Light me up.

All throughout English 203, my peers were getting really into Plurk, Google Wave, and blogs. People would post things like, “I have been on Plurk for 15 hours! I really should get off…” And it was a challenge for some to not Plurk for a day. But I wasn’t really falling into the grove. It was a challenge for me to Plurk once a day, a fact made clear by my sad Karma rating. But to what end? I don’t really want to know what people are doing every two seconds. And I know I don’t really want people to know what I am doing every two seconds. Is that wrong of me to not jump up on this? Is it wrong that I don’t give a fuck if I reach “plurk nirvana” or if a certain someone is really close to it? I cherish my privacy.

On a similar note, I recently decided to get rid of my Facebook page (which I only have because my friend set one up for me). I hardly ever use it. Why? Because I don’t care who Andrew, a guy in my freshman Philosophy class who I haven’t seen since, tagged as being “someone you used to be close with.” And I don’t like getting notifications every two seconds from some app. saying, “Someone thinks you would look good in a miniskirt! Click here to find out who!” Or “Bridesmaid-bot predicts that you will be Jackie’s maid of honor! Click here to find out more!” Oy vey. But, sadly, it is next to impossible to delete my Facebook (this is one reason why Myspace was better and if anyone knows anything on the subject please let me know). My peers tell me that it doesn’t matter and that I can just not use it. But it does matter to me. I don’t want to be floating around in cyberspace. I want to be here and I want to be now.

I received a comment on my last post asking, “When did we ever not write ourselves into existence?” Literacy in some form or another is what makes that possible. It also makes growth possible and globalization possible. But it is not what makes the human experience possible. The human experience does not come from the Apple Store. It comes from being in touch with yourself, your body, your community and your environment. I exist because I am a part of this world. Not because I have a Facebook. And I am very much in existence even if my Karma rating is a measly 27.8. But that does not mean that I am any better then someone who is a faithful blogger. We should live as the humans we want to be, not vicariously through guises of who we wish we could be. An enriched human experience is one in which we embrace ourselves, with no apologies. I sound like, as my grandpa would say, “a goddamn hippie.”

But we do “write ourselves into existence” in many regards; we have journals, newspapers, hieroglyphs, novels, constitutions, screen plays, letters, biographies, etc., etc. All based off human interactions with the environment and with other humans. We write to remember our achievements, to document our past, our sorrows, our mistakes, our joys, and our existence. But these records don’t dictate our lives. We don’t exist because of them. But it does all depend, ultimately, on our personal ideals. After all, how can we all be satisfied with the same existence? That would be horribly dull and pointless. The solution from where I stand is that create your existence in the way that you feel is best. If that is to paint, then paint. If you want to be a mother, then be a mother. If you want to write then write. If you want to have 1,000 Facebook friends then go for it. If you want to be free be free. And if you want to be you be you. There are a million ways to be you know that there are.

Now, I am going to go pour a cup of tea, turn up Cat Stevens, and exist.