Beyond Reason

I like to think of myself as a reasonable person, meaning by that I have a reason for the things I do, think, believe, etc. I find myself, however, having done something that in retrospect wasn’t quite rational. I signed up for Facebook. Now, becoming a tweeter was based on an article that I read (where else?) in TIME and tweeting is a relatively benign way to stay in touch with family and friends by occasionally answering the question, what are you doing? The Facebook question of what’s on your mind seems innocent enough, but the program’s ability to insidiously dredge up the past was quite unexpected. To date, the oldest “friend” I’ve “discovered” is Ken B. who confirmed that our knowledge of one another dates back to elementary school. A pleasant reacquaintance from high school is Gina H. who is still trying to get a handle on exactly who I was then and how that stacks up against whom I am now. This, for me, is the Facebook conundrum. With Heraclitus’ river running freely for decades without the assistance of these old classmates, what is the reason for getting in touch with them now? Facebook is proving to be an exercise in name recognition combined with introductions to innumerable possible new friends that mean even less (if that’s possible) than someone I haven’t even thought about in fifty years. It is interesting to learn what Crab and Rat are doing now, but in the larger scheme of things the flame is quickly extinguished. The truth is, there was no real interest in friendship back then, so why would there be an interest in being friends now? That, my friends, is unreasonable.