Someone staged a jocund purge
Instead of going to bed at 4AM, which is really not as bad as it sounds (by my standards nowadays; I don't sleep, I nap), I stayed awake to further the minimalistic objectives of slimming down my Facebook account. My reasoning wasn't based on anything but a general sense of discomfort toward the "social networking" tool. It really has become nothing short of the new MySpace. Sure, there are less ads (for now at least), and one could argue that the average user is much different than the average user of MySpace, but for me, the web app has run it course. So why wouldn't I just deactivate my account completely?
Well, I'm getting to that.
Just before the winter holidays, I pared away the bulk of my "profile" and all of its limbs, removing every single application that I could remove. I removed every field in my personal, education, and work information that I could, leaving only my contact information. I disabled all the reporting on my account that Facebook does... no more notifications to my friends whenever I post to someone's wall, or RSVP to an event, or get tagged in a photo. Finally, I restricted the entirety of my profile to confirmed friends, with the sole exception of my photo (people have to know it's me when they go to add me, right?).
I completed all of this with a minimum of weariness and anxiety. It was mainly just a bunch of emotionless pointing-and-clicking. TopFriends? Terrible application, good bye. FriendshipWheel? You are the weakest link. OregonTrail? Good times, but hit the road. I thought nothing of it afterward. But the next step wouldn't be so forgiving, and I knew it.
I was to trim down my friends list.
I approached my task this morning in a methodical way. I would go through my entire list and attempt to qualify an individual against these specific criteria.
In a lot of ways, that last one functioned as a form of "veto power". But I knew immediately that I would have to wield that exception carefully, or else my original intent would be compromised. In the end, anyone left on the list would have to be completely defensible. So slowly my hefty list of 500 began to melt down.
The first two passes through the list were relatively easy. I was able to quickly discern if someone was an obvious candidate for The Burning Place. The majority of those culled first were people I had met once (and only once) at a party, or a conference, or in passing somehow. The remainder were random people that I honestly didn't recognize.
After that, I was left with just over 200 people. And so came the difficult task of enforcing criterion #3 and (to a lesser extent) criterion #4. Gone went some found lost friends, gone went some old college classmates. Gone went the bulk of my high school peers, and it dawned on me that many of whom I had never really considered friends anyway, even during high school. With this realization, I obtained my second wind. 180, 165, 150: all of them folks that I had reasoned as being more than mere acquaintances.
By this point, I had identified a group of people who would not see the The Burning Place, at least not today. But this still left me with a group of about 20 people who I couldn't quite confirm and couldn't quite deny. In short, I was having difficulty applying criterion #5. Some of them I still talk to sparingly, but most not. Most of them were really close friends at some point, some not. And every single one of them I consider to be influential and consequently important to my life. But therein lied the problem. They were important to my life story, but not in my life. In the end, I was fighting a battle between the sentimental and the practical, and since the name of the game was practicality, I ultimately removed all of them.
Those were some of the hardest button clicks I've ever made. But it was all a fascinating lesson in identifying those who are truly important to you, even if they're no longer your "friend".
It occurs to me that I may be being just a tad be melodramatic. Perhaps. But I think that anyone would have a similar experience if they tried to do this.
In any case, this step 2 of 3, and step 3 should be better. I still have to go through all my tagged photos and dignify myself, for lack of better terminology.
Step 1. Tiresome, tedious.
Step 2. Emotional, striking.
Step 3. Embarrassing, hilarious, memorable, pathetic, downright weird, etc. etc.
Well, I'm getting to that.
Just before the winter holidays, I pared away the bulk of my "profile" and all of its limbs, removing every single application that I could remove. I removed every field in my personal, education, and work information that I could, leaving only my contact information. I disabled all the reporting on my account that Facebook does... no more notifications to my friends whenever I post to someone's wall, or RSVP to an event, or get tagged in a photo. Finally, I restricted the entirety of my profile to confirmed friends, with the sole exception of my photo (people have to know it's me when they go to add me, right?).
I completed all of this with a minimum of weariness and anxiety. It was mainly just a bunch of emotionless pointing-and-clicking. TopFriends? Terrible application, good bye. FriendshipWheel? You are the weakest link. OregonTrail? Good times, but hit the road. I thought nothing of it afterward. But the next step wouldn't be so forgiving, and I knew it.
I was to trim down my friends list.
I approached my task this morning in a methodical way. I would go through my entire list and attempt to qualify an individual against these specific criteria.
- Would this person recognize me? Recognition would only count in the present day; I'm sure I look different now than I did in high school, when I had long hair, or even during the period in between.
- Do I have any outstanding commitments to this person?
- Can I recall a memorable story about this person, memorable enough with which to reminisce over tea or cocktails?
- Have we shared a conversation, via any medium, in the past 6 months?
- (Perhaps the simplest, yet most complicated of them all) Is this person really a friend?
In a lot of ways, that last one functioned as a form of "veto power". But I knew immediately that I would have to wield that exception carefully, or else my original intent would be compromised. In the end, anyone left on the list would have to be completely defensible. So slowly my hefty list of 500 began to melt down.
The first two passes through the list were relatively easy. I was able to quickly discern if someone was an obvious candidate for The Burning Place. The majority of those culled first were people I had met once (and only once) at a party, or a conference, or in passing somehow. The remainder were random people that I honestly didn't recognize.
After that, I was left with just over 200 people. And so came the difficult task of enforcing criterion #3 and (to a lesser extent) criterion #4. Gone went some found lost friends, gone went some old college classmates. Gone went the bulk of my high school peers, and it dawned on me that many of whom I had never really considered friends anyway, even during high school. With this realization, I obtained my second wind. 180, 165, 150: all of them folks that I had reasoned as being more than mere acquaintances.
By this point, I had identified a group of people who would not see the The Burning Place, at least not today. But this still left me with a group of about 20 people who I couldn't quite confirm and couldn't quite deny. In short, I was having difficulty applying criterion #5. Some of them I still talk to sparingly, but most not. Most of them were really close friends at some point, some not. And every single one of them I consider to be influential and consequently important to my life. But therein lied the problem. They were important to my life story, but not in my life. In the end, I was fighting a battle between the sentimental and the practical, and since the name of the game was practicality, I ultimately removed all of them.
Those were some of the hardest button clicks I've ever made. But it was all a fascinating lesson in identifying those who are truly important to you, even if they're no longer your "friend".
It occurs to me that I may be being just a tad be melodramatic. Perhaps. But I think that anyone would have a similar experience if they tried to do this.
In any case, this step 2 of 3, and step 3 should be better. I still have to go through all my tagged photos and dignify myself, for lack of better terminology.
Step 1. Tiresome, tedious.
Step 2. Emotional, striking.
Step 3. Embarrassing, hilarious, memorable, pathetic, downright weird, etc. etc.
Labels: 2009, candids, family, hindsight, love, The Burning Place
posted by Nate @ 9:26 AM
1 Comments:
At February 9, 2009 3:52 AM ,
maddie said...
Nate Pu.
If you ever send me to the burning place, I will never cook for you again.
The End.
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