Vision Questing through the Social Notwork

It has only been a day and already I can see what lies ahead of us; it’s a vision quest. Like all vision quests it starts with a challenge, can we manage to live our lives for the next 30 days without knowing that so and so is sitting in the library wasting their Thursday or that dinkus and boy genius over there are now friends? But then the question of why arises. What is the purpose of departing on this voyage in the social notwork? As Raymo said call it the Lok’s or blame it on the Henne but the point is we don’t need to know all the answers. They come in time. You don’t even need to know the questions. All you need is the quest, and in that lies everything you need. Vision Quest baby, we’re goin for all the answers.

So what’s it like? Blaz says its dark, I can agree. Varg can’t stop going to check, even though he deactivated just yesterday, I can relate. Raymo remembers the yearning for those little notification bubbles that let you know you’re special and that somebody out there thought of you for a span of about 2 seconds, I feel him on that one. But what is it like for me??? I’ll tell you.

I see my browser open, filled with the usual five or six tabs open that I consistently roll with; catmail, blackboard, d2l, fantasy basketball (having a very good week by the way), and the usual randoms of youtube, possibly song lyrics, etc. But suddenly there’s no facebook tab. No longer do I finish looking at something in particular and immediately click over to the book to see if I’ve been talked about recently. How delightful! Suddenly I’m looking at my computer and seeing all the tools I have at my disposal that I practically never use because I’ve been a slave to the almighty Book. Take this blog post for example, let it be known that I also have a blog of my own, one that I fully intended on updating on a semi-daily basis, but has that happened? Of course not. It sits with the one post I made upon returning to Tucson, over 2 months ago. And yet here I am, posting away. Why? Because no longer am I wasting countless minutes looking at the news feed, checkin out sweet pics, commenting, liking, disliking, poking, message, uploading, status changing, GOD DAMN! Its overwhelming.

Even as I right just now when I hit a bit of a snag I contemplate switching over to the ‘ol explorer to refresh the news feed, yet I don’t, because its not there. And so I keep writing, such a pleasant surprise. Its only been a day and I’m wondering if I’ll ever want to go back. This deactivation has caused me to try and itemize the amount of time spent in facebook related activity, and its an astounding number.

So its only just begun, yes, and nobody knows what is to come. Perhaps I will eat these words in less than a week, perhaps I will delete my account altogether tomorrow. Nobody but time will tell. And that’s what makes it a vision quest, let’s go for all the answers, let’s find our place in the circle, and at the very least, let’s get drunk.

Catspeed to us all, Peace & Love, JeauxBeaux

 

Bookface

def went to go check my shit right when i woke up today.  never would have admitted it before but i feel theres definitely some level of addiction there, prolly for all of us.  shits wack its a goddam facebook, what happened to actual discourse and dialogue?  makes me sad to think kids nowadays are gonna be such pieces of shit when it comes to human interaction.  o well, go cats 

1

It may have been the Four Loko (or the bottle of whiskey) that prompted our decision to deactivate our Facebook accounts for a 30 day stretch. Story of our lives, right?

Today (2010/11/4) was an oddity; I didn't wake up and login to Facebook, hoping with every fiber of my being that my eyes would alight on a little red notification bubble. I'd done this every morning upon rising for the past who-knows-how-long, going clickety-clack on my laptop before hitting the bathroom to wash my face or brush my teeth. Gross, kind of - and more than a little pathetic. It's begged the question for me, why? I'm big on motivation, behind the scenes gear-work; what's the big pull, then? The illusion that through fiberoptics and LCDs I'm actually actively connecting myself to the people in my "Friends" list? This has not been the case, not one bit. More often than not I find myself inertly clicking F5 in my web browser to refresh the news feed, to read about things that (in the grand schema) don't really matter at all. What makes it worse in my head is that I'd actually been interested - moreso than that, to the point of intrigue, genuine concern -  to hear about happenings in the lives of people that (now, I see) have absolutely nothing at all to do with me; folks that I'll likely never run into again for the duration of my time on this planet. My buddy Such would say that all that's "for the birds" - but I'm pretty sure duke's account is still active. I say, cast all that aside; why is it that we revel in not having our feet firmly planted in reality, in faux-involvement with  the tantalizing flavor of the week?

Why are we doing this? To find out, I guess; to see if we can stay away, to see if for just a moment in time we can step away from the consumption junction that is what our daily lives have become. I'm not sure what our aspirations are, but I'm sure they'll reveal themselves in due time. I'd hate to find I've given up Facebook only to poke people in real life, to find myself saying things like "Raymond De Jesus likes your comment."

Catspeed, brethren. This is day one.

Day 1

It's been a long day... I found myself looking at a blank internet page about 50 times today expecting facebook but only getting a spoonful of disappointment... 
I don't know if I can make it....
So dark....
So...
Dark...