Is Facebook reality? This is a question that I have thought about for quite some time and I'm sure many of you have as well. With so much division within our country and globally, what was once a place to stay connected to old friends as well as a source to find new friends, has become very different over the last few years. Yes, I am talking about Facebook. So why am I writing about this when I should be sleeping? Let's find out.
With the tragic results that unfolded last week, the American public found itself in a state of division that resulted in friends lists changing rather rapidly. I don't think I have to go into further details regarding this, but if you don't know what I am talking about, I do envy you. You have successfully avoided the all to real tensions of living in the digital age, or at the very least, learned how to successfully navigate around and through the turbulence and landmines of online communication.
We've become so lazy, that many of us don't even communicate with our own words. Click and paste has become our new voice. We read something and say to ourselves, "yep, that's exactly how I feel!" And we share it with everyone to see on Facebook. People react by clicking a thumbs up if we happen to like or agree with someone's post, we can click on a heart as a way to express love for a post or for the person who is responsible for sharing the post! Then we have the ever threatening angry face 🤬. Sorry, I couldn't resist. But we also have the option to take it to the next level. We can comment! This is what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls and ....
Last week, I'm afraid that some friendships were both made and lost as a lot of emotions were on full display. A friends list that once totaled 128 friends or 1,021 for example, would change. But it's the deletion of people that I am really focusing on here. Because many people treat their Facebook page and friends list as reality. But is it?
When I was first paralyzed thirty two years ago, the psychologists that I was forced to see, told me that my injury was going to have an impact on my life that extended beyond the ability to walk. Old friendships would begin to fade for a variety of reasons, but new friendships would be forged, as I was living a very different life now. In a way, I had or was becoming a different person from the one that many of my friends knew before my injury. I was using a wheelchair to get around. I had become skinny and fragile. This would change over time as I regained some strength, but as time began to pass, many of my old friends changed as well. Some would go off to college, others entered the military and the rest began working full time. For in fact, they were changing as well. Some moved away, others got married, while many began their journey of becoming a newer version of themselves.
Many years later, something called Facebook and MySpace began and all of the sudden, there we all were, together. It may have taken some time, but friendships were rekindled. You could add new friends who you might have a shared interest with such as sports, work art and hobbies. You could add people that you might have met at a party or work associates. It was networking via the web and it was a fabulous tool at our disposal. For myself, this was a gift because on Facebook, I didn't have to walk. As long as my computer had power, I was me. At least online. Now, we use our phones but just the same, life while different in the physical form, felt very familiar in the digital world. At least, during the first year or two. But as time went by, conversations began to fade and so did our friendship.
This brings me to my initial question, Is Facebook real? At first, it felt real for many of us. But as I just had mentioned, there was this all too familiar feeling of distance as friendships would fade away once again. I know we all have our lives to live but were we so busy that we couldn't find a moment to reach out to say hi? Surely, technology would only improve with time, so why was this happening again? We post pictures of where we went for the weekend, photos of holidays with a brief description and sometimes we would share our feelings. But we were failing to effectively communicate with each other. We began to talk at one another rather than with each other.
If we fast-forward to today, many of us don't even type out our thoughts anymore . We don't message each other. Communication has, in effect, broken down. What once felt genuine, has now been replaced by copy and pasting. Sharing a meme and judging one another not by our own words, but by the words from another person. Social media and advertising has taken over our news feed and worse yet, we now have AI to speak for us. Have you ever compared your news feed to the person sitting next to you? Try comparing your news feed with someone who has very different interests than you. Interesting, isn't it? What was once a common place where we all interacted together, has now been replaced with a news feed that follows an algorithm. So I pose the question to all of you - is Facebook reality anymore? Was it ever reality to begin with?
When I broke free from the chains of addiction, alcohol to be forthright and honest , I turned inward. I was receiving therapy regarding depression and feelings of regret. All of the people that I have hurt over the years, from childhood right on up through my days of substance abuse. You see, drinking for me was a coping mechanism that numbed reality. My reality, or at least part of it, was that time had taken its toll on my body. I was becoming weaker again. Not just physically this time, but mentally as well. Attempting to hold on to the former me, the me that I dreamt of being, the me that I had worked so hard to become, began to fade.
