I learn a lot from Facebook. For starters, I now know where each and every one of my friends go for fun and entertainment, even when they are having all of that fun without me. I know where they go to eat and what they ate when they got there, saving me not only time and money but often ensuring that I have an even more satisfactory culinary experience than they did. I’ll be the first to admit that I learn from the mistakes of others. And it’s now exponentially easier for me to learn about my friend’s political views, who they support and don’t support, what issues are important to them and what they like and don’t like. Afterall, it’s not the way it was in the “old days”. I mean back then if you wanted to protest something you had to march down to city hall and join a crowd of possibly thousands of like minded people carrying placards, singing protest songs and chanting some catchy phrase like “Hell no! We won’t go!” (“we” weren’t really in any danger of “going” anywhere, but that was beside the point) and there were so many people that no one even knew you were there. But now all you have to do is post a video of Rob Ford or some activist pontificating about the plight of women or men or the need to spay and neuter (the latter being primarily with regard to animals, btw) and we all pretty much know where you stand.
One of my favourite things is having the opportunity to live vicariously through all of my friends’ adventures as they post pictures of the wonderful and exotic places they visit. Places I am unlikely to ever frequent due to my rather narrow tolerance of heat, with regard to both temperature and food. It’s true, I’m a bit of a diva when it comes to vacays which, as a result, means that touring Africa or Asia through the eyes of others is likely as close as I will ever get. So I learn a lot about travel, albeit mostly other peoples.
But perhaps even more importantly, I learn a lot about myself. You see, I’ve been on Facebook since 2007 and during that time have had the opportunity to partake in a vast array of quizzes that have led me to know and understand myself just so much better. All I can say is thank goodness for Facebook as otherwise I’m not sure I would have ever reached the level of introspection which I now profess to have. Because, as a shallow person, I am sometimes wont to neglect this type of self-reflective activity and I am therefore deeply indebted, if not grateful, that as a member of Facebook I am guided thus to do so. So let me share a smattering of what I’ve learned about me with you.
1) My left brain is pretty much non-existent which probably doesn’t surprise most people but could be of some concern to my boss
2) I should be living in New York. I’d be ok with that if I did, but I don’t.
3) If I was a cheese (and that’s a big “if”) I would be Gouda and belong in a “cheese museum of perfection”. Sounded good until I read the “people will want to eat you until you were gone” part.
4) Talk show host? I’m Seth Myers and “the smartest person in the room with plenty of important thoughts to get across to the world”. I knew there was a reason I’ve been writing this blog!
5) If I took high school Chemistry now I would get a D. Not bad since I actually never took Chemistry when I was in high school.
6) Apparently I would be Taystee in “Orange is the New Black”. I’ve never seen it so will have to take their word for it.
7) My aura is yellow. I’m “optimistic and intelligent, with a friendly, creative presence”. I was pretty confident that was absolutely right on the money until I realized I had already taken the quiz a few months back. At that time my aura was red which meant I had an “insatiable urge to win”. Seems just a little contradictory to me and since it’s pretty hard to verify, I gotta say it’s all a tad confusing.
8) You know I love a good Rom Com so no way I could pass up finding out which Queen I would be if I was one. Looks like me and Sandra B. share the same love of checklists. Wait a minute. Isn’t that a left brain thing?
9) Have to admit I was a little disappointed to learn that in the world of Shrek I’d be wearing Lord Farquaad’s garb. Donkey, Gingerbread Man or Puss in Boots, those are characters I can get my head around. I suppose though that being a “born villain” can’t be all bad.
I could go on but I think you can see how important Facebook has been in contributing to my understanding of myself. Of late I’ve been tempted to complete a quiz that measures how shallow I am, but I think both you and I already know the answer to that.
So I’m sitting on our fav patio having my usual grande non-fat, no foam latte, (the specifics of which you should know in case you ever want to “treat”) pretty much minding my own business, when the woman sitting at the next table strikes up a conversation. It wasn’t one of those really interesting conversations that people sometimes have over a cuppa. To be honest, I can’t really remember what triggered the chit chat but I’m pretty sure it was along the lines of “Wonderful day! Nice that the weather has finally warmed up. Afterall, it is July.” a commonly expressed sentiment in my part of the world. Or perhaps she commented on someone walking by dressed, to be polite, unusually, confident that my opinion would mesh with hers. And although our encounter was short it was clear that in some way, if only in her mind, she and I had grown close, by whatever metric one can measure closeness between two, until that moment, strangers.
Shallow Be My Name 