Evolved

Every time I look at my 'last published' column, I just realize that the gaps between the posts always increase. As we grow, a time comes when we start to keep things within and filtering them in our mind than just blabbering out any nonsense to the world. I'm also beginning to realize, thanks to the recent movies I have watched about internet and its impact on our personal lives , that we barely know the internet. In other words, there's so much at the background than at the forefront. So, its wiser to filter before we put anything out there....

Speaking of that, its been six blissful months since I have been away from FB and trust me there's a lot less junk in the mind that would earlier get generated with the mindless scrolling and peeking into other people's life. 

Here's something I penned down today and wished to share.......

EVOLVED

The time has settled in

Like water that seeps into

The pores of a cool earthen pot

With years the changes have settled

The earlier murk

Now clearer waters.

The stillness is coming closer

The vision is calmer and brighter

For change has happened with-in

And can be clearly seen

As bygones.

As I see myself in the mirror

Or look back at pictures of the yesteryears

I say: So much has evolved

Yet so much stays the same

Dear Beautiful me, you are loved

Grace be yours and gratitude forever.

On why we need not publicise and yet we are worthy

It’s interesting how the human experiences have evolved over these 25 years. For some it takes a decade to realize the changes around us homo sapiens, for some it takes changes to realize but to further culminate into becoming something more- an experience of its own. There has never been a doubt of what the human mind can create and do with it. But when a human starts controlling millions of other humans through nothing but technology, I wonder if it’s an invention we need to be proud of    ( read: Facebook) or lament about. While social connectivity is what it aimed at, it has created a new society with rules of its own, only to lift the true connectivity and morph it into a dwelling where the virtual relationships begin to be considered real and the real ones are forgone for the virtual ones. To say that the author is not a part of it will be truly false. To say that this is a society the author wishes to step out from yet stays for reasons, some known, and many unknown, will be partly whole.

As a teen, the author never thought that there would be a time when gadgets is what would replace handshakes and emoticons is what would stand from true feelings. Never was a world imagined where humanity would lose its being to nothing but technology. Here we are, in the era of 2015 where the role reversals have begun. To say that soon homo sapiens shall be digitally loving robots, is an epoch which is not far. Feelings are extremely close and incredibly far. The truth has found its co-existence with the false, which was always there, lurking down deep, like sharks waiting to pound on. Connect, is what it aimed for, and yes it has happened, but only with plugs. Of those who say they have actually connected with people, the author says “Give her the number of those you have actually connected with”. Or is it that their fake smiles and all happy lives have burnt you alive to ashes, so much so that you are nothing but a burnt charcoal, with your fingers still on the screen and heart thrown inside in a corner?

Like that little sapling in the movie Wall-e, which is the only source of life left, we homo sapiens are on the brink of extinction. It is seething us slowly and you ask what is global warming? That stranger who smiled at you and whose smile you never bothered to return did something out of a warm choice. You, however, chose your screen over a true contact, scrolling over the contact list which is long and meaningless.

And then the author asks: to become so narcissistic that the true soul is lost to an object, to lose that one touch of humanity that is left to save the planet, to network over wires than hearts, to live life over the ‘last seen’ than the actual meeting, is this what we call ‘evolution’? It’s time, we define our lives for like they say it with the hastag #YOLO.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Woah!! It’s gonna be three years since I joined “Facebook”, earlier known as “THE facebook”, THE “THE” removed only because of a guy whom the best friend thought wasn’t wise enough to be invested in.

Hi. Welcome to the “SOCIAL” NETWORK review from my side!! And though all these months what I’ve been doing is reviewing nothing but readings given to me weekly in my college, I was more than anxious for the movie to get over and write my thoughts, oops! POST my thoughts on my very own “blog” ( HA! THANK goodness I’m not an obsessive blogger like Mark Zuckerberg was).

No one but I know at this moment what my mind is going through. I liked the movie, no wonder it’s worth getting all the awards at most prestigious award functions (I’m intentionally trying NOT to name them). But the main reason for the success is the movie will be what? The way the movie was made? Or the way events and incidents happened in Zuckerberg’s life?

It’s been many years since I’ve been reading “The Chicken Soup” and in my teen years and even now I often wonder that the issues ( that of “stereotyping” “ self- esteem” “ being a nobody” “ having no girlfriend or for that matter friends to talk to” in short everything that can be included in the SOCIAL CONTEXT of a school life) which bothered teens in the west were far more different than in the “Indian” context. Now I do not know if I’ll be right when I say that “back- bitching”, “gossiping”, “publicizing”, “flaunting”, “popularizing” have all resulted in India from THE FACEBOOK, or they were already there (you might as well disagree, but I’m purposely not elaborating it at this moment, coz indeed there are many factors for the westernization of the Indian culture, and FB might be just one of them).

