I'm curious by nature, so when a random thought struck me this morning at breakfast, I asked my Farmer about it. "What kind of person do I seem like on facebook?" I asked him.
He thought for a bit. Proceeded cautiously.
"Maybe a little more saintly than in real life."
I thought so. "Is it all the gratitude lists?" I asked. "Does saying what I'm thankful for make me seem like I'm happy all the time?"
"Yeah, maybe. And the stuff you write about the children . . ."
Like it's all fun and games, I guess. Like I adore mommy-hood and swallow the sacrifice like a sacrament, making me holy. Like life is one long list of gifts.
Sometimes I do feel that way, for a few minutes. Most of the hours, though, of the past few years, I've felt more like an adolescent muddling her way through identity angst. Not terribly uplifting facebook material. I value honesty and vulnerability, but I also see that when my newsfeed is full of my friends' attitude & anger, frustration and failure, it gets me down. And one person's bright thought can light the darkness.
I want to be a brightener!
But I want to be real, too . . . so I blog (**mischievous grin**). Anyone who comes here, reads by choice. Consumption is optional.
So. I guess if you want the "whatever is ... admirable ... think on these things" me, friend me on facebook. And if you want the rest of the story, read my blog.
Just sayin'.
" ... shining like bright lights ... " Philippians 2:15
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
on "missing out"
I've always had problems with vacations. Life is interesting to me, and, well, I'm greedy: I don't want to miss any of it.
"Regular" life is soothing in its monotony. During the week I have no trouble (well, almost no trouble) taking a nap when I'm tired or skipping some housework that doesn't absolutely need to get done this week (those of you who know me will recognize that as code for "pretty much anything except the white laundry"). But send me off for a few days with friends, and suddenly life is its own caffeine. I stay up way past my usual stick-in-the-mud bedtime, spend way more time with people than is normally comfortable for me (alone time = processing time for me, and I do need to process), and basically burn the candle at both ends until there is nothing left but a singed wick stub.
I don't want to miss any of it - the conversations, the laughter, the chance to make memories.... and then I go home, spent and exhausted.
I just got back on facebook after deactivating my account for almost four weeks. It would make an interesting post to say that my life was radically different while I was off, but it would be an exaggeration. The first day or two I noticed that I was doing things with my children when I might have gotten online and checked out my friends' lives, but after that I guess I formed other routines. I stopped noticing facebook or its absence in my life.
But today, back on facebook, I began to notice a difference. I wanted to know what was going on. Who shared something about their day? Who's happy today? Who's sad? And why? How could I encourage, cheer on my friends? What could I share?
I didn't want to miss anything.
The last time I was away with friends for a few days, I learned something. It's okay to leave the group and take a break, alone with my thoughts. I come back refreshed, ready to really be with them again, ready to really listen, laugh, cry. It's okay to be the first one to go to bed, even though all the "good" conversations so often happen late at night. (Actually, we might be getting old: the "good" conversations tend to happen on walks in broad daylight, now, or in groups of two or three sitting on the porch. The late night conversations seem to have longer pauses and more yawns in them every year.) If I missed anything, I didn't notice. I think I rather gained, instead.
Back on facebook today, when Nice came to tell me about her drawing, I closed the laptop so that I could look in her eyes and really hear her - even though I hadn't finished typing my comment.
I asked my Farmer if life was any different around here the last four weeks. He said well, it did seem like you were a little more here, somehow. A little more available to us.
They are my family. They come first: my Farmer, Sugar, Spice, Nice, and Lil' Snip. I want them to know that not just because I tell them, but because I am here for them, I have time for them. I look into their eyes when they talk to me instead of murmuring "mm-hmm" while clicking keys.
I don't want to miss anything here.
"Regular" life is soothing in its monotony. During the week I have no trouble (well, almost no trouble) taking a nap when I'm tired or skipping some housework that doesn't absolutely need to get done this week (those of you who know me will recognize that as code for "pretty much anything except the white laundry"). But send me off for a few days with friends, and suddenly life is its own caffeine. I stay up way past my usual stick-in-the-mud bedtime, spend way more time with people than is normally comfortable for me (alone time = processing time for me, and I do need to process), and basically burn the candle at both ends until there is nothing left but a singed wick stub.
I don't want to miss any of it - the conversations, the laughter, the chance to make memories.... and then I go home, spent and exhausted.
I just got back on facebook after deactivating my account for almost four weeks. It would make an interesting post to say that my life was radically different while I was off, but it would be an exaggeration. The first day or two I noticed that I was doing things with my children when I might have gotten online and checked out my friends' lives, but after that I guess I formed other routines. I stopped noticing facebook or its absence in my life.
But today, back on facebook, I began to notice a difference. I wanted to know what was going on. Who shared something about their day? Who's happy today? Who's sad? And why? How could I encourage, cheer on my friends? What could I share?
