“You may be a writer, honey.”

“Really?”

“You’re arrogant…want another drink?”

“I don’t know”

“Not a writer”

 

(From 'Mad Men' - S1 Ep8)

 

When the emptiness is upon you
It fills you up like a balloon
And you float
High up over the real world,
And think of when
You were a little girl again

Where would you go, baby?
What could you do?
Didn’t you hear, baby?
Nothing is sure but uncertainty

You can feel the hunger inside you
But the longing will no longer guide you onwards,
Sinking into the floorboards
Where the rats eat at your will
And do it until,
Your belly aches
And your soul will not be still

Wrench yourself from your demons
For far too long you’ve believed them
When they told you you were weak
Take a step in the tunnel
With the light ’round the bend
In the end
You can start to make amends

Who knows where you’ll go, baby
So much you could do!
Haven’t you heard, baby?
All will be well
If you want it to

(Baby - Gotye)

Then And Now

Reminiscing today on the younger years. How we were so full of hope, so eager with anticipation, starry-eyed and breezy-headed. People were full of virtues. And the few faults we saw in them could be easily overcome in the name of love. Valentine's day was a bigger event than our birthdays. Careers were priority number one - always, everyday. And the absurd certainty that a knight in shining armor would come along, that he was there waiting for us, the 'one'.

I wonder why noone ever warned us about how completely disillusioned we were. Or maybe someone did and we were just not paying attention. So here we are...several years and sour grapes later, free at last of our constricting rosy imagination, eyes opened wide enough to see things as they really are...welcome to the thirties. We have gathered plenty insecurities, failures, heartbreaks and scandals along the way to know better by now. There was some occasional sprinkling of the good stuff too - love, friendship, success, adventure...to keep us going. But all in all, we know better now. We know that its better to 'work to live' rather than to 'live to work', and that more important than how many things you know is how professional you are while doing them. Family is the new priority number one - and that's how it will stay now till we die. And oh...we've met plenty devils out there to know that there's no knight in shining armor coming for us. Haven't met him yet anyway! (I tried to google him, apparently they've stopped manufacturing the shiny armors now, they only make them in matt. So there goes...)

Valentine's day now is just another day to feel heart-sore. Now that we know what-is.

Me, Myself and Facebook

Facebook. The only ones I know who are not ‘on FB’ are my pet Lisa, and my dirty old sock, who has tragically lost his partner, and hence any desire to get into the washer or log onto FB. Pretty much everyone else is there.

The genius of FB, and most other social sites, lies in the simplicity of the concept. Here’s a forum to meet, connect, network and share. Anyone around the globe with access to the internet, can reach out to anyone else around the globe with access to the internet. The possibilities are endless.

And yet, most of what goes on is plain disappointing.

As if we don’t fake enough in real life, now we have resorted to virtual faking. If your life is really as amazing as what you depict on FB, then you really wouldn’t feel the need to show it off to all these random ‘friends’ (when was the last time you actually called any of them?).

What bothers me is the extent to which people put their personal lives out there. This is not a forum where you have just a few select friends with who you don’t mind sharing personal stuff with. The whole damn world is out there (read - long-forgotten acquaintances, school teachers, uncles and aunts you don’t even remember how you are related to, your grandparents and their cousins, your colleagues, your exes and their spouses,…the list goes on).

With so many eyes on you, you are obviously going to put the ‘nice’ stuff out there and leave out the bad stuff. So I see these glorious pictures of your trip to the Grand Canyon with your family, but who’s gonna tell us about that nasty quarrel with your spouse at the onset of the trip, and that all the smiling and cuddling was only for the camera? If we don’t know the bad stuff along with the good, we can’t know you. You were and will remain a stranger to me, even though you have put pictures of your intimate moments with your family out there for me.

Honestly, I don’t even care. Most of FB ‘friends’ are people I have happened to have ‘found’. These are people that I have not bothered to keep in touch with over the years. Many of them I only remember by face. I may not even remember how I know them! Why would I care if she takes a trip to the Grand Canyon with her husband and two kids? I don’t want an extra email in my inbox reminding me to log in to FB, every time she takes a trip. Believe me, I have tried to take an interest. After all, these are people who at some time or another have been a part of my life. But seeing how ‘well’ they are doing in their lives just makes me feel miserable about mine. Am I a case gone seriously wrong, or are there dirty hidden secrets beneath all that glamor on FB? I’d like to believe the latter, even if it’s just for the sake of my own sanity.

So why am I even on FB?

I seriously don’t know :) I don’t do anything on FB except accepting friend requests. And that’s the only time I even log in. And yet, there is this desire to stay on. Mediocrity is addictive. Perhaps it’s the need to belong. Or the worry that if some day there is a genuine need to network, I may not know where to start.       

With no intent of sounding condescending (after all, I'm one of you FBers too), I would say - perhaps instead of making FB all about us, we could use it to channel information, talent (your own or something that you are inspired by), humor, intelligent debates on relevant issues, or worthy causes (I know a lot of shelter animals get adopted because volunteers and friends of volunteers post information and pictures of these animals on their FB pages). A few family pics once in a while is good too. It would be interesting to see how much your son has grown since the last time you posted a pic. And please, cut out the shenanigans. You can't possibly be taking vacations to exotic places all the time!

The power to reach out to millions of people can be limitless. We just have to rise above ourselves and our mediocrity.