So I feel my resolve to quit facebook on the 31st waning... and for the silliest of reasons. I keep thinking about how much "work" it will be to keep it from me. I mean... there's the iPhone app to delete, and the link on my homepage, and the website to ignore at work? Well, it's BLOCKED at work, so heck, work will be the best place to ignore it once the app is deleted... but all in all, I just keep thinking of the peskiness of escape. BUT! That in turn should bolster my resolve! I mean, hell... it's gripped me so tightly.

I know I need to do this... even if I think it will be okay if I don't or if I step down incrementally. I do however feel that I will not actually delete my account. I would really be in for a lot of work then, saving all my photos and whatnot. Besides, I was reminded recently (by the anecdote of a friend) regarding the "healing" of someone in Alcoholics Anonymous: they must learn to deal with existing in a world where temptation exists; simply because they are trying to shit-can the sauce doesn't mean where they live will simply hide it from their view. A truly recovering alcoholic must learn to stare it right in the face and know that any desire they feel to partake - any sliver of "need" - can be fought and conquered with the allowance of something more constructive... something to better one's self. I suddenly feel it might be worth going to their website and seeing what some of these things are... see if perhaps I might be able to use them in my quest to fight off facebook.

Heh, the facebook movie is coming out soon... "When you have 500 Million friends, you're bound to make a couple of enemies"... I love it. So much is being "discovered" about facebook - it's a subject of freakin' research... which in turn makes me a subject of research. A faceless subject... HA! How ironic is that? Wait, is that irony? YES! It is irony! "The use of words describing something other than their actual intention"... I am a faceless subject of the study of facebook... irony... marke ye it downe. But in all seriousness, they release these undoubtedly interesting facts regarding facebook, and I am curious just what they are expecting us to say in reaction. For example, they state that were facebook a country, it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India... heh: China, India, facebook... nice. Is that supposed to instill some sort of pride? HA! Patriotism, even? I pledge alliegence to the page, that is my personal opiate.... fantastic.

I need to get away. I heard on NPR the other day (in a segment which is part of the only thing I can stand to listen to anymore... a book review) an interview with a man named Alvin Tofler and his wife who co-wrote a book in the seventies called Future Shock. "Future Shock" I then learned was the shattering, overwhelming stress that befalls a society (or a person) at the alarming rate of technological expansion that promises to occur at any given moment... or now, as the case may be. While natural cases of future shock may very well just be heightened stress, Tofler and co. seem to think it may very well extend itself into insanity. Exciting, eh? Exciting enough to be made into a documentary style film narrated by ORSON WELLS... oooOOoooo...

I couldn't help but find myself affected by the piece... and I now want to read the book. But then again, do I really want to read the book? I mean... it was written for a 1970s audience, so will I absorb it the same way? And on top of that, will this book allay or compound my fatalism? It seems to have helped the author and his wife... they are in their 80s, living in California in a mid-century modern house... my dream... but will the book have the same affect on the reader?

Facebook appears to be the catalyst for my future shock... who knew, eh? I DID. Or do. Or whatever. The point is that I must keep renewing my resolve to find my middle way... my medium path towards balance in a future which I cannot see. And to do that, I must be able to focus... and lets face it: facebook doesn't really allow for a whole lotta that.