Reactivation: The Night Before

A few final thoughts as the Facebook fast closes in toward its end...

Honestly, I feel healthier having had a break from Facebook, like he is an unhealthy relationship I needed distance from or time to learn how to only be friends. Sure, I have missed some updates about things (marriages, birth announcements, break-ups, hang-ups, triumphs, and losses), but most of the people who really want me to know something have called me or texted me or invited me into their lives in a more personal way than the public purview of social media. 

I truly think that Facebook is a form of mass behavioral conditioning--a way to socially conform the general population. I mean, we post statuses and receive reinforcement through the number of "likes" and comments. Most of us shy away from posting things that won't receive any "likes" or comments because we all want to be liked or noticed; in fact, negative attention is better than no attention. Some of us don't want to offend, so we keep our real ideas hidden. Some of us want a rapid line of interest fired in our direction so we say anything that will focus the spotlight on our stage. And so we learn to make posts that will make us popular or we learn to make ostentatious statements that will surely turn someone's eyes (and thoughts) our way. It's a public forum for conformity and a need to be noticed at its core. Like high school in techno format. You can "like" the same things as the people you want to be like. You can be "friends" with people you don't even really know. You can seldom ever talk to or see the people you know the very best. You can love from afar. You can bully with biting ferocity. There are even options to "unfollow" or "unfriend" for whatever reason: you only want to be "friends" with the elite "cool kids", you just can't deal with someone anymore...See, like high school with virtual hallways for everyone to witness any sort of worldly public humiliation. We also grow less capable of reading and responding to real people during real human interactions. Our chances of depression increase. Our creativity and imagination is stifled. We take more time to heal from break-ups and other heartaches. It's a culture (whether civilized or uncivilized) complete in itself and we are the citizens of its making.

Then, there are those of us who refuse to participate (at varying degrees). Whether we are selective in our posts and interactions or choose to take small breaks from the world of social media or ditch it all together, whether we make a conscious effort to have real, face to face interactions with people we consider our friends or log-out at meal times and quality times and other in-between times, whether we refuse to let the number of likes we think we'll receive (or not) make us second guess a post that reflects who we really are or let the number of people in our friends list determine some preconceived self-value, some of us still find ourselves seeking interactions that are real and genuine above the binary limits of the virtual plane.

So, even though I'll be reactivating my Facebook account some time tomorrow/today, I'm doing so with more thoughtfulness than I had before.

Deactivation: Day 5

Five days without Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Admittedly, I've wondered about what people are doing, if anyone misses me, if I'm missing something. Then, I remember that if it's really that important for me to know, the people will take the time to tell me themselves; if they really miss me, they'll make time to see me in reality rather than simply reading a status update I've posted.

I also realize that I'm gaining something--a different perspective. a grasp on what is present. I'm not distracting myself with the newsfeed on my phone, absorbed into the black hole of the cyber world. My precious minutes are mostly spent in the actuality of now--obviously I'm typing on a blog. Also,oddly, I spent the morning with a web designer discussing the museum's new webpage in addition to creating my own webpage for my art, but these are all more display options for creative endeavors rather than the unending stream of social awareness.

Honestly, there is only one person among those I truly care about connecting with whom I haven't talked to outside of the social media arena since "deactivation day". I've started a lot of conversations with him in my mind and wondered what he's been doing. But it's probably better for my own heart (and sanity) that I don't know.

For now, I am good with the people who are on my daily "friends list" and the "events" that become the skin on the bones of my day. Less frenzied, more focused, as if I've discovered a secret place to hide--here in the plain sight looking from the vantage point of reality.

Deactivation: Day One

Social media. A form of communication, of exhibition and public performance, of peering into private lives and sharing too much--a virtual sense of connection. Still, sometimes it leaves me feeling depleted--my brain cells stifled, my emotions vulnerable, my soul exhausted. For all of its promise of connectivity, I can't help but find myself seemingly detached, separate, and disconnected from the very people I'm supposed to be connected to through the streaming posts, photos, and status updates.

For someone whose primary love languages are quality time and touch, virtual reality just doesn't offer the genuine expression of time spent in conversation hearing every nuance in someone's voice, seeing the flicker of light in their eyes as they talk or identify with something you are saying. It doesn't even compare to sitting in a comfortable (or uncomfortable) silence with someone, listening to the rise and fall of his breath, reading her body language. Online it's simply silence. Nothingness. Void. There is no rush of lips meeting and an exchange of breath between lovers or the comforting weight of a friend's arms wrapped around your body. Only the cold symbols we recognize as words.

Also, there is the inevitable ability to see that your unrequited love is spending every evening with a different girl, to know enough that your mind races in circles weaving together possible scenarios of him with someone else while your heart keeps up in rapid time until it feels like it will crumble, to not know enough that you can turn it off. And then the constant bombardment of updates that you feel you must either "like" or respond to in some way or risk the possibility of hurting someone's feelings. Or the inescapable chagrin of posting an unflattering image or no one "liking" the post that reveals the most about you.

So, I deactivated my Facebook account. I pressed pause on Instagram and Twitter last night before going to bed. I admit, I've been tempted to log back in today. I've even picked up my phone absentmindedly to click on my app before realizing that I'm not participating in that virtual world any longer. I've felt somewhat liberated and rebellious. I'm not part of that "crowd". I'm not participating in the virtual cyclone of social media. I've also felt kind of sad at not being a part of it. I have felt disconnected. Like a loss or a small death, there is a general sense of sadness at wanting to talk to someone or visit a place and not having the option. Unlike a real loss or death, I do have the option of going back at any time. I've wondered what is going on with specific people. But if I really wonder that much, I can and will simply pick up my phone and call them. I've wondered if anyone misses me. In fact, when I deactivated my account, I received a list of "friends" along with a message asking "Are you sure you want to deactivate your account? [These people] will miss you." Oddly enough, the aforementioned guy was the first person on that list and, yes, I pondered whether he really would miss me or not.

I know I miss him. But I missed him even when I was "connected". The truth is, if someone is really connected to you, that tie will remain whether you're contacts via social media or not. Real reality is ,after all, real. Virtual reality is virtual. In its simplest form, it's an authentic vs. imitation story.  And in the end, the human soul craves real, whether we are pat of a social media circle or not.

Tous

Tu et mon fantasme et ma réalité.

Unsurety of Your Hands

I loved you before

I could catch my heart

it ran away into the dark

mystery of you.

I will spend an eternity trying to find it again,

my immortality in the unsurety of your hands.

Forever Again

You were my love whenever I would dream.

Before I met you, I knew you
and I will spend all of my breath and years

to love you forever again.

Some of You

Unless I am with you, I feel like I am treading time--seconds, minutes, hours. 

Days go by. Sometimes weeks. 

And I find I am ready to quit time all together. 

Then you call. I answer even though I am unsure where you have been. 

I come even though you have measured time with faces, hands, 

and lips other than mine--because 

I would rather have some of you than none at all. 

I hear your voice and my heart beats again. 

You move your mouth next to mine, breathing life back into my body. 

I feel your skin warming me from the inside. 

In any moment spent with you, time stops. 

Bare and beautiful before me, there is no one but you. 

There is always only you. There was always only you. 

There will always only ever be you. 

So when others speak, their voices make no sound for me. 

When their eyes look at me, I am looking for you. 

And they must know they will never hold me. Because... 

I would rather have just a little of you than all of anyone else.