This space accreting, while the gradual shutting-down of FaceBook proceeds. After the Lightning trip from Yuma through Calexico on northward to the Bay Area and back 48 hours later with my original road-tripping partner, Gary, sheesh: 36 years compresses into careers, children, life-trajectories, and gas prices. That and a running dialogue on the nature of the cosmos and human relation.
Regarding the FaceBook wastage, well, it seems quite right for the moment, no regrets. When only a minuscule fraction of hundreds of ‘friends’ notice the departure. Mostly the ones who do are also ones who find the whole thing tiresome and distinctly artificial. The ones with thousands of friends notice nothing in that sea of being known and wanted, busy as they pump their status (statii?) by the moment. After being an early adopter, and a participant for a time, it does seem to be only an accumulation of attention-sucking life-dross. A prime example of how media can absorb our attention without limit — making consumable, for consumption, the textually and visually reduced detritus of be-ing. And presenting that as a worthy object of a sizable chunk of our social life-time. Of the same dimension as the proliferation of bottom, side, and top overlay graphics on cable teevee screens.
I discover that I have suffered no irretrievable loss as I squeeze down the feeds (media consumables, eh?) to nothing. No you-tube fragments, no important NYT articles, no photos of vacation travel, no banal ego-feeding status updates. I suffer no gaping existential holes in my existence on the planet. Down to 200 friends, slowly deleting all content, connection, and demarcation in the account so it will end as a shriveled husk, a dried dust mote falling from the data cloud.