Facebook Hot 10

I’ve learned it is bad form to be grumpy about Facebook. I tend to run to extremes with it, hot or cold depending on my mood and –well,my sociability quotient and tolerance for distraction mostly. I will leave unsaid all the things that get under my skin about this phenomenal social networking tool and will, instead, offer a list of what warms me; what feels affirming to me and life-affirming in the communal sense ever since I reluctantly registered myself about a year ago now. I keep coming back to Facebook as I keep trying to figure out what it’s all about. The best of it is connection.

1. There are friendly faces in this book I haven’t seen in 40 years. Their waves to me across the virtual room warm my heart in surprising ways. I see other people waving to one another and most of the time, that friendliness heartens me.
2. Goodwill and birthday greetings, pats on the back, celebrations of birth, condolences, invitations to the dance, to the cause, to the stage, and to the windows looking in on growing lives . These notices and subsequent notes offer opportunities for generosity and an acknowledgment of some real GOOD we human beings are capable of offering to one another.
3. Along these lines, there’s the opportunity in all of this for many random acts of kindness. Being on the receiving and giving end of this energy feels really good.
4. Great book/movie recommendations, art posts and photographs.
5. You-Tube posts that inspire belly laughter and tears when you need a good cry. The Laughing Baby, and Antwerp Train Station Do-Re-Mi come to mind as does the one about the Olympic Runner who tore a hamstring in a critical heat and whose Dad rushed down to the track to help him finish his race. Lions and Tigers and Bears –OH MY!
6. Quick connections to blog posts and journalistic links I’d never have discovered on my own. Some of them are listed in our favorites here at this site!
7. The opportunity to share information and help spread word about the work of the world that feels important to me. This was my motivation for joining FB in the first place. It has proven to be a terrific tool to help grow our writing project.
8. The awareness it brings to how so many of my friends are doing meaningful, creative, healing work and how very very many of us care about the planet. Subsequent alliances and collaborations.
9. My children became my friends –willingly, after an appropriate period of disdain for my joining their generation’s thing.
10. Recipes, song lyrics, vintage film clips, a place to share passion and heartache, somewhere to go at 3:30 in the morning to find out who else is awake on the other side of the street or on the other side of the world. Reminders that we’re all here. Alone and together.


BLR --Poplar Grove Muse