Facelift

Holy moly, it has been years since my last post! I have made it a new summer goal, among others, to reinvent myself as a blogger. I love to write. I love writing about many things. I don't want to be generic, as my posts in past years have been a jumbled mess of the random. Time for something new. Time for a useful outlet. I need growth. So what is the best direction to take my blog?...or start a new one all together?

Suggestions encouraged!

Dearest Facebook.

Dearest Facebook,

           

Do I miss thee? I think not. My variety of communicative practices I somehow forgot. Our contract of friendship gave you power and meaning. But now it is your face I’m weaning and screening. Where is my address book? Where is my bike? Where is that board game I used to like? How does it feel to look someone in the eye? Oh my dear Facebook, you make me sigh. I lost so much when I befriended you. Your importance I have truly misconstrued. So Facebook, we’ve broken up and I’m on my own. You have millions of companions and I’m all alone. They say it takes time to become content, but remember that facebook message to you that I sent? It was made up of words that became so routine. Somehow my life now relies on a screen. So now that you’re gone, I have discovered authentic interaction. If we ever meet again, you will be no distraction.

Yours truly (except not really),

Me

            After six years full of “poking,” “liking,” and  “friending,” I have returned to the land of handwritten letters, phone calls, and long neglected beloved habits. I had become one of those who spent an average of three hours on Facebook every day. I’d grab a bite to eat, check Facebook, sit in class, check Facebook, turn on the TV, check Facebook, do homework while checking Facebook (as opposed to checking Facebook while doing homework), brush my teeth, check Facebook, and so on. I know for a fact I am not alone in this routine. Facebook has become a vivid feature in human activity. By participating in the Facebook circle I automatically gave a dominating power and significant meaning to the social network, as have millions of others in society.

This social network is evolving into a solitary outlet of communication. Basically, 400 million users are relying on a single entity, and that entity is controlling the ways communication develops. For example, the creators of Facebook decide to invent the “status update.” Suddenly everyone is communicating through a short phrase involving whereabouts, thoughts, desires, etc. Instead of individually talking to a friend about what is going on, we post it on Facebook for all 500+ friends to see. Words on a screen do not always communicate what an individual actually means. Depending on Facebook for communication means depending on the mastermind behind it, which may be incredibly dangerous in many situations. Facebook sure seems like a digital form of hegemony to me.

If you consider the growing younger audience of Facebook, an immediate issue surfaces. I created my Facebook account at the age of 16. At that point I knew how to write a thank you card, I was the queen of memorizing friends’ phone numbers, and I loved being outdoors. Facebook is a new home to children as young as 8 years old today. I lost touch with many of my talents and habits when I became addicted to Facebook, but at least I had been able to identify them. Younger generations today are starting to view the world strictly through the lenses of Facebook. There will be no more handwritten thanks you cards, but thank you messages. In a few years children will be saying, “why use handwritten letters, email, text messaging, or instant messaging when you can just use Facebook?” Facebook has so much control over the evolution of society with a particular focus on communication. The symbols of Facebook are becoming embedded and embodied in society.

Social norms derive from the culture in which we live and Facebook is a colossal part of today’s culture. Therefore Facebook has a dramatic affect on the development and evolution of social norms. Upon my break up with Facebook a strong part of me felt lost because the heart of my social communication suddenly disappeared. When I felt something missing from my life, I found relief on a screen, just as millions of others have done. I sent a handwritten letter to my best friend from high school last week and in turn received a genuine phone call. What a perfect way to kiss Facebook goodbye. 

So, more to come on this once my exams are over and I have time to write but I just wanted to announce that I really do not miss facebook all that much. :)

Found this in an old journal from a while back ha

Swallowed whole by fear
Flap my wings and die
Fly with me my dear
To a place where we can cry

Hear my bittersweet melody
Stained by your soft touch
My butterfly weeps silently
Yet still it won't help much

Just let me numb your silence
Weep with me out loud
I'll hold on to you forever
I'll notice you in crowds

And when you think I'll leave you
I hope you'll hear my voice
I'm not here to deceive you
For this was my own choice

An excerpt from a piece I'm currently working on and probably will be for a very long time.

Place me in a box and ship me to future. You claim to know each freckle on my forehead, each scar placed somewhere special on my body. Do you know each scar? Each freckle? My pupils tend to deceive me sometimes. So if you know each scar and freckle, each tilt of my brow, every crease of my timid smile, then why do you still stand tall in front of my body? You stand planted like an appalachian boulder with weathered edges and a beautiful physique. You won’t move. You like this place in the ground where you cover the earth with imagination. Right in front of me. Boulders can be moved, can they not? I can break you from the solidified sanctuary which you rest upon. So I grab my shovel. I attempt to pierce the familiarity of your loneliness and shoot my beloved reason into your veins that change with the season. Are you an icicle or are you snowflake? Are you a puddle or are you a great lake? I am lucky I found you. I love every brick and every cloud that floats through the arteries of your emotion. I love every leaf that lies dormant and crying in the pit of your stomach. I’m not sure I know how to use a shovel. I am used to gardening in the youthful sense. Your arboretum is flooding my childhood garden once full of carrots and cucumbers. I need a bigger shovel to match the moonlight before me. I want to plant a seed in the basement of your bones. There are places on my skin begging for you to play me like a baby grand piano. Hold me. My heart beats deep beneath the shadows of your agony. Hold me. I find a shovel worthy of this beautiful boulder surrounded by broken records. I will glue them back together. You tell me the soil beneath your imagination is fragile. I dig deep beneath you. I thought you needed to be moved from your place in the ground. I thought you would see me if only I could move you. Hold me. My shovel is useless so I make use of my hands. I dig towards your sanctuary with intention. Listen to the vibration of my vocal chords when I tell you I love you. The dirt beneath my broken fingernails screams for the oxygen entering your lungs. The soil is dry and concrete, yet my fingers pry further towards the ambiguity lying behind your curls. I can feel it. The soil is softening. I come to a hole beneath the habitat of your imagination. It is dark and empty, almost as if it is crying for a seed of truth. Do I use the hole to boost you from your hard place? No. I plant the seed of my truth to sustain you and watch you grow. The truth of my love for you. My love for you like a tidal wave; like an newborn child taking his first step to the rest of his life. And there it infinitely stays. The truth of my love permeates the soil surrounding your boulder. It fertilizes what has yet to grow around your reality. As time passes a stem peaks through the soil and sees the light of day for the first time. This is no ordinary stem. This sprouts into the most beautiful thing any being has ever laid eye upon. It is fertilized by something not even I can wholly grasp with my imagination. The stem withstands every storm and every precarious footprint . Finally, leaves begin to open their eyes.

a current work in progress...kinda cheesy but whatevs

Carol to me the aria of your compassion

toss your monumental mismatch rooting tension

whether open or closed,

replace your gypsied rose.

A cello absorbs tears

finally truth premieres,

composes closure

proving love defines no measure

This gallery of broken parts

Wants to paint with you

a picture laughing in the dark

of happiness unglued  

So take my hand and fly with me

to places far unknown

We will love eternally,

and we’ll never be alone.

    

Favorite song of the week #1- "Home" by Edward Sharp and The Magnetic Zeros
                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4306i99LMXo 


Favorite song of the week #2- "The Predatory Wasp of Palisades is Out to Get Us" by Sufjan Stevens


                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBMwwJMkcRA


Enjoy.