Facebook Hiatus

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Today marks the one month mark of my Facebook hiatus and, subsequently, the end of it. Now for those who've noticed that I was appearing on their friends list and in their chat list again, here are some of the answers to your frequently asked questions:

Q:Why did you give up Facebook in the first place?
A: Because it was a waste of time. More importantly however, it was socially crippling. I could spend all day "socializing" on Facebook without having had any real conversations that day. It was driving me crazy. I was sick of how easy Facebook made it to detach myself from my own social experience. Mind you, I don't think this was particular to me, I think that is the Facebook ailment generally, but I can't make everyone else delete their Facebook. Which brings me to my next question.

Q: Didn't you say you were giving up Facebook for good? What happened?
A: Yes, in the onset, I had intended not to come back to Facebook. So, thanks for pointing out my glaring failure. The simple truth in the matter is, while my Facebook hiatus was proving beneficial in achieving my initial goal, the cons began to outweigh the pros. Sure I wasn't socializing on Facebook anymore, but that didn't change the fact that other people still were. While 80% of everything said on Facebook could really go without ever being said, I was also missing out on the 20% that I really did want to hear, but wasn't. If you ever want to really notice how often people say something like "did you see [insert name of friend]'s announcement on Facebook?" Or, "did you see that video I posted on Facebook?" Then disable your Facebook, and you'll start hearing it all the time.


Q: Well, welcome back then. Did you have any words of wisdom from your short lived hiatus?
A: I do actually, funny you should ask. There is a lot about Facebook that really sucks. It can be a huge waste of time, and it provides a means for people you don't really care about to share the most intimate moments of their lives with you. That being said, it is also the way people have chosen to broadcast themselves. While much of what is done over Facebook could rightfully be done in a more intimate, socially healthy way; Facebook has also given us a new degree of socialization that we never had access to before. I think we could all stand to use Facebook a little less, but for what it does provide us in terms of new ways to interact with each other, well, who am I to argue against that? So as long as the people I care about (or at least whose  crazy lives I like to keep tabs on) continue to choose Facebook, I guess it doesn't hurt for me to choose it to.

Death I Can Understand

My grandfather has an uncanny memory, he has memorized more poems than most people have read in their lifetime. Unfortunately his memory for verse is not rivaled by his memory for attribution. The following is a poem he recited to me and I transcribed. He doesn't remember who wrote it, and it appears nowhere on the internet. I suspect he actually wrote it (which he has been known to do) and has mistakenly assumed that he memorized it from somewhere else. So here it is, the unattributed poem, making its first ever internet debut. It isn't long, and it's rather depressing; but it's well written and deserves to be written down somewhere:

Death I can understand.
If you had died I still might know content.
Believing in that world where here and there are blendt,
To find you all unchanged.
But what fate planned this grief?
And why at life’s not death’s demand
must we who know the lovely art
of soul, and soul completeness part,
but both live on, grow old and change?
It is this life, so sadly strange
I do not understand.