Nevertheless, I rechecked my thinking. Is this a decision from an unhealthy place? Am I distancing from people and reality? Am I trying to hurt loved ones by "cutting them off?" I don't believe so.
I found myself surfing facebook every time I felt lonely. I found myself saddened, angered and vindicated by the political and social opinions being pasted like nametags as status. I found myself participating in a public dialogue where opinions were shouted, labels were applied and honest interchange of idea was impossible.
I decided that this was unhealthy for me. If I have opinions that I wish to share, I can share them with my neighbors, with people at church, with my representatives in office and with my family. If I need people to know what is going on in my life, I can take the time to fill them in. I decided that I prefer a more physical form of social contact. I decided that, for me, facebook was a filler, potato chips and a candy bar, for places of emptiness, but I am not afraid of my empty places. I refuse to become obese on illusions of contact.
I keep thinking of Naomi and Ruth. I keep wondering what people used to do when separated from all that they knew, forced suddenly to live with people unlike those with whom they grew up; being always in exile from the people and places that had been their identity. I think maturity means reaching through loneliness and fear to contact with the present. I found myself, via facebook, trying to hold onto and reconnect to my past.
So, I am going to reach through my loneness and fear to stay in contact with this place and time. I intend to be present here and to allow my past to be a time before, not a future longed for, or a hall of mirrors distorting my image of myself.
I must just be too complicated top handle facebook.
With a sly wink,
Yours,
Cobalt Dreams
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