Waste of Time

Some of you who have read my blog before have probably realized that spring is my favorite season. In-spite of the temperamental rain and irritating allergies, there is something rejuvenating about spring that sets it apart from other seasons. I am back and ready to blog again after an absence of four months. My absence from this blog also made me realize how everything is ephemeral.

I decided to calculate the amount of time certain individuals (who shall remain unnamed) spend on Facebook and other social networking sites. The figures are alarming and a bit sad. I thought about my life and other people’s lives wasted away, the time squandered into the depths of networks and binary numbers unable to ever be recovered; the lost time sucked by a wormhole and never to be seen again.

Deeply regretful of all the time that I and others have wasted, I thought for a moment about what to do about it. Is social media addictive? Of course it is. What is that makes it so alluring? I realized that it is the basic human tendencies and extreme emotions that make social media the most alluring: the connections, popularity, narcissism, pomposity, curiosity, insecurity, and depression. These extreme emotions somehow make their way into people’s use of these social media tools. It is usually the most social and narcissistic or the least social and insecure who is likely to be online most of the time.

I had two cups of premium Italian coffee today and with caffeine still pulsing in my system, I couldn’t help but calculate the hours spent on social media networks. Say you are an addict, and my definition of an addict is someone who spends more than 2 hours a day on a social media website: this includes sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace , LinkedIn (yes, it needs to be included too), and Friendster (if you are one of those people who still use it), 2 hours multiplied by 365 days a year is 730 hours a year.

730 hours is enough for someone to write a novel length manuscript, learn a brand new foreign language, pick up a new musical instrument, travel to a few exotic countries, volunteer at a few shelters, meet a few new people, or read a few books.

After calculating the lost time, the hours seemed to go through the wormhole along with other faces and expressions, each social media website logo devoured by it, into an abyss.

Social Media Networks

Social media seems to have infiltrated every person's life and influenced their lifestyle. The question becomes, how big is your network? Networks connecting through networks can be exponential in nature. For example, say a person has about 200 friends on Facebook. If each of those 200 friends are connected to 200 different friends, that becomes 40,000 second degree connections. If each of those 40,000 people are connected to another unique set of 200 friends, the number goes up to 8,000,000 third degree connections. It means that an average person could have about 8 Million third degree connections, which translates to the entire population of New York City. If we take it to the fourth degree, it becomes 1.6 Billion, almost a quarter of the world's population. So, the six degrees of separation theory makes sense. We are all connected to each other through a matter of a few human connections. When we look at the complexity of networks, they will eventually evolve as a simplified model where everyone else has access to everyone else in the world within a few degrees.

Moving

Link to my blog "Moving":

To get a warm morning coffee

A normal work day in the city starts anywhere between 8:30 AM and 9:20 AM. Commuters try to find a balance by waking up as late as they could while minimizing the time it takes for them to get to work. This morning, I had to be unusually early, 6 AM to be specific. A heavy downpour had blanketed the city. In the pre-dawn hours, while it was still dark and pouring, I stepped outside my apartment building and slowly walked towards an intersection. I started seeing a few people, some with umbrellas, some drenched in rain, a few with hooded sweatshirts, men and women, all making their way from the subway station to different restaurants still to be opened and to apartments where the owners were still asleep.

The rain kept pouring; while I held on to my bag, I looked at my shoes and realized that they were soaked. Then, I looked at the establishment where I usually go to grab my breakfast or a morning coffee. There was a dim light inside, and a few people had already started working there. A man was mopping the floor and a lady was cleaning the counters, while another man was preparing the coffee machine. Outside, a man in a hooded sweatshirt was cleaning the sidewalk. Looking at the rest of the people still coming from the subway station, I realized that many of them might have been commuting for more than an hour and some are already here so that my breakfast could be prepared, warm and ready by 8:30 AM.

While waiting, the rain started slowly easing and the people in the restaurant started turning on more of it's lights. The man in the hooded sweatshirt, now completely soaked in the rain, started putting up signs and tables outside. A faint glow of dawn from the eastern horizon began to slowly peek between the buildings. It was now time for everyone else to wake up.

Going with the Flow

I recently started thinking more about what this idiom means. “Going with the flow” means to let go of a lot of things about life and not become obsessed about controlling them. It means that we have to sort out what we can control and what we can’t control. Lao Tzu, who lived around 600 BC, was someone who advocated this theory. He believed that “going with the flow” was the way to happiness. Taoists call it the “flow of the universe”.

If we could control 100% of our destiny, it would truly be a miracle. Not even one person has been able to achieve that yet. So, it brings us back to our theory that we have to be clear about which parts of our lives are within our control. If we can sort out what they are, then it is up to us to decide how much of ourselves we can devote to those areas. Then, we have to let go of the parts of our lives that are not within our control. Sometimes you may realize that some things do sort themselves out when you let go and that’s when you will truly experience an epiphany.

Blog

Here is a link to a blog I posted in the 6 S social site:

http://sixsentences.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-summer-morning-reflection?xg_source=activity

The Green-Eyed Monster

The green eyed monster lurks in the shadows, unwavering, looking to pounce. Then, he creeps up unexpectedly on the oblivious victim. He has a hunger for human meat; he greedily enjoys his carnivorous appetite while completely devouring some people of their humanity. Shakespeare writes about him in “Othello”.

"Iago:
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock

The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,

Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:

But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er

Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!"

He is as old as time itself, and somehow, we have fallen prey to his appetite. So, what makes humans succumb to him? People like to compare everything against others, not realizing that they can’t have everything that everyone else has. Even when they become jealous of one aspect of something someone has, they don’t realize that there are so many elements in other people’s lives that they are not even aware of. Everyone says that they like to help people, but when someone has something better than them, many of them surrender to the green eyed monster.
The only way to defeat this evil monster is to not fall prey to him. We know that he only feeds on those who succumb to him. Weak character provides him nourishment and strong character starves him. Somehow he knows he can never be defeated, and in the realm of time, he always manages to find his prey.