The Facebook Generation

Whether we realize it or not, we have slipped and become the Facebook generation. Every picture, every witty phrase, every funny moment, we immediately associate with Facebook. We live our lives for the ultimate post or picture so when our hundreds of forgotten friends look upon our uniform wall, they will say "look how much fun that person is having. Man I want to be just like them". I don't point this out to say Facebook is a bad thing, if anything it has become a very useful tool in today's society. But if one stops to think about how it has altered our perception, one cannot help but feel a twinge of panic. Facebook has even altered how you build your own character. Every picture is craftily posed and delicately placed. You can make people believe you are a person based simply on the things you post. Soon that is who people think you are. If you post pics of a party you are a partier, different cities a traveler, lonely benches and mustaches you must be a hipster. It has become the platform of self creation. You no longer take a picture for personal memory or scrap booking but so you can finally nail that awesome profile pic. You want people to look and feel jealous. But when you click on your profile and view everything that is supposed to define you as you, do you gasp at the reflection in the mirror?

STW

My Creaky Limb

Its amazing the things that one can forget. You can forget keys, cell phone, shoes, clothes, etc. But what happens to a person when they forget a social skill. This is something that you can't easily recover by saying "shit I forgot to grab that". No the loss of an ability to act or realize you can act a certain way in a certain situation is crippling. Is it gone forever....no, but will it have immediate consequences....yes. And one can not simply run back and grab it. You must go through painful trial and error to simply try and see if you can get back what you once had. What makes this more difficult is trying to explain something like this to people, especially those that it may directly be relevant. You can't walk around with a disclaimer saying "due to past events, I have no idea how to act around you. Please be patient as hopefully this momentary period if idiocracy will wear off". Nope you have to hope that person might possibly stick around long enough so you can grab enough courage to walk out on you creaky limb and say/do something. Odds are they won't and odds are you will be left in a place you didn't truly want. So in the end all you can do is give the middle finger to those who caused you to forget this important life skill, and plow forward, realizing wholeheartedly that you are about to screw up in the most frustrating manner.




STW