The 21st Century, The age when stalking our friends became a good thing.....but should it have?

So today I left for my first holiday in two years.  In fact I’m typing this post up on my laptop as I fly 33,000 feet over southern Russia……….or maybe its some small country formerly of the USSR. It is hard to tell from the small screen with a blurry map that British Airways have supplied me with. I will be posting this as soon as I get to Singapore. 


However, moving onto something more relevant, I am reminded this week of the amazing wonder that is Social Net-Stalking. I am finding that although I will be 10,000 miles away, I am not so far removed from my friends, girlfriend, family and other loved ones. The wonders that are Facebook, Twitter, Skype and, the ultimate companion for anyone of the Gen-Z vintage, the SMS, all leave me with the ability to speak to those I am closest to when I am, in fact, as far away as possible without leaving orbit.


It is clear that technology has in fact brought us (the human race) closer together in many ways and, at the moment, I am extremely grateful for that. Unfortunately, sitting here in my partially reclined seat with extra legroom, I am drawn to the thought of how much Social Networking has taken away from us.


Keeping in touch through technology has not always been the case, as I am sure you are all aware. There was a time when flying to other side of the world meant that when you left behind those special people in your life, you truly left them behind and the only way to have a conversation even resembling “instant” was to actually go back and talk to them face to face.


So the big question is how did we cope? What did people have ten or twenty years ago that allowed them to keep relationships, catch up with friends from a far off country and feed the illusion in their minds that they are still close to somebody they haven’t physically spoken to in five years? The answer is a fairly simple one. We talked to each other using actual words.


Social Networking has been around for thousands of years; it’s just been called different things. Until recently it was called having a social life. It involved this strange and bizarre thing called talking to people. Actually having a conversation with someone, telling him or her about your self and listening to what they have to say. We had an inherent ability to “pick up where we left off” and bridge gaps of time, age and geography regardless of the effort involved. There was no technology involved, not an email to be read, no thumbs were harmed due to the constant pressing of buttons to text somebody and no screens flashed giving us that light happy feeling that jumps into our hearts telling us “yes, somebody does love me”. No we survived on seeing the beautiful smile on the face of that person we love so much, hearing the laugh of our best friend when we’ve actually told them a joke and seeing the look of sadness in someone’s eyes that tells you there is something more to the situation than what they’re actually telling you. We got to know the people in our lives, rather than just being acquainted with them and it made our relationships stronger.

What the Social Networking age has given us is a wonderful new way to be lazy. Why go and visit someone you haven’t seen in a while when you can learn about their entire life by reading their profile page or just instant messaging them? Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for inventions like Facebook. Having moved around so much in my life it has made keeping in contact with people easy, but sometimes I wish it hadn’t. I think I might appreciate people who were once a major part of my life or currently are now if I actually had to work to keep it that way. If asked I would get rid of text messaging. It is the bane of my existence. I use it more than most but if I were given the choice I would speak to people face to face all the time. When you’re texting or instant messaging you have time to practice. You can think about what you’re going to say instead of truly expressing yourself. So much of a conversation, especially the important ones, is shown through our expressions and what we don’t say rather than what we do. It is like the difference between a film and live theatre. Films are great, but you know that each scene took half a dozen takes and was edited afterwards, whereas theatre is one take, every time. If you screw up then it is a part of the performance and at least the expression was pure and unedited.


So I think in summary, I am grateful to live in an age that gives us this closeness through the LCD screen, but at the same time I weep, metaphorically, for the social skills of future generations. Yes we can live our lives from a computer, but that doesn’t mean we should. It is not as though the Social Network age took away the old ways of talking to and meeting people, we’re just too lazy to use them anymore. So today, tonight or yesterday depending on your relative time zone, I implore you all to go out of your house, find that person who is truly special in your life or once was and talk to them for an hour or six. Or even better, go out and meet someone knew. Don’t add them on Facebook, don’t exchange Blackberry pins, just talk and get to know them. Make a friend the right way. Trust me, it’s a good feeling.


Till next time…

There is a difference between belief and religion..............believe me.

I should probably start by saying that I am not a religious person and for this purpose of this blog I want you to understand that when I speak about "belief" it does not automatically pertain to religion. I follow no particular religion. I was raised as a Roman Catholic but have since decided that this is not what I believe. Through what I am about to write I intend no offense and wish only to convey my personal beliefs and opinions. I do not expect anyone to agree with, like or even understand my beliefs but that is not my aim. 

