Stripped of Pretenses
My latest obsession is organizing my personal account on Good Reads. Have you heard of it? It’s a website (www.goodreads.com), where you share what you’re reading, what you’ve read, and what you intend to read. I’m not usually drawn to this sort of thing — online apps, that is. My world doesn’t include “apps”. I am one of the last few standing, who does not own a smart phone. Sometimes I worry about the growing learning curve that keeps building upon itself, the longer I wait to take the plunge into smart phone territory. I can’t even text when the full alphabet is available. I learned this when my friend, Shanda, asked me to text for her while she was driving. It was maddening; I nearly threw the phone out the window. That was over a year ago. She doesn’t ask me to text for her anymore. I still text with one hand, T9 style. As long as my autocorrect doesn’t mess up, I’m good to go. I’ve learned the words that require the function shift to “ABC”…also very maddening as it significantly slows down the process, but my speed has increased with my foresight of what words require this function shift.
Not having a smart phone also means that my internet time is significantly less than most. Until recently, checking Facebook was more of a weekly (if that often) affair than a daily (or multi-daily) affair. I usually only checked it based on receiving a message through my email. I had a very streamlined internet process. I checked my email to determine, if in fact, I even needed to go to Facebook. From there, I only went to the specific places, where I had business to tend to (messages to answer, “likes” and comments to see, that sort of thing). I could tend to everything without looking at the newsfeed. Needless to say, I didn’t have a habit of posting personal statuses. On the rare occasion that I did, I fretted over how it sounded, did I spell everything correctly, etc. I would get bound up over a Facebook post. Silly, I know. And as my Mom recently told me (while I was fretting), “It’s Facebook, what’s the big deal? It’s not like you’re submitting it to a publisher”. I knew she was right, but the thing that continued to bother me, was that I did care. I knew it was silly to be self-conscious in this manner, but I was (and probably still am, even though I’m working on it).
My Facebook idiosyncrasies, unfortunately, do not end there. I also have strict filters on my account, keeping all manner of games blocked. I’m just not into them. I also have it blocked to where people can’t tag me when we are out somewhere. I did this for safety reasons. It seemed to make sense at the time (even though I was living in Guatemala and had no reason to be concerned with whether or not a potential robber knew if I was home back in the States). It took work to set up that block. I had to read through a one or two page Word document with detailed instructions. This is why I hesitate to change it. I’ve come close…I’ve clicked on the button to make the change, but then I think about the two page document and all the initial effort to set it up. It isn’t until I’m out with friends (and their smart phones) when they are excitedly posting that we are out doing such and such, that I think, “maybe I should unblock that setting.” In those moments, I really want Facebook (whoever that is) to know that I’m out with so and so at such and such place. It feels so exciting to be a part of the group, in those moments. Sometimes I ask one of my friends to comment on the post saying that I’m with them. At first, it was funny and cute to include me in that manner, but now I think it’s become a pain. If only I could bring myself to change that setting…
Given all of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I almost abandoned setting up Good Reads when I realized it was connected to both Facebook and its own set of members. As soon as I clicked the button to begin setting it up, it started running this process to connect me with all of my friends on Facebook. I don’t like my every move being monitored and displayed, without understanding what is taking place. I thought I was simply going to a website, but no, that thing kept searching to connect me with the highest number of friends possible. I wasn’t ready for that! I hadn’t even had a chance to scope out what I was getting into! That thing kept ticking on searching for more friends. My worries grew as I wondered if I was coming across as intrusive to whoever it was that this magical ticker was connecting me to! I couldn’t take it anymore, I finally stopped the search. “But you’ve only reached 46% of your searchable base, are you sure you want to stop the process?” Yes!
At 46% of capacity, I began to set up my account. Fortunately, one of my other idiosyncrasies is to write down all the books that I read so that I have an annual count. My lists from the previous two years were readily available, so I started adding “my books”. I gladly added my spiritual books, historical fiction (I had really gotten into them this past year…an engaging way to learn about history!), non-fiction (though I struggled to break out sub-categories aside from the obvious, autobiography, memoir, etc.), and then I came across two back-to-back Nicholas Sparks books (yes, two and back-to-back!). I hesitated, “adding these are going to mess up the whole vibe that I was creating”, I thought to myself. I skipped over them and continued to add from the lists. When I finished my first round through the lists, I scoured them again, wondering if I should add the “skipped” books. I was caught between wanting to increase my total book count and wanting my virtual bookshelves to look cool. My book count could really shoot up if I added all of the Nicholas Sparks’ books that I’d read, not to mention two Nora Robert’s books, the complete Twilight Saga, seven of the Sookie Stackhouse books, and the current Janet Evanovich book that I was reading. I also realized that the last four or five books that I added showed up on my Facebook timeline under a new section for Good Reads. If I was going to add these books, I’d have to be sure to end on four or five “cool” ones, so that Facebook didn’t have any of these on display! I most definitely needed a strategy in place, before proceeding further!
A few days later, I read the following quote:
“When life is simple, pretenses fall away; our essential natures shine through.” Lao-tzu
Whether I was fretting over a Facebook post or how and if I should add certain books to my Good Read’s account, I was trying to control how I displayed myself to the outside world. I was concerned with pretenses…my own pretenses! I had become bound up by them, worrying if my posts were considered intrusive (or annoying) or whether a certain set of books highlighted a side of myself that dismissed another. While I’m stripping away pretenses, it must be said that I LOVE dance movies! Specifically, Step Up 1 & 2 (3 was terrible and I’m excited about 4, but have my reservations), Save the Last Dance, Honey, and Stomp the Yard (stomping is close enough to dancing)!
Peace to all,
Shanna
P.S. I’m off to add my “skipped” books!
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