Keep That Utility Social

Like many people I know, I like Facebook pretty nicely, and look at it when I am near a computer, which is often.

I don't post there very often, though - like unless I am doing something relatively exceptional.

I generally don't feel compelled to alert people to the fact that I have read Paul Krugman's latest column, and supply it so they, too, can be requisitely informed on world topics, until Paul Krugman's next column, which I will also supply when it appears; like it's a secret hard thing to get; maybe I'll send Bob Herbert's, too? Yeesh.

Maybe the reason Facebook is called a social utility is because it prevents the very unsocial in-person reaction that would come from me to any friend who finishes reading a newspaper column and then tells me I gotta gotta gotta gotta read this. At the breakfast counter I might make like James Cagney with the Facegrapefruit.

It's a finite world, so you have to wonder about the things you might have missed, but you saw that YouTube clip of the baby with a big diaper dancing to Beyonce on TV.

It's ironic that it's called YouTube because it has nothing to do with you, personally, except You can have fun wasting time there.

Luckily, for You - and Me - all we have to do to have real, personal, unique experiences is to think. To talk. To choose music we like, and play it. To write: write somebody, write in a journal, write something original for Facebook. To go outside, where it will never again be exactly the way it is right now.

The haughty bird on the lawn will be gone. The sun will be lower, or done.

The Internet can wait. And will, forever, of course. So let it.

be the boss -
Steve Burke
for Ithaca NY Blog