitting Facebook affected my friends' lives as well. Just knowing me was making my friends’ lives harder, because it was an uphill struggle for them just to keep me informed of basic social goings-on. I was dragging them down every time I so much as asked them “what’s up with you lately?” and forced them to recap what had already been communicated in several recent status updates. My dad even made some off-hand comments about how, if I was the last to find out about some important development among my friends or family - say, a birth, or a death, or some other important news - it would be my own fault, for not being on Facebook.
I bought into that philosophy, and almost gave in and rejoined Facebook for the sake of my friends and my social life. After all, who was I to turn up my nose at what was obviously an important part of modern life? Who was I to make life harder for others just for my own petty, stubborn reasons?
But soon I shook those kinds of thoughts off, because they’re not based on anything resembling fact. I’m not the only person in the world without Facebook, and I’m not exactly hard to reach. I read and respond to emails, I answer my phone, and I’m active on other social networking sites such as Twitter and Google+. Not only that, but I get out. I get together with friends and family in person as frequently as my schedule and theirs will allow. I’m not inconveniencing my friends by forcing them to communicate with me in ways other than through Facebook; in fact, if someone insisted on rejecting all forms of communication other than Facebook, they would be far more guilty than I.
In December of 2012, fourteen months after I quit Facebook, I went to a wedding. The invitations were sent out over the summer, detailing the time, date, and location of the event, and instructing guests to bring food - the reception would be potluck-style, rather than catered, and would be held at the church where the ceremony was to take place. Simple enough, but not everything goes according to plan.
Less than a month before the date of the wedding, it was decided that the reception would take place at another church, some four miles from the ceremony, because of space restrictions. This is not especially difficult, provided the information is conveyed to all the guests, especially those who would be bringing food that would need to be refrigerated or kept warm.
Here’s how the bride and her family decided to inform their guests of the change in plans: they updated the event’s Facebook page. That’s all. No mass email was sent out, not even a phone call. People would be traveling from far and wide to attend this wedding - some even from overseas. One would think that a greater effort to communicate changes in the plan would be called for in an event of this size and significance. Weddings, even low-budget, casual ones, are pretty high-tension affairs, and preparation is the key to prevent catastrophic destruction and hurt feelings.
This is my plea to all Facebook users, and anyone finding herself overly dependent on one website or one technology: don’t assume everyone has access to it. Spend some time thinking about how your friends and family members and other associates prefer to communicate, and make at least a small attempt to consider that when deciding how to spread your important news. Over-communication is preferable to under-communication when it comes to things like wedding plans, parties, births, deaths, or changes of address and phone number, and it’s better to waste some energy on redundant communications than to have someone not get the message because they happened to be paying attention to different lines of communication than you.
It’s a big, complicated world out there, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to any given problem. If you want to stay in touch with a lot of different people, the best way to do it is to use multiple methods at once - not to just stick to one and expect everyone else to use it too.
***
I emerged from Facebook a little wiser, a little more jaded, perhaps even a trifle more isolated - but with a new understanding of how insidiously a social network can infect a culture, until it seems as invisible and as necessary as the air we breathe. But it’s only as necessary as we make it: I managed to escape, and so can you. All you have to do is make the break, and stick to it. It’ll be hard, especially at first, but I believe that we are greater than our technological addictions give us credit for.
And if you decide to stay, at least take the time to reflect on the other ways that you communicate with friends and family - if you have other ways - and try to create a balance. There are so many different ways to communicate in this technological world. It would be a shame to miss out.
Monday, April 08, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 5: Disaster
In April of 2012, seven months after I quit Facebook, my fiance and I cancelled our wedding. We need not go into the details - this is about my relationship to a social networking site, not to my ex. Suffice to say that most of the arrangements had been made, and the wedding was scheduled to take place in less than a month. It was to be a relatively small event, and casual; about a hundred and thirty people had been invited (the old-fashioned way, by a card sent in the mail, thank you very much). The most urgent matter facing us once we’d decided to cancel was to make sure all these people got the memo before they’d made any irreversible preparations.
It was hard, but I didn't have to do it all on my own. I called my mom, and she sent out an email to everyone on the guest list whose email address she knew. My ex-fiance made a similar request of his own mother. Right up until the date of the wedding itself, I was still calling friends to make sure they’d personally been reminded not to show up.
When Jasen and I started dating, and we were both on Facebook, our change of status from “single” to “in a relationship" with one another started a flurry of comments. All our friends and “Facebook friends”, whether we wanted them to or not, could see and comment on our new romantic attachment. It was a little daunting, having everyone so suddenly and effortlessly know, with only a few keystrokes and a click of the “save changes” button. Jasen and I were both rather introverted, and having so much public attention on our personal relationship was awkward, although it was much more uncomfortable for him than for me. After all, his last relationship had begun and ended before he’d joined any sort of social network, whereas I’d never had a relationship that wasn’t televised over the internet.
I’d assumed that ending my relationship in private, without Facebook to spread the news faster than wildfire and faster than I could control, would make it easier - after all, nobody would know before I told them myself, and I could be spared the constant questions and curiosity of friends and “Facebook friends” alike. In retrospect, however, Facebook’s cold, impersonal, instantaneous “Oh, by they way, two years of love and commitment are now out the window” accompanied by a cute little broken-heart icon would have been preferable over the long slog of phone calls, emails, and awkward conversations needed to do what Facebook would have done in one quick, effortless status change. Even acquaintances who hadn't been invited to the wedding eventually had to find out, and because it wasn't broadcast all over the internet, the news had to come directly from one of us.
