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Facebook Versus Twitter In An Existential Ethical Battle

October 31, 2019

If life were fair, we’d all be using Twitter instead of Facebook. But life is only fair in our imagination and the stories we tell ourselves through our movies and religions. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in the ethically challenged world of Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg just returned from a speaking tour to promote Facebook’s official policy to allow political advertising on FB that blatantly lies or promotes untruths, a fact the Trump re-election campaign had already been taking advantage of, which is what prompted the formal public announcement. Zuckerberg also reiterated they will not be fact-checking political ads, claiming that lying in political ads “is an issue of freedom of speech”. (Since lying and spreading fallacious statements is a constitutional right.) But no one is buying it. Facebook employees reacted by sending the CEO a petition of protest stating they don’t agree with the policy. A few well known money managers liquidated Facebook’s stock from their portfolios stating they couldn’t own the company in good conscience because “Facebook’s blatant lack of integrity and constant assault on truth is disgusting”. Even longtime FB haters have been shocked by this latest policy decision. Analysts on yesterday’s earnings call threw Zuck plenty of life preservers hoping he would adjust or clarify the decision. But before he could say anything, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey beat him to the punch by Tweeting and issuing a press release (at the exact start time of FB’s earnings call) to announce it would no longer allow any political advertising on its platform globally due to the proliferation of fallacious and misleading statements, stating “political message influence should be earned, not bought.” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff went on record saying that “Facebook is the most dangerous company in the world today” (though he may have temporarily forgotten about Lockheed Martin et al.) calling them “the Big Tobacco of our time”. (Mark is a good guy but has always been prone to hyperbole.)

So… all around bad news right? Wrong. For us, yes. For the world, sure. But not for Facebook. Facebook reported yet another stellar earnings report last night. Advertising revenue has not decelerated, but continues to grow. Monthly and daily average user numbers are still growing. Facebook is one of the largest countries on planet earth, for perspective, with DAUs of 1.6 billion. Compared to only 150 million for TWTR. The companies aren’t comparable on any metric. Some on Main Street have voiced their concern by stopping using FB and switching to Instagram. The joke is obviously on them since Insta is FB.

For some, yesterday was an existential line in the sand, the ethical battle lines clearly drawn between the good and the bad, the heroic and villainous, the helpful versus harmful. Dorsey didn’t just abstain from making a judgment call that harms the world community for a profit, he took a bold step for conscious capitalism knowing it would negatively affect profits. Likewise Zuckerberg didn’t just not take an action that could have helped the world, he made a decision to generate more profits knowing it would be harmful.

But does anyone care? That’s the real question. In a world where evils like nuclear weapons, royalty, the Catholic Church, big tobacco, big oil, big Pharma, political lobbying, live organ harvesting in China, etc. have been traditionally routinely ignored and allowed to exist, it is hard to imagine that humanity’s good conscience is what’s going to stop Facebook from doing whatever it wants to despite how harmful it might be. But that may be the cynical viewpoint. Or the realistic one. One thing is certain though: Facebook exists for one reason only, to generate money. If it’s user base started to decline and it started losing money because people didn’t agree with its policies, it would change said policies overnight. I personally don’t enjoy Twitter but find it useful if not essential for certain things. Though I wholeheartedly respect and admire the company and it’s executive team. On the other hand i thoroughly enjoy Facebook and Insta as a user. Though I loathe the company and it’s executives. It’s tricky for all of us I’m sure. I would love to see us as a community collectively take FB down or force them to grow a conscience. Just thinking out loud.

The Problem With Social

April 30, 2015

A caveat: for those more accustomed to, and more interested in, the usually more philosophical, theological or sociological nature of The Diaries, you may want to skip this post. It’s about finance and economics and more technical than usual. Just a heads up. If you do decide to venture in, I will clarify a bit more than usual regarding the economy and investing world to give context — so another caveat, this one for those who are already well versed in all things finance and investing: you may find the first few paragraphs a bit elementary… feel free to skip ahead, but hang on and stay in. This one’s for you and there are worthy takeaways to be had.

