It’s been over a month since my last little entry. It’s not like I haven’t had a lot of time to write or anything to write about. I guess I haven’t had the desire to write. That’s not even really true. I have had many things that came to mind that I thought would make good notes on here. But I didn’t do it, did I?
I suppose one thing that was always lingering in the back of my mind that ultimately convinced me not to write anything was the question: “What’s the point?” That question has been cropping up lately. It always had been and probably always will do. I guess I get these bouts of self doubt, lack of meaning in my own life and my own thoughts. I’m not really sure what spurs them on but they do happen every now and again…
One thing that perhaps was contributory to all this and, at the same time, was one of those topics on my mind was Facebook. I find it to be such a fascinating and irritating little page. It fascinates me because it really does what it says it does. It connects people that aren’t in each other’s lives. There are people on my friends list whom I haven’t seen in many years. There may even be a couple whom I’ve never met before. Isn’t that strange? Why on earth would I want to keep lines of contact to people who have chosen not to contact me in many years. I know contact goes both ways. Many people who were once good friends are now reduced to little icons that appear randomly in the side of my window. I don’t know if I’ve ever had 120 or so friends in my life. Probably a few. But they come and they go in varying levels of importance in my life. Most of them are sort of on the low end. I care if they are doing well but won’t actually engage in any active communication with them. But even if I did start writing or talking to them, where would I start? I hadn’t seen the person since high school – now almost 13 years ago – do we sit down and share our life stories? I read him off my list of things I’ve done and places I’ve gone and he reads me his? I suppose with facebook, we don’t even have to arrange for a meeting. I can follow his little feed. I’m not terribly interested in the things he “likes”, like some coffee shop out where he lives. That’s not important to me. I suppose that the things I’d like to know are: How’s his job? Is he married? Does he have kids? How are his parents? Etc. I guess these would be the major points in his life. I don’t really like to see my life reduced to such a list. It makes the last 30 years seem so inconsequential if the long and the short of my life can be put down on one side of one sheet of paper. But since I have 120 people, that would make up a tidy little book. And if he posts pictures of his life with him in them, they would be a tidy little facebook.
One thing that has always troubled me is that I don’t really like this sort of thing. I never had tons of friends in my life. In the many phases of my life, I’ve always had a couple. And now that I think about high school and the many places I’ve been since, most of the people whom I’ve called friends were just nearby and I could tolerate their presence – I hope they could tolerate mine.