After many awkward, tedious conversations, I began to see the value of Facebook as an aid to the introverted and the socially challenged, capable of disseminating these crucial bits of news: who’s dating whom, who’s moving where, who’s got a job or is looking for one, who needs a drinking buddy for an impulsive night of celebration of commiseration - without the stress and difficulty of all that pesky “interpersonal interaction.”
Yeah, it was hard, but not impossible. I got through it relatively unscathed and only a little bit traumatized. The harder part came later.
A year ago, I was still recovering from the breakup and still unpacking from my move when more bad news struck like lightning right after getting a nice new outfit soaked in a rainstorm. I learned the news from my mom, but she had learned it from Facebook: my brother had been diagnosed with cancer.
Before I go on, let me reassure you that after six months of Chemo my brother is cancer-free and doing just fine.
But at the time of the diagnosis, our family was wracked with anxiety. And since my brother was posting updates about his condition and the results of various tests on Facebook, I felt more isolated and out-of-the-loop than ever before. I had to depend on my mother to convey any news to me after she had learned it on Facebook. For the first few weeks after the diagnosis, I seriously considered rejoining the site. Not receiving updates on his health was unacceptable to me, but so was the idea of making him go out of the way to include me in his news-dissemination when he was already dealing with so much. I was wracked with a harrowing combination of guilt, worry, uncertainty, and doubt. Could I afford to keep my pride and my relative isolation in light of this development?
Fortunately, I was saved from this dilemma when someone (or perhaps several someones) convinced my brother to revive his old blog so that he could post updates about his diagnosis and treatment processes. Apparently there are a lot of cancer blogs out there, and a lot of reasons to keep one. If you're interested you can read my brother's blog here: http://bluesmasterelf.blogspot.com/
For the next several months, I checked this blog obsessively - perhaps as obsessively as some people check Facebook. I did not feel out of the loop, and in fact sometimes it seemed that I was getting news before other people did. Some more important pieces of news were still conveyed over the phone to my mom, who would then inform other members of the family. In some situations this system was much more prompt and efficient than computer-based media. In this way, our family stayed in touch throughout the treatment process.
After these events, I felt that I had experienced the absolute worst that life outside of Facebook could mean for me. Having weathered the ordeals without succumbing to the urge to rejoin the fold, I felt stronger than ever in my conviction that I had made the correct choice. And I can say with relative certainty that should you make this choice yourself, it will not be the wrong choice for you either.
There's more! To find out what happened next, go on to The Sixth and Final Part.
It was hard, but I didn't have to do it all on my own. I called my mom, and she sent out an email to everyone on the guest list whose email address she knew. My ex-fiance made a similar request of his own mother. Right up until the date of the wedding itself, I was still calling friends to make sure they’d personally been reminded not to show up.
When Jasen and I started dating, and we were both on Facebook, our change of status from “single” to “in a relationship" with one another started a flurry of comments. All our friends and “Facebook friends”, whether we wanted them to or not, could see and comment on our new romantic attachment. It was a little daunting, having everyone so suddenly and effortlessly know, with only a few keystrokes and a click of the “save changes” button. Jasen and I were both rather introverted, and having so much public attention on our personal relationship was awkward, although it was much more uncomfortable for him than for me. After all, his last relationship had begun and ended before he’d joined any sort of social network, whereas I’d never had a relationship that wasn’t televised over the internet.
I’d assumed that ending my relationship in private, without Facebook to spread the news faster than wildfire and faster than I could control, would make it easier - after all, nobody would know before I told them myself, and I could be spared the constant questions and curiosity of friends and “Facebook friends” alike. In retrospect, however, Facebook’s cold, impersonal, instantaneous “Oh, by they way, two years of love and commitment are now out the window” accompanied by a cute little broken-heart icon would have been preferable over the long slog of phone calls, emails, and awkward conversations needed to do what Facebook would have done in one quick, effortless status change. Even acquaintances who hadn't been invited to the wedding eventually had to find out, and because it wasn't broadcast all over the internet, the news had to come directly from one of us.
After many awkward, tedious conversations, I began to see the value of Facebook as an aid to the introverted and the socially challenged, capable of disseminating these crucial bits of news: who’s dating whom, who’s moving where, who’s got a job or is looking for one, who needs a drinking buddy for an impulsive night of celebration of commiseration - without the stress and difficulty of all that pesky “interpersonal interaction.”
Yeah, it was hard, but not impossible. I got through it relatively unscathed and only a little bit traumatized. The harder part came later.
A year ago, I was still recovering from the breakup and still unpacking from my move when more bad news struck like lightning right after getting a nice new outfit soaked in a rainstorm. I learned the news from my mom, but she had learned it from Facebook: my brother had been diagnosed with cancer.
Before I go on, let me reassure you that after six months of Chemo my brother is cancer-free and doing just fine.
But at the time of the diagnosis, our family was wracked with anxiety. And since my brother was posting updates about his condition and the results of various tests on Facebook, I felt more isolated and out-of-the-loop than ever before. I had to depend on my mother to convey any news to me after she had learned it on Facebook. For the first few weeks after the diagnosis, I seriously considered rejoining the site. Not receiving updates on his health was unacceptable to me, but so was the idea of making him go out of the way to include me in his news-dissemination when he was already dealing with so much. I was wracked with a harrowing combination of guilt, worry, uncertainty, and doubt. Could I afford to keep my pride and my relative isolation in light of this development?
