Get off the map.

Recently I actually joined Facebook. I know, I know. I am one of the last people. I usually am. I was one of the last people to see Forest Gump too. People were walking around saying, “Life is like a box of chocolates” and I thought they had all been reprogrammed by Hershey.

So, I have found that Facebook is like an interactive White Pages of anyone you have ever met in life. It is like a high school reunion on crack. And during all this I have found people that I thought I would never see or hear from again in this lifetime. Some from almost 30 years ago, some from my childhood.

I remember my grandmother talking about people that she knew as a child, or as a teenager. She would talk about them as if they were dead, knowing she would never see them again in this lifetime. As we would talk about them she would say, “I will find out what happened with them in my next life.” and there was a certain acceptance with that. Contact was lost in a world with so many people. And finding each other again, was truly a miracle.

Today *yawn* it happens all the time. The miracle is gone. Our children hear the stories of people in WWII finding each other some 25 years later and wonder what took them so long. Today, no one is lost….and, in fact, with the advent of Google Maps and GPS systems we can pinpoint the location of someone within feet of where they are at that moment.




I have to wonder at the knowledge of my day to day activities. Are they so very important? When did my actions begin to carry importance other than to those around me they affect? When did my thoughts begin to carry such weight that I needed to share them, immortalize them on the internet forever?

Look at Twitter for a moment with a skeptic’s eye. Do we really need to know when someone goes to the grocery store to get bread and milk? Or when you’re at a ball park and think the guy at third base is out? Or when you finally viewed the YouTube.com video of Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent and got goose bumps? These are the thoughts of the common man. Not profound, earth shattering, life changing thoughts. It is cyber-clutter. Words, words, words….they are the words of self-importance. We feel that because we are special, because we are important, because we are different, somehow our trip to go and get bread and milk is different than every other person on the planet. We are common, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is a pleasantness to turning to the person next to you and saying, “That guy was out at third.” and they are the only one who knows what you are thinking. That is special. That is unique.


My words are not all that profound…so I will spare you the “You should listen to me, you are not special.” Because all that seeks to do, is say I am special…and you are not.

Don’t listen to me. Go outside. Get off the map.