One Day at a Time

    My decision to migrate from Facebook was based on many factors. First, it's time consuming. It seems like the entire system is designed to keep you forever digging and posting with very little result. Like one of those bait and switch postings where the lead in is something like "Survive the End," and you get this "voice!" By the end of this (30 minute) video you will be shown how to live off a banana for a month, and at the end they just try to get your credit card, and it's always the SAME VOICE! I know that voice and I RUN from it. It's like a soap opera, and Facebook is FULL of them.

    Then there are "groups." Everybody has a group, or two, or three, or hundreds. The bad ones are the ones based over in India. Now, I'll be honest with you, all I knew about India was that it was hot, sweaty, and they came up with the Karma Sutra. I didn't even KNOW they had politics. Well, they DO, and they're IRRITATED! You'll run across some chick who's never been any farther down the street than the local fish market, but on Facebook she's an AMBASSADOR. She has no informed logic, but she knows if you're from Texas you simply must be a racist, and I guess I am because I found myself looking at her profile picture to see if she had a dot between her eyes. I'll be honest, i was hoping she was wearing one of those see-through silk things, but that's just me. I imagine India as being crowds of people, living in cardboard boxes, all standing shoulder to shoulder, HIV positive, dodging cows who roam the streets at will because Hindus are too STUPID to eat a Big Mac! Unless it's at a beach party near Oceanside, with wine, groups solve nothing. They're just as bad as that infomercial, only you really expect something to change. What they do is fill up your inbox with "So and so tagged you in a photo" and you rush over to see a picture of a CAT!

    Should you finally bow up and call the girl from India what she really is you find yourself in "Facebook Jail!" Whatever you say is not going anywhere ANYWAY, but Facebook has designed a system to make you yearn for it. The one steadfast rule is that if you state your mind you will eventually wind up in Facebook Jail. You can look through the bars but you can't reach through them, and the most amazing thing is that when you parole you actually curb your tongue so you don't go back there again! REAL jail should work that good. There are similarities to real jail, such as random attacks by homosexuals. You still have to put up with that.  I've been in Facebook Jail for one day, and caught myself acting like everyone else! Post Traumatic Facebook Jail Disorder!

    If you think that what you post on your wall flows out to all your friends on Facebook, have I got a bridge for you, and it's on SALE! Facebook filters, sells, promotes or suppresses whatever it wants just like the corporate conglomerate that it is.  I don't know what the criteria is, but I do know that Mylie Cyrus shaking her butt is more important than a cure for cancer. Oh, that's another infomercial, "Cancer Will Come!" And all I have to do to save myself is endure thirty minutes of the "voice" and get my credit card out! This is the most irritating part of Facebook for me. If I am "friends" with someone, i.e. said person has voiced an interest in what I have to say, and you have the HUGE servers out in California or someplace, the very least you could do is pass my messages through! But NO! Mark Stupidberg filters or censors at will, as he tries to micromanage every syllable on the planet! This makes Facebook absolutely worthless to a writer. The bottom line of BEING a writer is that your material simply must be available to be read, even for free! Once the flow of information is filtered, even among consenting adults the value of the service is reduced to that of the ingredients on a gum wrapper.

    The addiction. Now, this is weird, because I found myself suffering from it. You catch yourself reaching for the iPad, or iPhone, and forgetting the iBrain! You end up hanging on it, believing in your heart that there simply must be something of value there because there's just so much going on. If you throw a pound of seed in a garden, and nothing grows but chickens what does that tell you? There ain't nothing THERE! It's all cotton candy. You find yourself staring at the iPad, slowly reaching for it, maybe, just maybe there will be something, anything there that will change your life forever, then you touch the screen and there it is! CANCER CURE! Get your credit card out!  How do you beat an addiction? Any twelve step program will tell you to first stop taking the drug! Facebook is a drug. Once you break the cycle, and take your life back you can do this experiment; don’t even look at Facebook for a weekend, and then, on Monday, do a quick check. You'll be surprised. Nothing's changed, nothing happened, and all the people you normally see are still at the feeding trough hoping "Massa" will throw them some slop.

    I have decided to basically divorce Facebook. The only contact I will maintain is passing my articles to Doc Greene's morning show because I promised him that I would, but virtually every other point of reference will wither and die. I like Twitter because it's short, sweet, and you don't expect much. This gives me time to write better articles and send them to places that DO matter such as The Dam Good Times, patrioticwarriors.com, teapartytribune.comand ragingelephantsradio.com. Anyone who truly wishes to read what I have to say can find me at @wiiiilbur on Twitter with links that flow back to blogs NOT Facebook. The proof is in the pudding. Instead of fretting over my latest message on Facebook I wrote THIS article when I had basically taken the day off. How bout THAT? One day at a time, folks, one day at a time!