October 8, 2008

In October, I read in a book called Blue Like Jazz that sometimes, the things we want in life aren’t the things we need. And also, the things we want most in life are the things that may kill us. And this is how I feel about my American life.

I long for Community.
I long for Friendship.
I long for steady communication with past and present friends.
In reality, I am self-focused and self-absorbed. I’m not proud to admit it.

But sometimes I get really tired of reading and seeing pictures all about myself.

° ° °

I remember the day I realized I needed to commit Facebook suicide. It was last month (September) when I was at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch in Arkansas with Pete. We went down there to do some hiking, some camping, climb some rocks, belay some folks, meet up with friends, and the like. Man, it was beautiful. I remember Pete and I were climbing up to sit on top of a boulder that overlooked all of the splendor of this place, and I thought to myself once we reached the top, “I can’t wait to put my pictures on Facebook!” Wow. I was so ashamed that, here, on this grand Arkansas adventure with my brand new husband, within the first three hours of a three day trip, I’m already thinking that I can’t wait for all the attention I’m gonna get when I post my awesome pictures for everyone to see.

I wish that I would have instead thought, “I want to sit here forever.” I wish I would have noticed the peace and the serenity this place held. I even wish that the closest I got to thinking about anyone else was to think, “I hope I get to bring my dad here someday. He would love it!” That’s actually what I thought three years ago when Pete and I first visited Horseshoe. How much my mind has been molded.

° ° °

In the good old days, when I lived on a horse farm in Southern Illinois, we had this excellent forest spread out in our backyard. It had everything an adventurous kid like me wanted- hollow trees, a creek, deer stands high up in the sky, open fields, some trails…it was great. I remember that every time I had friends over to my house, going out “exploring” was first on my list of things to do. We’d slide down muddy embankments, play cards in hollow trees, pretend we were lost and needed to get home, just everything. It was such a blast. This forest also held the meaning of peace and escape for me. My parents fought a lot, so my escape was either the barn (if it was cold or rainy) or the forest. I chose to go there, mostly by myself.

Then I got into high school, and the parents split up, and my dad and I moved around a few times, until we finally settled into this little green house on the other end of town, but hey, it had a forest and a lake in the backyard too. So when friends would come over in high school, we’d go on long walks on the trails or just sit in this random canoe down by the lake. We had the best talks out there. We could stay there for hours, talking about boys or school or just life. It was simply the best.

Then college rolled around and I was now in a dorm room, boxed in with about 200 other Christian girls, and I think this is when my adventurous spirit may have died a little bit. I did find new adventures though- cliff jumping at Stockton Lake, rope swinging at the Under Water Bridge…all thanks to the man who is now my husband. But gone were the days I could walk outside and be in the middle of nowhere. I started having a lot of rules (Baptist schools generally have those) and the coolest place in town was a lake with some trees around it…but also a road so cars were constantly there too. It was a good place for a hammock but a person would always see someone they knew there. Which kind of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.

Today when Pete and I were hiking around Busiek National Forest in SW Missouri, I told him that I was having fun and all, but I couldn’t really do this for five hours with a joyful heart. I could hear how brass I sounded, and how bored. I hated myself for it. This insignificant hike to me was a desired adventure of Pete’s, and I knew it. He never had any of this as a kid, so his appreciation for it is huge. I want appreciation like that...I want it back.

It’s like kids who grow up in the church- they know all the bible verses and all the songs and all the children’s bible stories (which, I agree with Donald Miller, they are not meant to be children’s stories in the slightest), but as they grow up, a lot of them just don’t have the heart. They know they’re sinners and stuff but they also know God forgives them, and Jesus loves them, for the Bible tells them so. They know it. They just don’t feel it.

Then there are the kids who grow up not knowing anything about Jesus or God. When salvation is introduced to them, and when they decide to take it, man, they TAKE it! They live it and breathe it and are just so joyful. True, it’s because it’s new to them, but they truly have the heart.

So I know there are these kinds of people in the world, but there are also others who have heard about God since they were born and manage to have the heart, and there are also new believers who just don’t feel anything. There are always exceptions. But my point here is that Pete has this fervor for life that I believe I used to have, but I can’t find it now. Did I misplace it? Do I ignore it? Has my spirit of adventure gone into the internet, and into what other people think of it?