I didn't want to miss anything.
The last time I was away with friends for a few days, I learned something. It's okay to leave the group and take a break, alone with my thoughts. I come back refreshed, ready to really be with them again, ready to really listen, laugh, cry. It's okay to be the first one to go to bed, even though all the "good" conversations so often happen late at night. (Actually, we might be getting old: the "good" conversations tend to happen on walks in broad daylight, now, or in groups of two or three sitting on the porch. The late night conversations seem to have longer pauses and more yawns in them every year.) If I missed anything, I didn't notice. I think I rather gained, instead.
Back on facebook today, when Nice came to tell me about her drawing, I closed the laptop so that I could look in her eyes and really hear her - even though I hadn't finished typing my comment.
I asked my Farmer if life was any different around here the last four weeks. He said well, it did seem like you were a little more here, somehow. A little more available to us.
They are my family. They come first: my Farmer, Sugar, Spice, Nice, and Lil' Snip. I want them to know that not just because I tell them, but because I am here for them, I have time for them. I look into their eyes when they talk to me instead of murmuring "mm-hmm" while clicking keys.
I don't want to miss anything here.
"deactivated"
Well, I did it: I deactivated my facebook account.
And then I snuck back in on my Farmer's account to see if it worked. It did. I am really gone. As in, even comments that I made yesterday on other people's statuses are just vanished into thin air. As if I never really did exist.
I feel like a "disappeared" character from George Orwell's 1984 (which I keep saying I want to re-read; now that I'm deactivated maybe I'll have the time to do it). I kind of expect to hear that someone's read my obituary in a very small newspaper somewhere.
Already I miss the interaction. Pathetic, I know. I thought, in the meantime, that I'd keep a record of things that I'm doing during time I might otherwise have spent on facebook, sort of by way of rationalizing my absence (or keeping myself from going back ASAP).
Today, so far, I have weeded flowerbeds, cleared the driveway of sticks with my children, with my son watched a tractor aerate the field, taken a nap, and rearranged my blog layout (moved "what's for supper" down a smidge and got rid of the "one thousand gifts" ongoing list at the bottom since I got to # 999 and quit recording). And it's not even 3pm yet.....
See, it's good. I can do this ....
..... right?
And then I snuck back in on my Farmer's account to see if it worked. It did. I am really gone. As in, even comments that I made yesterday on other people's statuses are just vanished into thin air. As if I never really did exist.
I feel like a "disappeared" character from George Orwell's 1984 (which I keep saying I want to re-read; now that I'm deactivated maybe I'll have the time to do it). I kind of expect to hear that someone's read my obituary in a very small newspaper somewhere.
Already I miss the interaction. Pathetic, I know. I thought, in the meantime, that I'd keep a record of things that I'm doing during time I might otherwise have spent on facebook, sort of by way of rationalizing my absence (or keeping myself from going back ASAP).
Today, so far, I have weeded flowerbeds, cleared the driveway of sticks with my children, with my son watched a tractor aerate the field, taken a nap, and rearranged my blog layout (moved "what's for supper" down a smidge and got rid of the "one thousand gifts" ongoing list at the bottom since I got to # 999 and quit recording). And it's not even 3pm yet.....
See, it's good. I can do this ....
..... right?
uneasy alliance
(or, "an unintended ode to facebook")
Technology and me, we go way back.
I remember my first radio: a wooden and mustard-yellow plastic Fisher-Price. You turned a ridged plastic knob, and music poured forth, accompanied by a picture reel featuring Jack and Jill fetching their pail and, lo! tumbling down a hill. My favorite part? The little window in the back where you could see the works turning, precisely-placed metal bumps brushing lyrically against tiny metal fingers.
So why did I pledge today to close out my facebook account?
I like the banter that is possible on facebook, the quick, quirky, back-and-forth between friends (or, say, little sisters). I like the opportunity to tell the "world" in condensed form what my day is looking like just then, ask for supper ideas, or exclaim about the sunset. Somehow it helps, if the baby is fussy, to post it on facebook. Not just for the sympathy, although that's very nice, but just to tell someone about it.
I like the encouragement that people offer - sometimes not who you'd expect! I like reading about other people's triumphs and struggles..... and voila!
It hits me, just now, exactly why I like facebook so much.
"We read," C.S. Lewis is credited as saying, "to know we're not alone." Facebook accomplishes that in a way that (*gasp* I can't believe I'm about to say this) no book ever quite can. You can read Tolstoy's War and Peace and be thrilled at his apt descriptions of people and relationships: yes, we're like that! I am like that!!
But guess what? Tolstoy, for all his sympathetic understanding of humanity, has been dead for over 100 years. If he was the only one who really gets it, it's too late in this life to have a heart to heart with him about things.
