The other day someone asked me why I enjoyed Facebook and technology. They commented that they found it depressing and people were duplicitous in their posts.
As I thought about my response, I realized I didn’t share their viewpoint. (I did respect it however.). My realization made me aware of my conscience choice to eliminate people who were not genuine, who “embellished”, who couldn’t appreciate the genuine value of experiencing life lived as the Velveteen Bunny (a role model for us all!).
I’ve eliminated the braggarts and boasters, those people who never acknowledge the lives we see them living. The one uppers and put downers. I’ve cut and culled those people from my life who are out of touch with the joy of accepting reality. Reality is messy, painful, filled with unimaginable joys and sorrows. It puts grey in our hairs and crease on our skin. It puts both a sparkle and a tear in our eyes. It expands our hearts and souls and if we’re learning as we go, shapes us into worthy humans.
Facebook, the one I share with friends I choose, and choice is the operative word, allows me to experience my friends, far and wide, near and dear. Children growing up, marriages over or beginning, jobs lost, new careers found. Birthdays, deaths (cycle of life), travels which elevate, excite and inspire, community giving, health choices, hobbies, interests, differences, humor and so much more. The pictures and words shared are all bits and pieces of the tapestry that weave us together as friends sharing the failures and excellence in each of us.
I admit I’m in love with technology, always have been, always will be. Many people believe technology is subtracting from the quality of our lives. My belief is that it’s simply another tool to use to learn, grow and share. Tools have a time and place and understanding capacity, capability and moderation is key to doing pretty much anything. Tools are what you make them. I agree that allowing technology to become an addiction is foolish. (We have all experienced the people who can’t put their cell phone away for fear they won’t catch the email, tweet or post. All while being out to dinner etc w friends “enjoying” time together.).
Making Facebook work for me provides me with an opportunity to intentionally engage with those people in my life who have learned the value of becoming “real”. Facebook isn’t perfect. It mirrors the choices we make in real life. If it’s not pleasant my belief is, neither is your real life. I’ll stick to it as I enjoy all the “skin horses” I’m walking thru life with. I can’t fault technology for reflecting life. If I don’t like what technology shows me, I need to look at my choices rather than faulting ones and zeros.
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“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”