° ° °

Like I said before, I long for community and friendship. How easy it is these days to ask someone to be your friend by clicking, “Add to Friends” and kind of sort of notice if they accept you or not. And how easy it also is to type a quick message to someone you haven’t talked to in a while, skimming the surface with, “how’s life?” and then feeling a little better about making a half hearted attempt at communicating within your friendship. You have got to know something about me. I do not like talking on the phone. I actually despise it. I’m just really awkward and sometimes me and the other person will talk at once accidentally and then we’ll both stop and man it’s just rocky like that. I’m not a smooth phone talker like some people I know. Basically, if I take the time to have a conversation with a friend over the phone, I really cherish that person and am willing to fight my way over awkward rockiness to share life with them. Even though this is a sacrifice I make, I would much rather be sitting with them in real life, talking over some Mexican chips and salsa for hours on end. I can count on two hands the people I would love to do this with on a regular basis. They all live in different states, except for a few who go to nursing school and invest most of their time in that (rightly), so my ideal kind of interaction doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, I just soak it up. It is the best.

I feel that my generation has very much turned life-sharing into a virtual thing. Socializing happens on Facebook or Myspace, not in a coffee shop or someone’s dorm room (with some amazing exceptions who I've met at SBU). In the past four years, I have seen this change before my eyes. People are invited to events over the internet, they make plans, they get phone numbers, they advertise their talents (like music or photography), and yes, it’s convenient. But it’s also, I believe, sucking the real life community out of us. I think that one time I even thought, “Well, if I delete Facebook, how will I know about things? I won’t get invited anywhere!” Dude, pick up the phone. But sadly, it’s true. The first time I deleted Facebook a few years ago, I actually did miss out on a few really cool outings with friends. I guess that’s what I ended up sacrificing in order to buy my soul back from the internet.

Not everyone has this problem, I don’t think. Not everyone casually walks over to their computer multiple times a day, not realizing that they’re doing it. For some people, it’s not a problem at all. It’s just such easy access now. I remember the days, even in high school, that I would have to wait five minutes for my dial up to connect, and even then, the internet would move at a glacial pace. If Facebook would have been created then, getting on multiple times a day would just not have been worth it. Back then, it was MSN or AOL or YAHOO messenger. Ah, I remember those days. Even those things were better than Facebook because people were sending and receiving INSTANT messages. On Facebook, you send a message, and who knows when you’ll get a reply.

It’s actually kind of creepy if you think about long enough (and I have). A lot of my friends are “friends” with people, and they have never met this person in real life. Maybe they’re a friend of a friend of a friend or maybe this one dude just thought this chick was hot and so he friend requested her. That happens. And the dumber girls say yes. A person can creepily skim through any of their friends photos, and if a person wants people to know a little (or a lot) about them, they can post as much stuff as they want on their Info section. Anybody can read that once they’re that person’s “friend”. You can even view other people’s friends, to see who knows who. You have a profile picture that represents you, and your life, so people know whether or not you’re awesome. The people who put pictures of cats or them when they were little are not normally cool. Don’t request their friendship. What’s pretty weird is that you can ignore people too. I know this one girl from high school who probably asked me to be her friend 50 times in the past 3 years. I ignored her every time because she’s not a person I wish to engage with or bring back into my life. I don’t even know why she was requesting me, because we didn’t get along.. It was one of those things where she wanted to be the newspaper editor but I got it instead so she hated me all of senior year of high school. Not a cool situation, and not my cup of tea. So anyway, she kept asking, and I kept ignoring. I kept wondering why she wanted to be “friends” but now I know. It’s not really “friends”…it’s “I want to see where you’re at in life because maybe I’m one up now” or something like that. Maybe it was turned around the other way and she wanted me to see her profile so I could see that she’s married and has the cutest baby ever, who knows? Being someone’s friend on Facebook doesn’t mean you have any sort of relationship or even friendship with them. It means you have access to their life through pictures and their list of what they think they are, and the things they do. This is a true conclusion.