Ok so I never rant on here…ever…not about personal stuff. However, I see that other people do…all the time. For years I didn’t get it. I considered it “dirty laundry” and never understood why someone would want to air that in such a public forum as facebook. I think I get it now and I guess I am posting this for those who, like me, don’t understand why anyone would post such personal emotions here. I have seen people talk about love in both ways, heartfelt devotion and also the undeniable pain of being cheated on. I have seen people vent about their children, husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, and about loved ones who have passed away. Why do you think people do this? For a long time I couldn’t wrap my head around this “need” to talk about it on facebook. I have LITERALLY been thinking about this for a year or so and I think I have finally come upon the answer…at least one that has satisfied me for the time being. Currently my wife is out of town on a week-long vacation with her family and last night I felt the need to post a video of “our song.” I kept it sort of cryptic saying something to the effect of “I am missing someone out there”…or something like that (scroll down my page to see what it actually was.) I obviously did it in the hopes she would see it and appreciate it, of which both she did. I woke up today realizing that I could have done something similar about a dozen different ways where the emotion I was feeling would have been shared only between her and I and not also with my 443 “friends.” I very quickly realized I was doing exactly what people do that I haven’t been able to understand the motivation for. I recognized that every time somebody posts something and I think to myself, “Why in the world would you put that here???” it has to do with emotion…and the question of its existence. Here is what I mean: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? I think intellectually we all know that due to the science of friction and vibration, an audible emission is in fact created. I think the better stated point of the question is, “If no one is there to hear it, does it matter that it made a sound?” The same idea can be used in this venue. If “you” are keeping a secret, and “you” are the only person that knows about it, the answer as to whether or not that secret really exists is directly correlated to your feeling of self-worth. If you think that you don’t matter, then neither does the secret. The secret holds a bit more water and matters more if you tell 1 more person, especially if that 1 person matters to you. Imagine if 2 people “matter” to you, and you tell them! The “secret” is exponentially that much more important and that much more likely to be a “real thing.” Breaking it down here: If we have 20 drinking glasses in my house and I break one and don’t tell my wife or son. It is not likely it will ever be missed and as time passes and no one notices, the FACT that I broke a glass is less and less likely to ever have happened…to my family and even to my own memory! However if I tell my wife it is less likely that I will forget it which will keep that fact in existence longer. If I tell my wife AND my son I have even further solidified the existence of the fact that I broke a glass. Do you see what I am getting at here? Sometimes we, as humans, feel things…and if we are the only ones who know we are feeling this “thing” then it is less likely to us that the feeling ever mattered…or existed. We need validation. By validation I mean that facebook has become a means for people to put their emotions “out there.” By “out there” I actually do not mean on facebook per se. I mean it has been put out in the world, out in existence, and facebook has become a means by which my emotion now matters (exists) because you are now also in on the “secret” and you commented …or my emotion now matters (exists) because you are now in on the “secret” and chose not to comment…or my emotion now matters (exists) because you ignored it and there was SOMETHING there for you to ignore and it was my emotion. I have never said anything to anyone about posting their “dirty laundry” except for once and it was about a year ago when I started thinking about this. If she is reading this now she knows who I am talking about but it was a girl I went to high school with. I haven’t talked to her since high school and we really didn’t talk much IN high school. Anyway she posted something about some hurt she was feeling and I commented that it sucked but facebook probably wasn’t the place for posting this kind of thing. I TOTALLY regret saying that now and will be apologizing to her because she was simply needing her hurt validated and I, without actually saying it, said, “This emotion is not worth validation,” and I was wrong. In writing this I have remembered the many times I have done the same thing outside of posting “our song.” I have posted love for my wife, my son, my grandmother who passed, and other things that were specific and REALLY didn’t have anything to do with my 443 “friends”…I even posted my emotions about Robin William’s passing. So, for those who have actually read all this and will comment, read it and not comment, or ignore it altogether, thank you. Any or all of these actions mean that “something” was acted on and this emotion has now been validated and exists. Bacon.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 01:29:52 +0000
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