Alcohol was a stimulant that invigorated my mind and I would use this to imagine doing the things that I used to do, to be the person that I dreamed of being, which was a fighter pilot. But in reality, I was making my physical regression only worse. Followed by mental status changes, I was hurting deeply from within. I was also hurting some of the most important people around me. This was something that was difficult to accept but this was the truth. This was a truth that I had to own up to.
The funny thing about a change in lifestyle was that yet again, the landscape of friends changed as well. My home was no longer a place of refuge for a certain lifestyle and my inner circle had a different face to it. Some friends moved away, conversations faded and new friendships arose from the ashes of the past like a Phoenix. I had also changed so this isn't finger pointing, it's just the reality of my connections, the people in my life and how we interact going forward. Through therapy, I learned to not question who I am and who are my real friends but rather, I questioned what is reality? It is here, at this point in my life, that I began to suffer from the deepest pain that I have ever endured. What I had discovered was that in fact, time waits for no one and that reality is ever changing. It's so very difficult for me to get around anymore and there are people that I want to see. People that I need to visit. To meet a friend's young son, to see an aging parent, a neighbor and a good friend that I may have neglected.
Wanting to better myself meant also trying to let go. Learning to let go of who I always wanted to be. Letting go of the old me while embracing the new. I don't know how much time I have left in this life, but I have to prioritize myself and my family. My closest friends and maybe some associate friends, here. But that's it, because what is real to you and me may be two very different things; having two very different meanings. Reality is what you make of it. And while tomorrow is not granted, interacting with people in real life is so much more fulfilling than the copy and paste , AI algorithm defined, Facebook world, in my opinion. And yes, these are just my thoughts and opinions. Typing is easy, being real with people isn't. I don't want easy anymore. I desire real. And I think you all might in some way, your own way, want realism as well.
Friends will always come and go as I have mentioned . We've witnessed this during the division over the past week. So please ask yourself, who am I really and what do I define and prioritize as real? Who do I want to surround myself with and understand that we all don't think alike. That's because we're not all alike. Sometimes, we have to let go.This also means that this isn't a popularity contest and we shouldn't feel pressured to keep people on our friends list if we never speak or interact. This doesn't mean we can't be friends. Rather, it just means that some people simply aren't on your friends list. That's all this means. If they want to find you and vice versa, you both will.
Furthermore, letting go of discussions regarding topics that we might disagree on is at a certain point, ok as well. I was taught that there are two topics of discussion that you can never win. One would be religion and the other is politics. And I have found this to be very true. When I apply this kind of thinking over the broader spectrum of my life, I find more peace. So, if you have lost a friend or two lately, it happens. It will happen in the future. It's been happening your whole life. And don't be afraid of letting go of conversations that will only lead to debating and arguments with little chance of finding a middle ground or resolve.
What began as a journey into whether Facebook is real for myself, has developed into a journey that explores reality that can be different, is different in many ways, for all of us. This ultimately led me to a conclusion that Facebook is a kind of reality within a reality. It's a digital world vs the physical world and thus, we must use our own discretion as to what is real for ourselves. More importantly, finding truth will help us as a guide in deciding fact from fiction. This requires fact checking everything. Cross checking your references. Use personal responsibility to look at clips and memes as a glimpse of time but understanding that this momentary glimpse is just that. It's not the complete picture. It's not always your own voice. This makes communication all the more prudent. If we let people speak for us, we lose our own voice.
If this is the way in which we want things to be, then we must be prepared to see a Facebook where we have less in common with one another and yet again, friends will come and go. Only this time in our lives, let them go. Like every day before today, the rest will be what it wants to be. Technology will always change, I will continue to change and so will you. But you owe it to yourself to be real. Even if you have to sometimes let go. Facebook used to represent for me, a place and time where we all could seemingly gather around the dinner table and enjoy our time together. It was simple. Now, Facebook has become so much more complex. It has taken on a new form of reality that lacks authenticity, in my opinion. So it is here, that I will end my writing for now. But I pose this question for you - is Facebook real?
The purpose of this writing was to share some of my thoughts and feelings regarding what is real. I will undoubtedly continue to revisit this over the next several days and weeks ahead, as I continue to seek an answer to this question that has become a mental journey for myself. A journey that while difficult, will also be a process that I shall embrace. Thank you all, for your kind words and support.
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