Surely some people would agree with me that the teens of today’s generation are light years ahead in the negative things that they are indulging in, unknowingly or perhaps knowingly too) from where we were at their age and are now. The other day I heard my aunt saying about her son, who just recently joined facebook, “What’s the idea of going to the school, and coming back, sitting in front of FB only to chat and talk with friends whom you just left few hours before”? Height was when my cousin in the ninth standard was on his Homepage and told me that his classmates would sneakily get digicams or cells to click pix in the school only to go back home and upload on facebeook.

Sorry for digressing (as I said I had too many thoughts on my mind). The story of the facebook founder- Mark, if I believe it to be at least 75% true as shown in the movie then this is all I would like to share ( and perhaps even if not, then too):
What do you think about the aspect of friendship as shown in the movie? TO BE CRISP I’LL SAY: BEST FRIENDS always think good for you. It’s sad that trivial jealousies as friends move ahead on the ladder of success whether in the high school life or in professional life take over the wonderful moments one shared with that friend. This is precisely what Zuckerberg did. HA! What an irony, the guy who created FB had not even a single friend on his side, as every second online people added each other, made friends and so to say expanded their “social” network.
What happened in the end? His friend was right about his partner who dealt with drugs and was caught red- handed for it.

What about the glorification of excessive “blogging” and open expression of your emotions? As is said that all geniuses have a streak of madness in them, so did Zuckerberg! The anger, the rage, the wildness, the inability to take control of one’s emotions is what drove him to do all that he did in the very first place. While all we friends might be very glad to be “connected” and share videos, pictures, and what not on FB. It is the founder’s story that hit me hard. I felt sorry, pathetic and was angry at him for what he did. (Taking all his anger out on his girlfriend whom he was dating and “openly” abusing her and posting it on his blog, and going ahead to create facemash.com only to humiliate a person to the extent that you forget that at the end of the day you are a human being, not a wild hound who would kill his own kids for hunger).

And all that while you take undue advantage of your best friend’s TRUST in you, only by throwing him out of your company, he being oblivious of all your strategies. A BEST FRIEND STABBING AT YOUR BACK IS THE WORST WOUND ONE CAN EVER GET. Mark was a coward! Not only did he cheat others, but he cheated himself more than anyone in the process of becoming a billionaire. Keeping his genius all aside, I would like to pose a question: What value does money holds in one’s life? And what does holding on to grudges for no reason at all lead to? I’ll tell you- LOSING your “very “own strengths you had in the form of your friends!

The movie is a success, and I’ll be only reiterating this word! But it’s heartrending, sad, depressing to see everything that happened in his life. The creation of facebook has been a revolution in itself. Like that day a kid of 5 year old telling me “Didi, are you on facebook? I answer him by saying yes, his answer only leaves my wide open as he happily says “Add me on facebook”!

So here it goes:
If you wish to meet new people,
If you wish to make random friends,
There are loads ideal out there,
Just “add” them, don’t comprehend,
If you wish to publicize or wish to popularize,
Go click on facebook, make a profile,
The world was no less in abnormalities,
Now only it’s leading to some new,
Where boyfriends get a heart attack,
When their girlfriends find new ones to hook,
The anxiety that is overwhelming,
When your party is poorer than hers,
The tension that your boyfriend is cheating,
As on his profile you constantly gawk,
The narcissicism it feeds into your soul,
Making you a star every moment,
Oh! Wake up and answer your call,
Not studying, would later help you lament,
Your teacher will question you,
“I knew you were facebooking”,
And to her you’ll give a silly nod,
Expecting her to be understanding!

It’s ended the “real” social life,
As couch potatoes sit in front of their pcs,
It’s boring after awhile,
Seeing people’s changing faces!
While you still maybe “quizzing”,
Or chatting with “21” friends online,
Ask, answer to yourself,
Are all those people really your “friends”?
Changing realities won’t change the truth,
Your best ones will stay closer than your kin,
The ones whom you greet and talk to,
Are the ones behind you places switch?

While jokes keep cracking now and then,
There is a real danger,
To us, to families, and to their children,
Who stick like a leech with their computers?
And as I write this long poem,
Lamenting and feeling sad,
I myself am part of it,
I wish I hadn’t been,
But I’m glad for some things,
More depressed for others,
As there was the mastermind “making” social relations,
A consequence of not having his best friend near!!


PS: After a wonderful talk with a friend, which served as a stress buster, I do agree that in the end nothing can destroy us, and its in our own hands what we wish to do, whether its facebooking people, or staying "actually" connected with them.