The investing world is abuzz with Silicon Valley again and it has been for a number of years now. It feels like 1999 all over again. Both the American and European stock markets have been on a tear — in what is commonly called a “secular bull market” — for almost six straight years. People who are active or even passive investors in “the markets” have been making money hand over fist from doing absolutely nothing but just staying invested. It’s an odd paradoxical dichotomy — and it truly is — that as the American economy continues to drag and sputter, making financial abundance, or even stability, seem increasingly unreachable for the majority of Americans still, the top 1% have been doing incredibly well in “the markets”. This paradox is well known amongst the wealthiest in the country. It’s not a mystery or an unknown. It’s very well known, sad as it is, amongst the people who are making all the money. It’s a given. And there are very specific reasons for it.

One might remember investment guru Warren Buffet commenting a few year ago how ridiculous he thought it was that he pays less tax annually than his secretary does. This surprising statistic is simply due to the fact that the common bread earner in the United States pays a much higher tax on their “income” i.e. the money they earn from their job, than an investor does on the profits he or she makes in any kind of investment. That tax — known as the Capital Gains Tax — is capped at 15%. What this means is that whether you made $100 from your stock market investments last year or $1,000,000, you’re still only required to pay 15% tax on it. With the right kind of finagling — owning a few corporations that make big money — enough to fund even the most lavish lifestyles — but somehow mange to “not make a profit” but instead make a loss (and this is more common than the average person realizes…) and you can even reduce that measly 15% capital gains tax further down and come out paying Uncle Sam next to nothing, as in ZERO. You just have to know the game and how it’s played.

But this post isn’t about that. Perhaps one day we’ll go into further details about this sad but true paradox, because I must admit I do receive a fair share of requests from folks begging me to explain to them how on earth one is capable of making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and paying next to no tax on it. It’s not as hard as most people think. In fact it’s quite easy. Again, you just have to understand how the system works. So yes… perhaps we will get into it one day… But today is not that day.

Another reason for this strange upside down economy is due to Federal Reserve policy. “The Fed” as it is commonly referred to is a large private cabal of banking cartels who control the monetary policy and the money supply of the United States. The funny thing is that the Federal reserve is NOT “federal”; they are not a branch of the U.S. government. They don’t work for the U.S. government. They answer to no one. But they make all the rules. (This is truly a whole book unto itself, let alone too much for even a series of posts — so one is encouraged to take some time to research this incredibly vexing scam…) In a nutshell this organization that controls all things monetary — think the economy — is the primary entity that loans the United States the money it needs to continue to operate. When you hear terms like the national debt or national deficit, this debt is owed to this company known as The Federal Reserve; they being a private bank who exist solely to make money charges the U.S. interest on the money it lends the country, just as any bank does; thus in a way one could say that the Fed has a vested interest in seeing the United States economy do well — at the moment the U.S. owes a staggering amount of money to this organization, something to the tune of 17 TRILLION dollars.

In exchange for all the money The Fed loans the United States to stay “in business” so to speak, the United States government allows the Fed to do just about anything it wants to — including for example keeping it’s books private and sealed. One might have a recollection of a few years ago when then-presidential candidate Ron Paul (remember him?) tried to pass a Bill in Congress to force The Fed to allow the U.S. government to see it’s books — as in take a look at its accounting records. This would seem to be rather a no-brainer, right? All public companies are obligated to make their accounting records open and available to the public — how much money they have, how much debt they have, how much money they are making in gross revenues and net profits, etc. etc. But The Fed is no regular “public company”. It’s ironic if not downright terrifying that 99% of Americans do not even realize that The Federal Reserve is not only NOT part of the federal government, but they are so private that no one in the United States government is even allowed to look at it’s books. The word shocking comes to mind. But terrifying fits the bill even more appropriately considering how much power this private group of banks has over the health and wealth of the whole country.

So how much power DOES this private group of banks have over the United States? Put it this way: The Fed has the ability to say yes or no to the United States government regarding how much money it loans them or doesn’t — as in any day they can collapse the American economy or continue to allow it to wrack up more debt. It’s all in THEIR hands and truly no one else’s. They also of course have the power to set monetary policy in general — this is why it is a fool-hearty idea to ever blame a good or bad economy on any American president, for they simply don’t have much power in regards to the economy, but that doesn’t stop most people from still doing this. The primary thing the Fed does in regards to “setting monetary policy” is they decide what the lending rate is at any given time in the American economy. At the moment it is set roughly around -0-. This is the rate of interest that banks can charge each other to borrow money from one another. This “prime lending rate” has a great influence on all the other interest rates in a healthy first-world society such as mortgage rates or car loan financing interest rates or the interest one receives from investing bonds or savings accounts or bank CDs.