Having said that, lets move on.

A slightly amazing thing happened yesterday. For the first time in my life I voluntarily and without obligation went to church. I did it for several reasons but all of them boil down to the same thing: understanding. If you didn't know already, I am fascinated by everything, especially things that I don't understand or agree with. Religion is no different. I'd never been to a church in England before and I wanted to know what it was like. I tend to embrace religions as a way to learn more about people and their culture. As a result of that I also learn more about what I believe as an individual. A combination of intellectual and spiritual curiosity would be a good way to explain why I went.

I don't believe in a god, but at the same time I don't completely disregard the idea of there being one or many. If somebody comes up to me and tells me they believe in God or Allah or Yahweh, fair enough. I don't have to agree with them but I don't have a problem them believing it either. They may even prove me wrong one day. What I do believe in is that, regardless of which religion you do or don't follow or even if you completely deny the existence of a god/creator, we all have the the same inherent aim in life: to be good people.

The core beliefs of all religions promote exactly that, being good people. The ways in which people go about that tend to differ but the aim is pretty much the same. Believing in a god and going to some form of afterlife is just an incentive to be a good person but you don't need to follow a religion to realise that its a good idea anyway. Praying, sacrements and going to church don't make you a good person, you just need to accept people for who they are. Don't let differences in beliefs, culture or language turn you into an ignorant, negative and hateful person. 

This is one of the reasons I dislike most organised religion. Many have a habit of focusing on the consequences for those who believe anything different rather than the positive reasons for which they should conform. This just creates a negative effect on people outside of their religion rather than giving painting it in a positive light to those of us who don't believe. So many religions were started simply because somebody had a different interpretation of a religious text or didn't agree with what somebody else believed. Yet most of these religions seem to have forgotten that and as such refuse to accept other people's difference in lifestyle, opinion and, especially, beliefs. 

To give you an example, the service that I went to last night opened with the welcoming of newcomers, giving the appearance of what was, for the most part, a very nice place. However the atmosphere, for me at least, changed quite a bit when it came to the sermon. Whether or not the gentleman speaking intended to make his point in this way I am not sure. However, while speaking about keeping the strength of your faith he said that "Christians can not enter into relationships with non-Christians" without being drawn away from the church. It was point that he had drawn from the study of the story of Lot and his daughters taken from the book of Genesis and I understand how, to him and many others, it would seem a valid point. Unfortunately, I found this offensive and, to a large extent, ironic. One of the reasons that I went to this service was that I have recently entered into a relationship with someone who is a Christian and I wanted to have a better understanding of her beliefs and why that is a part of her life. 

The last thing I would ever want to do is turn someone I care about away from something that they believe in. Beliefs make a person who they are and to ridicule them for it or to try and change that would change them as a person. Yet in my attempt to gain a greater understanding I was told by this religious organisation, one which not thirty minutes earlier had welcomed me, that without changing my beliefs, and therefore who I am, I should not be with this person as I would ultimately make them unhappy. In a sense this person was encouraging the faithful to discriminate against someone like me simply on the small chance that I would take them away from their beliefs. Regardless of whether or not it is a nice way to preach your religion, it definitely makes for a terrible sales pitch. What made the whole situation even more ironic is that the particular branch of Christianity that this church follows originated from one man being drawn away from his faith because he wanted to start a relationship with a woman. 

I am not trying to paint this church in a bad light. The opposite, in fact, is true. I actually enjoyed the evening and had some very interesting discussions with some very open minded people. I just use it as an example of why I don't agree with any single religion, but at the same time I'm comfortable with my beliefs and that if I continue to spend my life being a good person, regardless of whether there is someone out their to reward me for doing it, I'll have done the right thing and made the right choice. 

My beliefs are very hard to explain simply because they cannot be categorized into a single religion or even into simple Atheism and to be honest I prefer it that way. Belief in a particular religion isn't something that you just choose to have and if it is then you've chosen for all the wrong reasons. It is something that comes to you personally. I may not be able to label my beliefs, but that doesn't make them any less legitimate than anyone else's. 

Till next time....