The Lives of Others
Thursday, July 3 : 11:16 PM : 3 comments :
You know that buzzing your speakers make if your cell phone is around? The iPhone is notorious for it. Anyway, it's like what I'd imagine having spider-sense would be like. You hear this slight warning buzz and then something happens two seconds later. After awhile, as soon as you hear that speaker static you're reflexively alert and ready to take a call. But then sometimes it's just a false alarm and unlike Spider-man, you're disappointed that danger (or a potentially exciting bit of fun) has passed.After thinking about Facebook a little more, I think that maybe I should be an avid Facebooker. I mean, it's everything a community of friend blogs used to be -- but arguably better. You get updates on people's lives, you get to see who they're going out with, you get to anonymously life stalk near strangers, you get to interact with them on a semi-personal level, you get to try to out-quip each other. It's all fabulous.
The concept of public commenting still irks me to no end but face it, social networks are here to stay and it's either get on the bus or get run over. Sure, you can live in a Facebook-less life but at some point you just disappear off people's radar. Now that may sound just fine to some people but it's important that friends know what you're up to so that when you talk to them you can skip all that stuff. I mean, isn't Facebook simplifying the whole "so what have you been doing" part of friendship? I'm always for that.
I'd like to see, as a new social standard, people checking Facebooks (and blogs or MySpaces or recent emails or whatever) before actually meeting up in person. Cut out that half an hour of recapping life. Commence immediately to important things like what's on TV or just general hanging out. When will we replace Internet info with mouth-to-mouth info? Now I say, now.
And while I've often wondered how people have the time -- or inclination -- to label every person in their pictures, upon some reflection I think that's exactly something I'd do if there were no personal stigma attached to it. I mean, I like to keep meticulous track of who's who, where's where, and what's what. This is all something Facebook can do. So yeah, I'm gonna do it. Go through all my uploaded pictures and box out people's faces and show that "Hey, we're really friends because look, we're in the same picture!"
Good lord. Forty minutes later and here's what I've learned. Tagging pictures takes a long time. I tried to do a very thorough job and I was impressed by how Facebook was able to block people out so cleanly. Then I got to the group pictures and decided that okay maybe it didn't work so well. Facebook tagging is meant for photos with six or less people in it. This is the one that I gave up on. Yeah, try tagging out that baby. I have seen some people tag a picture of twenty-plus people though. Seemed pointless. I was tagged and I couldn't even recognize myself I was so small.
The thing with tagging people is that you've suddenly totally blown up their spot. Now their other friends know what they've done, or did. And what if they hate the picture of themselves? They can just remove it right? But does that say something about their friendship with you if they take themselves out of a picture? Also, what the hell do you do to a picture of (just) yourself? Tag it? It seems to blur some line between vanity and identification there. Well, I did it anyway because better to be vain than unnoticed right?
I learned that I do a lot of things with these people: Lynn, James, Hong, George, Amit. Hello to my Facebook Fave 5. I think I've tagged enough for a lifetime. If I can set aside the games, the useless widgets and gift giving and poking, the "Hi how are you, it's been so long!" comments, and the utter ridiculousness of it all, I have to admit that I love Facebook because it's the best (friend) gossip site ever. For that simple fact alone it's a worthy addition to a lifestyle.
Shocking information nugget of the day: Ameer doesn't have a Facebook. How is this possible? He's actually so way ahead of the curve that he's probably already on the next thing. I mean, how can my technology guru not be on Facebook? I tagged him anyway though because I'm a tagging machine.