Fortunately, I was saved from this dilemma when someone (or perhaps several someones) convinced my brother to revive his old blog so that he could post updates about his diagnosis and treatment processes. Apparently there are a lot of cancer blogs out there, and a lot of reasons to keep one. If you're interested you can read my brother's blog here: http://bluesmasterelf.blogspot.com/
For the next several months, I checked this blog obsessively - perhaps as obsessively as some people check Facebook. I did not feel out of the loop, and in fact sometimes it seemed that I was getting news before other people did. Some more important pieces of news were still conveyed over the phone to my mom, who would then inform other members of the family. In some situations this system was much more prompt and efficient than computer-based media. In this way, our family stayed in touch throughout the treatment process.
After these events, I felt that I had experienced the absolute worst that life outside of Facebook could mean for me. Having weathered the ordeals without succumbing to the urge to rejoin the fold, I felt stronger than ever in my conviction that I had made the correct choice. And I can say with relative certainty that should you make this choice yourself, it will not be the wrong choice for you either.
There's more! To find out what happened next, go on to The Sixth and Final Part.
Friday, April 05, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 4: Separation Angst
The changes were subtle, at first, and mostly positive. When I went online, I found myself getting bored much more easily. There simply wasn't as much to do with the many idle moments of the day. This gave me more of an impetus to do some exploring and find new regions of the vast internet to enjoy, or even to get out of my chair and find something useful to do. I also found myself less likely to get irritated, possibly owing to my lack of exposure to irritating things. Overall, life became ever so slightly more interesting and less stressful. Ever so slightly.
Meanwhile, Google+, the young up-and-coming, was not taking off as spectacularly as I’d hoped. Sure, it had plenty of cool-sounding features, but very few of my friends had leapt onto that particular wagon yet. Why should they, when they still had Facebook? The few friends I did have on Google+ tended to post things on it as an afterthought, if at all; they were already posting to Facebook, and using one more network would be more hassle to them, not less. More than once I logged onto Google+, started a hangout, sighed, and logged out, having made no soulful connections energized by clever, streamlined technology.
Something else was happening that I had not anticipated. When I first joined Facebook in 2007, it was growing in popularity but not even close to the memetic leviathon that it is today. Until then, it had been restricted to those with email addresses affiliated with approved schools and companies, and had only just changed that policy. This made Facebook the elite, non-trashy, intellectual alternative to Myspace, which was fast becoming a breeding ground for glittery backgrounds and instantly-playing pop music videos. Not being on Facebook in 2007 was a nonissue, unlikely to have much effect on one's social life.
When I quit Facebook four years later, I naively assumed my life would return to something like its previous facebookless state (apart from the unrelated changes my life had taken since then). Unfortunately, the Facebook I left was the not the Facebook I had joined in the first place. It had not only grown and mutated like a fast-adapting alien life form introduced to the lush and unsuspecting ecosystem of Earth, but it had infiltrated the rest of my world behind my back, snaking its tendrils into every facet of the media and culture around me. I did not see the extent of the invasion until I myself was free of its grasp, and could look upon it with untainted vision.
Ads not only online but on TV and in printed media always contained the phrase "like us on Facebook!" along with a promise of better deals or special updates for those who did. Some even included a link to a Facebook page in lieu of an email address or even a phone number - meaning that without Facebook, I had no way to contact them. And it wasn't just advertisers who had been infected - everyone seemed obsessed. Hanging out with friends (in person, of course; I have yet to successfully attend a “hang out” of the Google+ variety) often devolved into a discussion of “Did you see what so-and-so posted on my wall?” Facebook was referenced on other websites, on TV, on the streets, everywhere. Everywhere I looked it was Facebook this, Facebook that, Facebook Facebook Facebook!
It got a little grating at times.
I wish I could say that the great Facebook invasion (turning all my friends and family eerily like-minded, almost turning them into a hive mind connected through an invisible newsfeed) was simply a matter of superficial annoyance, but the truth is the effects ran much deeper. Slightly more serious consequences began when my best friend, whom I knew was planning a Christmas party, neglected to invite me. As the date of the party approached, I began to worry. I was secure enough in our friendship to assume I was welcome, but at least wanted a notification of the start time, and part of me was still old-fashioned enough to be more comfortable with a formal invitation. Eventually, with only a few days left, I broached the topic.
“Have you sent out invitations?” I asked.
“Yeah, I set up an event on Facebook,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Facebook.”
“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you quit."
One might assume that such omissions were simply part of the adjustment process, a transitional situation in which people were still getting used to the idea of me not being on Facebook. But as the months went by, I kept finding myself left out of important social interactions, and it didn't seem to be getting any better.
In September, eleven months after I quit Facebook, I wanted to talk to a friend with whom I hadn’t been in touch for a little while. I gave him a call, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Knowing that he works an odd schedule sometimes, I assumed that he was at work, so I left him a message so he could get back to me.
A week went by.
Thinking he perhaps had been planning to get back to me, but then forgotten, I called again. Again, his phone went straight to voicemail. I called a few more times over the course of a weekend, wondering at my bad luck that he just happened to be at work each time I called. If it had been any other friend, I might have shot him an email, but I knew that this friend preferred not to use email. I gave him another week to get back to me, and by the end of that week I had begun to get nervous. Had I somehow offended him? Or had something happened that was keeping him from returning my calls?
I was talking on the phone to another friend, the same friend who had neglected to invite me to her party the year before. I mentioned my difficulties getting in touch with our mutual acquaintance. “Wait,” she said. “How long has it been since you talked with him?”
“About a month or so. Why?”
“I think he changed his phone number.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. I read about it on Facebook. Hang on, I’ll see if I can find the post.” I heard the sound of her typing fingers over the speaker of my phone. “Ah, I found it. He changed it about a month ago. Ready to write this down?” I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the numbers she read to me, then we said our goodbyes and I dialed the new number into my phone.
He promptly answered. “Hello?”
