You can pick your friends.
You can pick your nose.
But you can't pick your family.
Actually, less an old joke than an old axiom candy coated with inevitability.
And nowhere is that most ancient of accurate axioms more apparent than social media.
In particular, the mosaic of modern meddling, musing and meandering invented by that uber-billionaire in the hoodie, Mark Zuckerburg.
Facebook.
A friend, peer and colleague of many years posted the following on his FB page yesterday and I found it both insightful and not just a little ironic.
I didn't join Facebook to discuss the virtues and vices of Democratic and Republican politics. I didn't join to discuss the pros and cons of gun control. I didn't join to respond to incessant app requests. I didn't join to 'like' pages created by people I don't know and/or have never met. I didn't join to ask people to support my causes, or to support anyone elses' cause of choice. Most importantly, I didn't join to read comments written by people I consider peers and friends filled with judgemental, vitriolic rage, indignance and occasionally even unadulterated hatred.
I joined Facebook to stay connected to those who I hold in high regard personally, professionally, or both. I joined to share the joys of their lives and careers, and to be supportive and caring in their times of need. I joined to make funny, light hearted comments and to just have...fun. I hate what this place has become...a dumping ground for anger, hate & personal agenda. I had a pretty good life before Facebook came along, and I'm pretty confident I'll still have a good one after it's gone. For now, I think I'll spend a lot less time here.
This friend, peer, colleague is, by both profession and nature, an articulate and thoughtful guy. He, in fact, makes his living articulately and thoughtfully crafting and assembling words.
So, I couldn't help but be struck, as I read his expression his feelings of, obviously, frustration, irritation and, I'd hazard, more than a little let down, by both the insight and irony resulting from said reading.
Facebook, by design, intent and, if nothing else, accident, is nothing more, or less, than the 21st Century, state of the art spin on the primal, human predisposition to gather together in groups of two or more and communicate to one another the observations, occurances and/or opinions each of us, as primal humans, possess at any given time in our time here on the mortal plane.
Put less NPR-ishly, we just love to shoot the shit and/or dish the dirt with others.
At it's simplistic core, Facebook is nothing more, or less, than a telephone that requires a keyboard as opposed to a mouthpiece and speaker.
In fact, FB is, again boiled down, simply a modern twist on that communicative oldie but goodie.
The party line.
Those born after, say, 1960 will want to take a moment here to Google.
While we wait for you, the rest of us will jump on FB and check to see what's new.
Meet you back here in a few.
The most obvious difference between the party line of old and the party line of online is, in the case of the latter, you can "hear" each side of every conversation.
Providing both a fascinating futuristic spin on the original concept of multiple musers musing at once and, simultaneously, proving, once again, that there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I have nothing but respect, and empathy, for the feelings expressed by my friend, as regards his disillusionment with what he thought he was getting when the modern day version of the telephone man came along and offered him access to the current day chit chat mainstream.
I totally understand his anguish at his senses being assualted by party liners waxing whiny about their political POV's, gun control cacaphonies and/or assorted nasties, nabobbings and/or neuroses.
Hell, man, for that kind of brain banging, all many of us need do is wait until this year's family Thanksgiving dinner.
And while we're at it, can I just throw in my own previously expressed lament that Facebook, more and more, seems to be misnamed, the more correct monniker, given the current face to puss ratio, being something like Petbook?
And then, of course, there's Twitter.
Do I really need to know that you just sent out for Chinese and you think you need to increase your fiber intake?
But that's another party line patter for another party line time.
I understand and, again, respect my friend's unhappiness with what he experiences a lot of the time on FB.
To paraphrase Jerry Lee, "whole lotta petty and pissy postin' goin' on".
Actually, come to think of it, that gives a whole new meaning to the term "going post-al".
Ar ar.
Bottom line.
Like any group, gathering and/or party line consisting of the various and sundry good, bad and/or ugly that makes up the race human, it's inevitable that Facebook, among other forms of reach out and touch, is going to be home to assorted good guys..and bad, profundity...and profanity, outreach...and outrage, tender talk...and trash.
And my friend's point, well taken, is nothing if not valid in that Facebook, in the most idealistic sense, could benefit in a major way from a thinning of that part of the herd that insists on wringing their hands in lieu of clasping anothers, peeing in the Cheerios as opposed to pouring on a little milk of kindness and rubbing salt instead of sprinkling sugar.
But Facebook, for good, bad or indifferent, is a place where one has the freedom to express oneself, well, freely.
And as a wise man once, and often, wrote, "the problem with freedom is that you have to give it to everybody."
As shared at the outset, I find my friend's thoughts to be both insightful...and ironic.
Insightful in the lament that given the chance to connect with one another, so often, sadly, the connection becomes less a means of increasing the flow of that which might heal and more a means of distributing the venom.
Ironic in that, assuming and conceding the analogy that Facebook is a high tech party line, my friend got on the line to tell everyone that he was weary and tired of all the pissing, bitching and moaning on the party line and was no longer going to get on the party line.
Instead of just hanging up.
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