A Few Good Men
Friday, June 27 : 6:31 AM : 1 comments :
There's this phenomenon happening that needs to be highlighted and addressed. Young men everywhere are freaking out about their lives. For single (or at least unmarried) guys in their late twenties and early thirties it's an intense case of "What the hell am I doing with my life?" It's not a quarter life crisis and it's not a mid-life crisis. It's something in-between and something new. I've been trying to come up with a better term for it but nothing has replaced my original idea: Man-ic Panic.First, the evidence, all accumulated in the last few months. One good friend recently had lunch with us all psyched about his business ideas and how he would soon move to Italy to pursue his racing dreams. A few weeks later he meets a girl, runs off to the Philippines to pursue her, but instead finds God and decides to move there to do missionary work. Another guy has intense debilitating panic attacks and is currently seeing a therapist because life is constricting him. Someone else picked up and moved to Europe with nothing more than a few pieces of luggage and three hats, leaving behind friends and a relationship. A handful of my personal friends are also looking desperately around for any reason to pick up and move, to find something different, and to escape the drudgery that is their current lives and forseeable futures.
What's causing this state of affairs? Well, the easiest answer is that the years of being a man-child are over. Once you push into the thirties you have to get your shit together, or if you have your shit together already, you suddenly come face to face with how shitty your shit is. You know? We've all seen our fathers slave away at jobs they hated. We take a step back and realize that our lives are possibly headed in this exact direction. Career, wife, kids, BBQs, pets and then it's a skip and a hop to health problems and heart attacks. And it's not just about the job. It's about trying to figure out if this life is right for you, if this girl is right for you, if this is what the twenty year old you wanted.
Actually, a lot of movies address this Man-ic Panic. Zach Braff's recent works, Garden State and The Last Kiss. One of my all time sleepers, Beautiful Girls, essentially deals with this theme. Anything where the guy is about to marry the boring normal chick but meets the exciting crazy one and has to reconsider. I think Julia Stiles and Sandra Bullock were in a movie or two about this. But the answer is not Hollywood, it's not about the beautiful brunette who comes in to save the day. I'd bet it's a pretty rare thing to find some wonderful girl who'll come along and grab you off the scrap heap -- it's pure lunacy and delusion to hope that they'll actually find you. So forget it, girls aren't the answer.For women of a comparable age, it's the biological clock that ticks. But for guys there's something similar scaring the crap out of them: life is seeping away. The window for "doing something" looks like it's quickly shutting and the only reaction that makes sense is out with the old and in with the new. Damn the torpedoes and who cares what gets wrecked along the way. It's this sudden rush of selfishness and this desire to set out and find yourself. Otherwise the fear is that you'll slip away, never to be found.
In a way, maybe it's an early onset of mid-life crisis. If that's the case maybe we're all lucky. We won't have to suffer from a mid-life crisis when we're trapped by another decade of age, a possible family, and multiple responsibilities and mortgages. I mean, if all this is a moment to reflect, to heed the call of the wild, then better to freak out now then later right?
The big fear though is that there are no answers at the end of this thing. Then what?
Brothers & Sisters
Tuesday, June 24 : 7:51 PM : 1 comments :
I was doing some digging in the garage today and guess what I found? George's school project from 1991 titled "My Life Story." The binder is filled with some priceless pictures, including this one on the cover. In it she writes about our parents, her best friend Vicky, her favorite subject (English), our new house, Chinese New Year, shopping with her friends, playing tennis, her dream to one day live in New York, and what she learned about teamwork. And of course she wrote about me.
"I have a twin brother named Jonathan. He is two minutes older than me. He goes to La Jolla Country Day School and is in the seventh grade. He is about five feet tall and weighs eighty pounds. He has black hair and a ponytail on the back of his head. He wears glasses but is thinking of getting contacts.
He acts very quiet and shy at school but at home his personality changes. He becomes more outgoing and talks a lot more. His hobbies are watching wrestling, playing role playing games, collecting comics, and reading. He also enjoys playing basketball, tennis, ping-pong, and golf. He is not very good but he enjoys the game.
Jon can be very annoying sometimes but since we're in the same grade and have the same teachers, we often help each other on our homework. This can be very convenient because we help each other study for quizzes, tests, and finals. There are times I wish that I was an only child but I wouldn't trade my brother for anything in the world. He often puts a smile on my face when I am depressed or unhappy."
