Write on, brother

As I sit here waiting for my car to be fixed (s’expensive on Maui) I realized that I could actually tell the whole world about it right from my keyboard. Only question is: does the world really want to hear? While I admit it is a matter of wonderment what tech allows us to do nowadays, do we have to go there?

How did we get by before blogs, Facebook, Twitter and whatever new tech comes along to keep us constantly interconnected? I’m so busy finding out what all my friends (and many people that are my “friends” that I don’t even know – why did I do that?) are doing, feeling or wishing they could be doing or feeling. Not to mention letting me know they took a quiz to find out if they are Mentally Stable and now they want me to take it.

 I’m trying to find some context for all this. Is there a way to make it a useful enhancement of my life rather than just the tremendous time suck it appears to be?

Facebook, for example. I signed up, made some friends, didn’t really know enough about how to use the site so wrote a few posts just to let people know I was out there. Now I feel the pull for constantly checking back to get a feel for the ‘am I loved’ ratio. And the ‘what if I miss something’ ratio.

I did figure out that I could use the idea of making friends with a person with lots of friends to lead me to some interesting people from my past. I’ve used it to connect with old friends from the music biz. But now that we’ve said hi after 30 years, there isn’t much left to say. And every time one of them posts, there it is for me to deal with (many thanks to my friend Skip’s daughter Elise who has now told me about the ‘hide’ button).

 So, I wonder how others are using Facebook in more productive ways. Is anyone?

 Don’t even get me started on Twitter. I haven’t even looked at that site for fear of another time suck. And while I really love email, please don’t text me if you want a response.

 Maybe 59 year old semi retired people just don’t need to know every time anyone they know belches or buys a shirt. By the way, in case you wanted to know, I belched earlier and am going shirt shopping later. Maybe I’ll put photos of my new shirts online for all to see and comment on. Won’t that make my day.

 So, what would you like to know about  my car repair experience?