“You changed your phone number,” I said accusingly, but also lovingly.
“... Yes.” He clearly didn’t think this was cause for alarm.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
There was a pause. “But I posted it on... Oh yeah! I’m sorry.”
It wouldn’t be the last time that I missed out on some important social newsbit that had been disseminated on Facebook, and nowhere else. I would have thought that any important information would come to me by other avenues. Most people knew my phone number, and I was readily available by email and on Twitter and Google+ (which I still had not given up on), so I did not anticipate being so out of the loop. After all, if you have an important bit of information you want to share with as many people as possible - say a party, the results of an ultrasound, or some crucial gossip - it’s in your best interests to distribute it in as many ways possible, just in case not everyone is paying attention to the same channels. At least, that is what I had assumed based on many years of experience. It turns out, this is no longer the wisest course of action. These days it's far more effective to restrict all your communications to a single channel, because all you friends and family, without exception, are using Facebook.
Quitting meant that my friends would have to go out of their way to keep me in the loop, and it really wasn’t worth it to them. Once I realized this, I could have been offended, but instead I felt humbled, even ashamed. My decision to quit Facebook had been engineered to convenience me, not to inconvenience others.
But this did not cause me to reconsider my decision. I was out, and overall, I enjoyed it. Over the months I grew accustomed to being sometimes out of the loop, and to having to make a little extra effort to communicate with the people I care about - after all, I could hardly expect them to go out of their way to include me if I wasn’t willing to go a little out of my way to be included. I was soon to learn, however, that the practice in assertive self-inclusion I got from those first few forgotten invitations and misfired communications would soon be tested with some truly harrowing disasters.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 5.
Meanwhile, Google+, the young up-and-coming, was not taking off as spectacularly as I’d hoped. Sure, it had plenty of cool-sounding features, but very few of my friends had leapt onto that particular wagon yet. Why should they, when they still had Facebook? The few friends I did have on Google+ tended to post things on it as an afterthought, if at all; they were already posting to Facebook, and using one more network would be more hassle to them, not less. More than once I logged onto Google+, started a hangout, sighed, and logged out, having made no soulful connections energized by clever, streamlined technology.
Something else was happening that I had not anticipated. When I first joined Facebook in 2007, it was growing in popularity but not even close to the memetic leviathon that it is today. Until then, it had been restricted to those with email addresses affiliated with approved schools and companies, and had only just changed that policy. This made Facebook the elite, non-trashy, intellectual alternative to Myspace, which was fast becoming a breeding ground for glittery backgrounds and instantly-playing pop music videos. Not being on Facebook in 2007 was a nonissue, unlikely to have much effect on one's social life.
When I quit Facebook four years later, I naively assumed my life would return to something like its previous facebookless state (apart from the unrelated changes my life had taken since then). Unfortunately, the Facebook I left was the not the Facebook I had joined in the first place. It had not only grown and mutated like a fast-adapting alien life form introduced to the lush and unsuspecting ecosystem of Earth, but it had infiltrated the rest of my world behind my back, snaking its tendrils into every facet of the media and culture around me. I did not see the extent of the invasion until I myself was free of its grasp, and could look upon it with untainted vision.
Ads not only online but on TV and in printed media always contained the phrase "like us on Facebook!" along with a promise of better deals or special updates for those who did. Some even included a link to a Facebook page in lieu of an email address or even a phone number - meaning that without Facebook, I had no way to contact them. And it wasn't just advertisers who had been infected - everyone seemed obsessed. Hanging out with friends (in person, of course; I have yet to successfully attend a “hang out” of the Google+ variety) often devolved into a discussion of “Did you see what so-and-so posted on my wall?” Facebook was referenced on other websites, on TV, on the streets, everywhere. Everywhere I looked it was Facebook this, Facebook that, Facebook Facebook Facebook!
It got a little grating at times.
I wish I could say that the great Facebook invasion (turning all my friends and family eerily like-minded, almost turning them into a hive mind connected through an invisible newsfeed) was simply a matter of superficial annoyance, but the truth is the effects ran much deeper. Slightly more serious consequences began when my best friend, whom I knew was planning a Christmas party, neglected to invite me. As the date of the party approached, I began to worry. I was secure enough in our friendship to assume I was welcome, but at least wanted a notification of the start time, and part of me was still old-fashioned enough to be more comfortable with a formal invitation. Eventually, with only a few days left, I broached the topic.
“Have you sent out invitations?” I asked.
“Yeah, I set up an event on Facebook,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Facebook.”
“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you quit."
One might assume that such omissions were simply part of the adjustment process, a transitional situation in which people were still getting used to the idea of me not being on Facebook. But as the months went by, I kept finding myself left out of important social interactions, and it didn't seem to be getting any better.
In September, eleven months after I quit Facebook, I wanted to talk to a friend with whom I hadn’t been in touch for a little while. I gave him a call, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Knowing that he works an odd schedule sometimes, I assumed that he was at work, so I left him a message so he could get back to me.
A week went by.
Thinking he perhaps had been planning to get back to me, but then forgotten, I called again. Again, his phone went straight to voicemail. I called a few more times over the course of a weekend, wondering at my bad luck that he just happened to be at work each time I called. If it had been any other friend, I might have shot him an email, but I knew that this friend preferred not to use email. I gave him another week to get back to me, and by the end of that week I had begun to get nervous. Had I somehow offended him? Or had something happened that was keeping him from returning my calls?
I was talking on the phone to another friend, the same friend who had neglected to invite me to her party the year before. I mentioned my difficulties getting in touch with our mutual acquaintance. “Wait,” she said. “How long has it been since you talked with him?”