So you find a contemporary author - take your pick; I like Brennan Manning, or for fiction, Alexander McCall Smith - but what are the chances that their understanding connects you with them in any tangible way? Slim.
But on facebook, you read, you write, and you see not only that you are not alone, but that other people that you actually know are experiencing some of the same discipline problems with their children, the same joys over jobs finally finished, the same occasional exhilerating days, the same glorying in truth and beauty.
We're us.
And on facebook, away from the hairstyle and wardrobe worries (will I ever look cool enough?), away from the potentially awkward social settings (will I always stick my foot in my mouth?!), just you and me and all our friends out amongst the words, we can see that we're mostly the same. Just people, who cry and laugh and rage and sleep and worry and love.
But. This wasn't supposed to be an ode to facebook. I am still planning to delete my account tomorrow morning (although now I hope I'll be able to open it again someday).
Facebook, for all its delightful qualities, has a dark side.
When I'm on facebook, I'm not on the phone with a friend. I'm not reading to my children. I'm not sitting in the hammock (okay, I know I could be, with a laptop....). When I'm on facebook, I'm not napping. I'm not catching up with my husband's day. I'm not reading a good book. I'm not planning school projects. I'm not sewing or throwing pots. I'm not working in my flowerbeds.
In short, when I'm on facebook, I'm not really in my life.
Sooo .... once again, I am taking a break. And since I am so undisciplined that I have been known to "just check" facebook while I am taking a break from it, I am actually going to delete my account. And since I just listed all the things that I love about facebook, I am hoping that I will be able to reopen it someday, rather sooner than later.
It's an uneasy alliance we have, me and technology.
Technology and me, we go way back.
I remember my first radio: a wooden and mustard-yellow plastic Fisher-Price. You turned a ridged plastic knob, and music poured forth, accompanied by a picture reel featuring Jack and Jill fetching their pail and, lo! tumbling down a hill. My favorite part? The little window in the back where you could see the works turning, precisely-placed metal bumps brushing lyrically against tiny metal fingers.
So why did I pledge today to close out my facebook account?
I like the banter that is possible on facebook, the quick, quirky, back-and-forth between friends (or, say, little sisters). I like the opportunity to tell the "world" in condensed form what my day is looking like just then, ask for supper ideas, or exclaim about the sunset. Somehow it helps, if the baby is fussy, to post it on facebook. Not just for the sympathy, although that's very nice, but just to tell someone about it.
I like the encouragement that people offer - sometimes not who you'd expect! I like reading about other people's triumphs and struggles..... and voila!
It hits me, just now, exactly why I like facebook so much.
"We read," C.S. Lewis is credited as saying, "to know we're not alone." Facebook accomplishes that in a way that (*gasp* I can't believe I'm about to say this) no book ever quite can. You can read Tolstoy's War and Peace and be thrilled at his apt descriptions of people and relationships: yes, we're like that! I am like that!!
But guess what? Tolstoy, for all his sympathetic understanding of humanity, has been dead for over 100 years. If he was the only one who really gets it, it's too late in this life to have a heart to heart with him about things.
So you find a contemporary author - take your pick; I like Brennan Manning, or for fiction, Alexander McCall Smith - but what are the chances that their understanding connects you with them in any tangible way? Slim.
But on facebook, you read, you write, and you see not only that you are not alone, but that other people that you actually know are experiencing some of the same discipline problems with their children, the same joys over jobs finally finished, the same occasional exhilerating days, the same glorying in truth and beauty.
We're us.
And on facebook, away from the hairstyle and wardrobe worries (will I ever look cool enough?), away from the potentially awkward social settings (will I always stick my foot in my mouth?!), just you and me and all our friends out amongst the words, we can see that we're mostly the same. Just people, who cry and laugh and rage and sleep and worry and love.
But. This wasn't supposed to be an ode to facebook. I am still planning to delete my account tomorrow morning (although now I hope I'll be able to open it again someday).
Facebook, for all its delightful qualities, has a dark side.
When I'm on facebook, I'm not on the phone with a friend. I'm not reading to my children. I'm not sitting in the hammock (okay, I know I could be, with a laptop....). When I'm on facebook, I'm not napping. I'm not catching up with my husband's day. I'm not reading a good book. I'm not planning school projects. I'm not sewing or throwing pots. I'm not working in my flowerbeds.
In short, when I'm on facebook, I'm not really in my life.
Sooo .... once again, I am taking a break. And since I am so undisciplined that I have been known to "just check" facebook while I am taking a break from it, I am actually going to delete my account. And since I just listed all the things that I love about facebook, I am hoping that I will be able to reopen it someday, rather sooner than later.
It's an uneasy alliance we have, me and technology.
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| photo credit for both to bonanza.com |
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