Facebook. A time gobbler, privacy-invader, procrastination device. But I’ve also discovered just how tiny this world is through it. People who know people whom I know who know me who know other people. It’s very odd. Because it is so very easy to think that we are alone. Or that our little group of acquaintances is just ours. And that the world is this HUGE space of unconnected beings competing for oxygen.
RSS feeds have become too much a part of my day. I’m “informed” but I’m also horrified and fascinated by what is happening in all parts of this world (or at least what makes the newsfeeds). For a long time I put my head in the sand, lived in my books and ignored what was going on around me. It was not surprising for me to say “what happened?” in response to a comment from a friend about a recent news event. But now I scan far too much news every day. What makes news, what doesn’t make news. I feel rather unsettled by it all. Have retreated into Austen at bedtime to get all those stories out of my head.
Then I woke this morning thinking about Alexandra Smith and her short but “troubled” life (“troubled” the polite word). I probably had been dreaming about her story and it curved and twisted and I woke groggy, exhausted and still unable to shake the story from my head. Stories of people that we choose not to hear unless someone writes about them and we happen to read/hear/see it (note: I can safely cloak my desire for ignorant bliss by using “we”). There are a lot of Alexandra Smiths in this world, I know this. But I am safely insulated from seeing or thinking about it on a daily basis. I pay my taxes. There now onto my own life.
I cleared my head with a half hour of yoga and meditation. The swirling chaos that is evoked from the continous stream of info-mation calmed just a bit. And I can close my eyes and feel the interconnectedness of all. Peace, quiet, calm. A bird sings outside, the sun kisses the horizon. Fleeting and momentary and then the day begins again.