“About a month or so. Why?”
“I think he changed his phone number.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. I read about it on Facebook. Hang on, I’ll see if I can find the post.” I heard the sound of her typing fingers over the speaker of my phone. “Ah, I found it. He changed it about a month ago. Ready to write this down?” I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the numbers she read to me, then we said our goodbyes and I dialed the new number into my phone.
He promptly answered. “Hello?”
“You changed your phone number,” I said accusingly, but also lovingly.
“... Yes.” He clearly didn’t think this was cause for alarm.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
There was a pause. “But I posted it on... Oh yeah! I’m sorry.”
It wouldn’t be the last time that I missed out on some important social newsbit that had been disseminated on Facebook, and nowhere else. I would have thought that any important information would come to me by other avenues. Most people knew my phone number, and I was readily available by email and on Twitter and Google+ (which I still had not given up on), so I did not anticipate being so out of the loop. After all, if you have an important bit of information you want to share with as many people as possible - say a party, the results of an ultrasound, or some crucial gossip - it’s in your best interests to distribute it in as many ways possible, just in case not everyone is paying attention to the same channels. At least, that is what I had assumed based on many years of experience. It turns out, this is no longer the wisest course of action. These days it's far more effective to restrict all your communications to a single channel, because all you friends and family, without exception, are using Facebook.
Quitting meant that my friends would have to go out of their way to keep me in the loop, and it really wasn’t worth it to them. Once I realized this, I could have been offended, but instead I felt humbled, even ashamed. My decision to quit Facebook had been engineered to convenience me, not to inconvenience others.
But this did not cause me to reconsider my decision. I was out, and overall, I enjoyed it. Over the months I grew accustomed to being sometimes out of the loop, and to having to make a little extra effort to communicate with the people I care about - after all, I could hardly expect them to go out of their way to include me if I wasn’t willing to go a little out of my way to be included. I was soon to learn, however, that the practice in assertive self-inclusion I got from those first few forgotten invitations and misfired communications would soon be tested with some truly harrowing disasters.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 5.
Monday, April 01, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 3: The Momentary Lapse
Unfortunately, a “clean break” isn’t always as clean as you’d like it to be. Habits, even dangerous ones, can be very hard to overcome. Your mind lets its guard down just for a moment, and your body goes on autopilot, as when you’re on your way down a familiar stretch of road, you zone out on the highway screaming along to your favorite song, end up taking the wrong exit, and are now on your way to your old job - or your ex’s house.
So it was with me, mere hours after quitting Facebook. Later that same day, after checking my email and scrolling through several pages of lolcats, I became hypnotized, just as if I were on a familiar highway. I went on autopilot; I began tapping the keys absent-mindedly. When one, by chance, turned out to be the F key, in a flash my other hand shot over to the mouse and selected the autofilled URL of Facebook. It loaded immediately, and with a swiftness born of years of practice, my fingers hammered out the six-to-twelve characters of my password, reactivating my account. I had already scrolled through several posts before I realized, with horror, what I’d done. I threw aside the mouse as if it were something the cat had left me, and I shrank away from the desk, hissing faintly and guarding my vital organs.
I would guess that this is the social-networking equivolent of waking up next to your recently-dumped ex. In addition to the shame of realizing just how weak your self-control is, there’s the matter of dealing with the aftermath. You must reiterate once again the entire breaking-up process, except this time, your words lack the strength of finality due to your having demonstrated, in painfully explicit detail, just how precisely “no” means “no.”
And so, once again, I had to de-reactivate my account, with all the same whys and are-you-sures and confirmations and verifications. I may have imagined it, but this time, Facebook seemed less in shock and more gleeful, now that it knew that my every “yes I’m sure” could still mean “we’ll see.” I closed the tab with a grimace of shame, vowing never again.
If only it were that simple. Over the course of the following week, it happened more times than I’d ever like to recall. It got so that the process of de-re-de-re-deactivating my account became almost as automatic as that first inadvertent sign-in. After several days, tired of playing out the same tragic dance again and again, I tried to think of a way to force myself to stop. I needed help.
It occurred to me that, even with my account deactivated, Chrome remembered to fill in my username on the sign-in page, even if I’d managed to keep it from remembering my password. If I could get it to forget my username as well, would the extra step involved in signing in help break the cycle? It was worth a try. I cleared my browser history, something we all need to start doing more regularly, and checked back; the username field was now blank.
That did it. That one tiny change was enough. The next time I went on autopilot and typed in the Facebook URL, the blank username field gave me just enough of a pause to break the spell, shake me out of my trance, and bring me back into my senses. Then I could close the tab and make my escape. Finally, I was free. For real this time.
Promise.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 4.
So it was with me, mere hours after quitting Facebook. Later that same day, after checking my email and scrolling through several pages of lolcats, I became hypnotized, just as if I were on a familiar highway. I went on autopilot; I began tapping the keys absent-mindedly. When one, by chance, turned out to be the F key, in a flash my other hand shot over to the mouse and selected the autofilled URL of Facebook. It loaded immediately, and with a swiftness born of years of practice, my fingers hammered out the six-to-twelve characters of my password, reactivating my account. I had already scrolled through several posts before I realized, with horror, what I’d done. I threw aside the mouse as if it were something the cat had left me, and I shrank away from the desk, hissing faintly and guarding my vital organs.
I would guess that this is the social-networking equivolent of waking up next to your recently-dumped ex. In addition to the shame of realizing just how weak your self-control is, there’s the matter of dealing with the aftermath. You must reiterate once again the entire breaking-up process, except this time, your words lack the strength of finality due to your having demonstrated, in painfully explicit detail, just how precisely “no” means “no.”
