uneasy alliance

(or, "an unintended ode to facebook")


Technology and me, we go way back.

I remember my first radio:  a wooden and mustard-yellow plastic Fisher-Price.  You turned a ridged plastic  knob, and music poured forth, accompanied by a picture reel featuring Jack and Jill fetching their pail and, lo! tumbling down a hill.  My favorite part?  The little window in the back where you could see the works turning, precisely-placed metal bumps brushing lyrically against tiny metal fingers.

So why did I pledge today to close out my facebook account?


I like the banter that is possible on facebook, the quick, quirky, back-and-forth between friends (or, say, little sisters).  I like the opportunity to tell the "world" in condensed form what my day is looking like just then, ask for supper ideas, or exclaim about the sunset.  Somehow it helps, if the baby is fussy, to post it on facebook.  Not just for the sympathy, although that's very nice, but just to tell someone about it.

I like the encouragement that people offer - sometimes not who you'd expect!  I like reading about other people's triumphs and struggles..... and voila!

It hits me, just now, exactly why I like facebook so much.

"We read,"  C.S. Lewis is credited as saying, "to know we're not alone."  Facebook accomplishes that in a way that (*gasp* I can't believe I'm about to say this) no book ever quite can. You can read Tolstoy's War and Peace and be thrilled at his apt descriptions of people and relationships:  yes, we're like that!  I am like that!!

But guess what?  Tolstoy, for all his sympathetic understanding of humanity, has been dead for over 100 years.  If he was the only one who really gets it, it's too late in this life to have a heart to heart with him about things.

So you find a contemporary author - take your pick; I like Brennan Manning, or for fiction, Alexander McCall Smith - but what are the chances that their understanding connects you with them in any tangible way?  Slim.

But on facebook, you read, you write, and you see not only that you are not alone, but that other people that you actually know are experiencing some of the same discipline problems with their children, the same joys over jobs finally finished, the same occasional exhilerating days, the same glorying in truth and beauty.

We're us.

And on facebook, away from the hairstyle and wardrobe worries (will I ever look cool enough?), away from the potentially awkward social settings (will I always stick my foot in my mouth?!), just you and me and all our friends out amongst the words, we can see that we're mostly the same.  Just people, who cry and laugh and rage and sleep and worry and love.

But.  This wasn't supposed to be an ode to facebook.  I am still planning to delete my account tomorrow morning (although now I hope I'll be able to open it again someday).

Facebook, for all its delightful qualities, has a dark side.

When I'm on facebook, I'm not on the phone with a friend.  I'm not reading to my children.  I'm not sitting in the hammock (okay, I know I could be, with a laptop....).  When I'm on facebook, I'm not napping.  I'm not catching up with my husband's day.  I'm not reading a good book.  I'm not planning school projects.  I'm not sewing or throwing pots.  I'm not working in my flowerbeds.

In short, when I'm on facebook, I'm not really in my life.

Sooo .... once again, I am taking a break.  And since I am so undisciplined that I have been known to "just check" facebook while I am taking a break from it, I am actually going to delete my account.  And since I just listed all the things that I love about facebook, I am hoping that I will be able to reopen it someday, rather sooner than later.


It's an uneasy alliance we have, me and technology.

photo credit for both to bonanza.com

people riches

I feel rich, today.  People rich.

(family)  This morning while Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice painted plaster dogs and cats from Christmas, their cousins dropped in on their way out to Pittsburgh to give final hugs and good-byes.

(community)   As I ran errands later in the morning, I stopped by a nursery/farm stand where the Amish owner knows my husband.  I wanted some sauerkraut for that New Year's Day meal of mysterious origin (anyone?), and we were low on honey, too.  I asked how their homemade soaps work in crazyhard water - and he gave me one to try, gratis, along with his personal testimony to how nice it feels!  (I'll have to let you know).

Next stop was an organic farm where we had bought raw milk for over a year before we discovered a more convenient source.  Despite my lack of loyalty, I was greeted warmly and asked about my Christmas holiday.

At the grocery store I got smiles returned from cashiers, baggers, a worker in the produce dept, and the butcher, all of whom recognize me after more than 10 years of shopping there.

It is nice to be known, nice to do business with folks who know how many children you have.

(friends)  Today, it was a friend of my Farmer's who I'd heard much of but never met.  He came over to help work on a home improvement project, and brought his two daughters, the same ages as Sugar and Spice.  After awkward parent-facilitated name exchanges, the four girls disappeared outside to be seen running to and fro in companionable little pairs (and threesomes, once Nice joined them).  By suppertime they were exchanging confidences and using nicknames.

There is a wealth in personal interchange - eye contact, laughter, a live-spoken comment and response, a relaxed pose or an active stride - for which there is no technological substitute.

My day was full of people whose lives touched mine, and I am richer for it.

In the end, facebook is only a partial disclosure of who I am.  Blogging is only an electronic journal to be indulged in as time allows.  Even the telephone lacks the dimension of sight - posture, eye contact.  Communication can only ever be complete in person.  Anything less cheats us of being known, and knowing.

(and on a lighter note, maybe you can communicate to me - technologically or otherwise - why we eat pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day.  Is that a local custom?  Who started it?)