And so, once again, I had to de-reactivate my account, with all the same whys and are-you-sures and confirmations and verifications. I may have imagined it, but this time, Facebook seemed less in shock and more gleeful, now that it knew that my every “yes I’m sure” could still mean “we’ll see.” I closed the tab with a grimace of shame, vowing never again.
If only it were that simple. Over the course of the following week, it happened more times than I’d ever like to recall. It got so that the process of de-re-de-re-deactivating my account became almost as automatic as that first inadvertent sign-in. After several days, tired of playing out the same tragic dance again and again, I tried to think of a way to force myself to stop. I needed help.
It occurred to me that, even with my account deactivated, Chrome remembered to fill in my username on the sign-in page, even if I’d managed to keep it from remembering my password. If I could get it to forget my username as well, would the extra step involved in signing in help break the cycle? It was worth a try. I cleared my browser history, something we all need to start doing more regularly, and checked back; the username field was now blank.
That did it. That one tiny change was enough. The next time I went on autopilot and typed in the Facebook URL, the blank username field gave me just enough of a pause to break the spell, shake me out of my trance, and bring me back into my senses. Then I could close the tab and make my escape. Finally, I was free. For real this time.
Promise.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 4.
Monday, March 25, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook, Part 2: The Clean Break
As you may have guessed, a social networking site whose revenue depends entirely on their promise to ad-buyers of thousands upon thousands of users does not take kindly to quitters. Signing up is easy: just type in a name and an email address (and everyone has one of those, what are you, feral?) and remember your alphanumeric password just long enough to click the “remember me” box. Quitting is another matter entirely. First you have to figure out how, and Facebook does not volunteer this information willingly. I ended up googling “how to quit facebook” and following some kind soul’s instructions.
Once I’d managed to find and click on the words “deactivate my account,” Facebook appeared to go into shock. The conversation went something like this:
“I’d like to see other websites.”
“Yeah, I know you’re getting into Google+, how’s that turning out for you? You know I’m okay with that, right? I never said anything about being exclusive.”
“No, I mean, I’d like to see other websites, and not you.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Are you really, really sure?”
“Yes, I’m really, really sure.”
“Pretty-sure with gumdrops on top?”
“Just delete my account already!”
“Okay, as long as you’re sure...”
“I am.”
“But are you really? Because I think your friend Jasen might miss you. Don’t you want to stay in touch with Jasen? He spends a lot of time here.”
“Yes, I know, because I live with him. I see him every day. We’re engaged, as you very well know.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, what about Michelle? She lives hundreds of miles away. How are you going to keep in touch with her if not through me?”
“I don’t know, by phone? She rarely updates anyway. Since she, you know, has a life? She doesn’t need you, and neither do I.”
“Well, I guess if you’re really, really sure. Just tell me one thing.”
Here I sighed in exasperation. “What is it?”
“Why do you want to leave me?”
Facebook displayed a list of possible reasons to choose from. No matter which one I chose, it came up with a way to fix that problem. In the end I chose to say that I did not find Facebook “useful.”
“Really? You know, you might find me more useful if you’d just find more friends. Or maybe you just don’t know how to use all my wonderful features. I’m sure if you visit the Help page, you’ll find just what you need.”
“Look. It’s not about what I need. It’s about what I don’t need, and I don’t need you. Please delete my account.”
“Sigh. As you wish. I’ll do it. Nobody will see your profile or your comments or your pictures. You’ll be turned away from your old friends’ personal profiles. All your information, your past status updates, your old pictures and tags, will be gone, and you can never get them back again.”
“Good.”
“Yep. Gone forever, unless you log back in.”
“Wait. What?”
“You know, just in case you change your mind. You just have to type in your old username and password, and your profile will magically reappear, just as if you’d never left.”
“Seriously? I thought you were going to delete it.”
“Oh, sure, but come on. Why burn bridges? I just want you to know that I’ll be waiting for you, and if you ever feel like picking up where we left off... just drop on by, and I’ll be there. Just like old times.”
At this point I would have given Facebook a much-needed talk on the importance of moving on and accepting loss, but then I remembered that I was talking to a website, and just clicked “okay,” as if everything was. After reassuring Facebook that I was indeed who I said I was, that I wasn’t an imposter trying to maliciously delete an innocent person’s account, and that no, I did not want Facebook to send me periodic emails “just to check in,” I was finally free. No more Facebook.
It felt good to break it off. I announced on Twitter and Google+ that I’d now be using them exclusively, and I enjoyed a slightly-less-encumbered online existence... for a while.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 3.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
How I Survived a Year and a Half Without Facebook (And You Can Too!) Part 1
In October of 2011, I was fed up. I was sick of the Mafia-Zombie-Cloneville invites. I was sick of reading the inane and often poorly-written “updates” on the lives of those whose lifestyle consists primarily of updating Facebook. I was sick of the constant layout changes obviously implemented to copy Google+, or whoever the prevailing competitor was that month. I was sick of the awkwardness of “liking" ambiguous posts such as a thought-provoking and well-written news article about some utterly unlikable atrocity. I was sick of the copy-me memes aimed to “raise awareness” in the most irritatingly faux-clever way possible for causes that we’re all very much aware of already thank you very much. (Seriously, do we really need to raise any more awareness for breast cancer? Who honestly believes that the Internet doesn’t pay enough attention to boobs? This does not strike me as a severely neglected cause.)
I’d been using Twitter for several months, and had just gotten an invite to Google+. Then a blushing newcomer to the social networking scene, not even out of beta yet, Google+ promised to be every bit Facebook’s superior. There was no point sticking with a sub-standard social networking website when there were so many alternatives available, and fully capable of providing all my networking needs without all the glut and annoyance.
So it was time to cut it out. No more Facebook for me. I was going to quit and never look back.
“But why quit?” you ask (I imagine, for you’re not actually interacting with me as I write this). “Why not just spend less time on Facebook, until your interest in it is equal to the amount of effort you expend on it?”
Funny thing about websites: once you’ve developed an overly serious relationship with one, it can be hard to go back to casual use. It can be done, but trust me, it’s hard. You start off innocently enough - you log in for a quick glance at your feed. Responding to a few comments couldn’t hurt. Before you know it, it’s 1:00 am, you’ve been obsessively tagging disembodied extremities in forty-some photos from your second-cousin’s wedding last week, you’ve become a fan of seven more minor celebrities plus a few ironic puns, and now you’re trading lolcats with an old gradeschool “friend” who, upon reflection, was always mean to you when you were kids. Your eyes are tearing up from staring at the screen, and you feel a vague sense of shame, but can’t seem to extricate yourself from the desk chair, which has molded to the shape of your ass.
No, I had to make a clean break of it. I knew myself, and I knew that moderation has never been my forte. The only way out was all the way out.
To find out what happened next, go on to Part 2.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Five Minutes of Mindful Breathing
When I was younger, I meditated easily and often.
I’m not sure when and why I began the practice. It may have began in the yoga class I took with my mother when I was fifteen, or a few years earlier, when I began following a Neopagan, New Age spiritual practice. Either way, I did not find it difficult to sit or lay down, regulate my breathing, relax, and focus my mind for long periods of time. For quite a while I made a habit of doing so before bed each night. Perhaps, as a teenager, I was simply predisposed to inactivity and empty-headedness. Turning it into a spiritual practice didn’t take much effort.
I’m not sure when and why I stopped. Perhaps it was when I turned eighteen, became a Christian, began college, and for the first time grappled with such distracting influences as lust, love, and a significant social life. Whatever the ultimate reason, I got out of the habit, and quickly got out of practice as well. The next time someone suggested I try meditation as a way to relieve stress and improve my mood, it had been years. Although I acknowledged it was a good idea, something in me cringed at the thought, and cringes still. I’d come to value productivity, and had learned the worth of time and attention. Spending minutes on end merely breathing seemed neither practical nor desirable, even though I knew the benefits to be great.
This is not to say that I am so busy that I can’t spare a few minutes out of each day for inactivity, or that I am a paragon of time-management and productivity I have dropped out of college, dealt with long periods of unemployment, and even while employed I have spent as much of my free time surfing the internet as I have doing chores or working on creative projects. It is not physical inactivity that I object to, but mental inactivity.
I have a distaste for meditation for the same reason that I prefer to listen to music while driving, and to read comics while falling asleep. In the absence of noise, pictures, words, and other stimuli, I am forced to deal with the contents of my brain undiluted - and I have come to believe that my brain is not an especially pleasant place. It is in darkness and silence that fear, anxiety, self-loathing, and regret most easily make their voices heard, so I tend to drown them out with distractions. When I am at my best, my distractions are art, work, exercise, and relationships. When I’m at my worst, my distractions are junk literature, video games, the internet, and other addictions. Whatever the quality of the distraction, it is a thick and effective buffer between me and myself - and, ultimately, between myself and the rest of the universe.
For a long time now I have known that my dependence on distraction is hindering my spiritual growth, and possibly hurting me in other ways. I have never been less in touch with my own feelings. I am already yelling before I know I am angry, and I am already crying before I know I am sad. I have trouble making decisions, acting on decisions I have made, and being fully present in any moment - even the happiest moments of my life. I know that I need to break the habit of distraction to really live as I am meant to.
As might be expected, I was in denial. I thought that meditation must still come easily to me, as it used to. That I could pick it back up whenever I wished. That I needn’t worry about setting aside a specific amount of time. I scoffed when I read a suggestion that I should write it into my schedule, sit in a quiet, secluded spot, and set a timer for five minutes. Why would I need to set a timer for such a thing? To pencil it into my schedule? All I had to do was do it.
Yet I couldn’t.
When I became a Buddhist, I was of course aware that meditation is one of the most well-known aspects of Buddhist practice, and my inability to even entertain the thought of it became more distressing to me. Still, it was a few weeks before I got around to addressing it directly. On March 13th, I began my evening with a list of several things I intended to do - small chores, errands, tasks both urgent and optional. On that list, I bashfully wrote “meditate”, and because I was still feeling ambivalent about the whole concept, added a “?” just to be clear that I wasn’t fully committed.
When I began to work my way through the list, I was tired from a relatively busy day after not having had enough sleep. I did a few small chores, then went to the kitchen to make myself some tea. While the water heated up, I thought about meditation, and how difficult it has been even to begin. When the water boiled, I poured it, and since I had a few minutes to wait for the tea to steep, I decided it was time.
I set the timer on my watch for five minutes, sat in a nearby chair, closed my eyes, and breathed.
In the silence and darkness, thoughts inevitably made themselves heard.
“I wonder how much time has gone by.”
“I hope slouching is okay. It’s hard to have good posture in this chair.”
“I should call George later.”
“Slouching doesn’t seem to be keeping me from breathing okay. Maybe a bit shallow, but who cares.”
“I wonder how much time has gone by.”
“What’s the point of setting a timer if I keep worrying about the time anyway? It keeps me from looking at my watch, but doesn’t keep me from thinking about it.”
“I should be making more of an effort not to think about how much time has gone by. Let the timer worry about the time, so I don’t have to.
“I should write about this experience for my blog.”
“I’m not very good at quieting my mind, am I?”
“It’s not necessarily about quieting my mind, not at this stage. It’s about quieting everything else. I can work on quieting my mind later.”
While all these thoughts came and went, I paid attention to my breathing, not letting my focus slip very far from it. And after a while, the thoughts themselves seemed quieter, gentler, less intrusive, and less frequent. Finally, I felt truly alone with myself, and it wasn’t nearly as frightening as I had feared.
I heard the door open, as my parents had returned from having been out for dinner. I opened my eyes, and slowly looked at my watch.
One second remained.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Finding Religion
On March 1st, after two years of wandering agnostically between faiths, I became a Buddhist.
Like many conversions, this one took place without warning and without the consent of the convert. Some people opt to do the proper research, perhaps take a class or two, and undergo a series of ceremonial initiation rites before converting to a new religion. Some religions even require such preparation before allowing converts to call themselves members. Others have less stringent screening processes. For instance, to officially join Islam, one need only declare “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His prophet” to a fellow Muslim (if I remember correctly), although I assume most people prefer to read some of the fine print first. I have never been one to take the proper precautions. Religion has a habit of coming to me sloppily and inconveniently, like the flu, or like falling in love.
I still do not know how or why I became a Buddhist, and am well aware that I’m not an especially good one. Off the top of my head I can name, at best, three of the Four Noble Truths, and am only sure of two or three parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. I have only a vague understanding of concepts like Dharma, Dukkha, and Samsara, and am not even all that clear on how to pronounce them.
Faith is about more than memorizing doctrine, of course. Unfortunately, my conduct and lifestyle is neither moderate nor mindful, and I am far from the universally compassionate ideal when it comes to my treatment of and regard for my fellow beings. I resent those who offend me, speak and act out of anger, and perpetuate my own and others’ suffering in many other ways. In short, I am a typically unenlightened being, unlikely to escape the cycle of rebirth any time soon.
The good news is that one need not be enlightened to be a student of the enlightened one. That’s kind of the point. After all, you need not be highly educated to go to school, and even the most educated among us could still benefit from learning more. From all I have read on the subject, enlightenment is not an exclusive club, but a gift freely available to those willing to practice.
I will have more to say on this subject later.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Blogging As A Practice
Late in the night of Winter Solstice I was at a party, and the host prompted all in attendance to announce their "resolutions" for the coming baktun. Without having thought about it, I made a decision to write more often. It was something I'd wanted for a few months, and I felt that the formality of public pronouncement might lend strength to the decision.
Specifically, I resolved to write at least 400 words each day. I have not been especially loyal to that minimum. One reason for this is that initially I was trying too hard to work on fiction stories, when right now my inspiration is to write about my own life and experiences. This kind of writing isn't as comfortable to me, so it's taking some practice to feel like writing about myself counts as productivity rather than narcissistic mirror-gazing.
I've also been suffering from the usual artist's insecurity about whether anyone is really interested in reading my work, and whether it's worth doing if nobody is going to read it. The answer to this anxiety, of course, is to realize that it's worth doing for its own sake, and that art made for its own sake will generally find an appreciative audience eventually. Such art is often more deeply appreciated and loved than art made with the intention of pleasing an existing audience. It's the difference between pop music produced by corporations based on focus-grouped market research, and songs written by an individual with a guitar and a heartfelt message. It's hard to create anything truly great while worrying about it being popular.
So, in an effort to get into the habit of creating things and allowing them to float out into the universe, I'm going to start blogging on a regular basis. My goal will be at least one entry per week, without a whole lot of rules about length, content, or genre. I do not know how long I will hold myself to this pattern. I have a decent record for sustaining such practices - for instance, in my late teens I wrote at least one poem each day for over a year before deciding enough was enough. I sometimes feel that my best work is produced when I don't wait for inspiration to strike, but rather coax inspiration out of reluctance, fatigue, and tedium by working within arbitrary restrictions.
Here's to the future.
Specifically, I resolved to write at least 400 words each day. I have not been especially loyal to that minimum. One reason for this is that initially I was trying too hard to work on fiction stories, when right now my inspiration is to write about my own life and experiences. This kind of writing isn't as comfortable to me, so it's taking some practice to feel like writing about myself counts as productivity rather than narcissistic mirror-gazing.
I've also been suffering from the usual artist's insecurity about whether anyone is really interested in reading my work, and whether it's worth doing if nobody is going to read it. The answer to this anxiety, of course, is to realize that it's worth doing for its own sake, and that art made for its own sake will generally find an appreciative audience eventually. Such art is often more deeply appreciated and loved than art made with the intention of pleasing an existing audience. It's the difference between pop music produced by corporations based on focus-grouped market research, and songs written by an individual with a guitar and a heartfelt message. It's hard to create anything truly great while worrying about it being popular.
So, in an effort to get into the habit of creating things and allowing them to float out into the universe, I'm going to start blogging on a regular basis. My goal will be at least one entry per week, without a whole lot of rules about length, content, or genre. I do not know how long I will hold myself to this pattern. I have a decent record for sustaining such practices - for instance, in my late teens I wrote at least one poem each day for over a year before deciding enough was enough. I sometimes feel that my best work is produced when I don't wait for inspiration to strike, but rather coax inspiration out of reluctance, fatigue, and tedium by working within arbitrary restrictions.
Here's to the future.
Monday, February 04, 2013
The Future
Here's a video of me performing my poem, The Future, on 1/19/2013. This was my first time reciting a poem from memory.
The video quality is terrible. Forgive me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmlJErgMSx4
The video quality is terrible. Forgive me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmlJErgMSx4
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