You might have heard the term QE bandied about over the last few years. QE stands for Quantitative Easing, which was the Fed’s fancy term for lowering the prime lending rate down to a record low AND at the same time temporarily loaning the U.S. billions of dollars by buying various bonds from the United States and various other banks — they did this in order to “stimulate the economy”, as a means to get people spending again and to get banks loaning money to people again. So far it hasn’t worked out as well as many hoped it would. BUT to be fair it did at least according to general agreement amongst most experts save the country from sinking into another Great Depression from our recent Great Recession (the recent economic crisis we experienced in 2007 and 2008).

What this policy did do though was stimulate the hell out of the American stock markets. By lowering interest rates down to near -0-, people with money had no other choice but to invest their money in the stock markets — simply because they couldn’t make any money with their money from investing in anything else. Savings accounts, bonds and CDs offered zero to almost zero return, i.e. interest. If you add in even a small amount of inflation — the price of goods increasing compared to the value of the Dollar, and one would actually LOSE money if they had invested their money in a savings account, bond or bank CD due to how low the interest received was. So people with money jumped into the stock market.

This is what has created one of the strongest and longest running bull markets in American history. More and more money has poured into the markets and as long as this mysterious organization called The Fed continues to keep interest rates LOW, then people assume that the stock market will continue to go up. From the outside, from the view of the average American who doesn’t bother to pay attention to monthly and quarterly economic data, things still seem rather bleak to be sure. Unemployment has supposedly declined, though many doubt this claim. Jobs still seem few and far between and raise and promotions seem a fantasy of days long gone by for most.

Except in the world of finance that is. You see, every time we have economic data — the investing world holds its breath: if the data is GOOD, the markets tank, as an improving economy would compel the Fed to start raising rates again which could signal the end of the bull market. So instead people who are heavily invested hope that the data is BAD. In the world of investing this is known as the “bad news is good news” paradigm and without fail every time any economic data comes in that is “bad” for the average American, you can hear and see high fives flying around Wall Street like wild fire. It’s an upside down situation to be sure. Instead of the stock markets flying high due to a healthy economy, it continues to fly high due to hopes that the economy stays bad. This will keep rates low and insure that more and more money will continue to flow into the markets. Again this may sound shocking to the average person, but it’s not exactly “news” to those who invest their money for a living rather than work a regular salaried job. Frankly yes it’s easy to see why anyone first learning of this closely guarded bit of data would claim that it’s fucked up. It is.

In a nutshell there’s your lesson in finance and econ for the day. Now on to the main point of this post.

Today we are going to focus our attention on the Social Media sector of the investment world. [Again just for those who may not know this: the investment world is divided into sectors FYI. There are many of them and savvy investors are familiar with them all. For example there’s the Semi-Conductor sector (what we refer to as “the Semis”), the Consumer Discretionary sector (Tiffany, Coach, Whirlpool — basically anything that is not essential to the consumer but is purchased when the consumer has discretionary money laying around…), there’s the Oil sector — which is further split between the Refiners and the Oil Services companies, and on and on it goes. Believe it or not, once you enter this world — as with any — it becomes very easy to memorize all the various data points, statistics and acronyms.]

Two sectors that have been red-hot over the last few years have been the Technology sector (usually referred to as “Tech”) and the Social Media sector (often just referred to as simply “Social”). Companies like Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG), Twitter (TWTR) and Yelp (YELP) are all part of the Social Media sector and even the most distanced individuals have surely heard the stories over the years about the ridiculous amount of cash people have been making from investing in these “hot companies”. Silicon Valley is on fire at the moment, with venture capital spending reaching all time highs once more pouring money into the latest start-ups hoping that they can eventually turn them into the next Facebook or YouTube.

The word on the street for these companies is Unicorn. You may have even heard the word bouncing around lately as it is one of the many newest trending in the social media world. A Unicorn is any super hot start up company that is raising a ton of investment capital — usually to the tune of one billion or more — in the Valley with the intention of eventually going “public” — all long before the company starts actually making money. The companies just have to show growth in their user base and their “potential” to make money and people will throw millions upon millions of dollars at them. A few of the hottest Unicorns at the moment are Uber, AirBNB, and Pinterest. Yes from the inside it all appears just as blatantly stupid as it does from the outside. But this is just how the markets work. They are completely irrational, as they always have been.

At this very moment analysts and traders on CNBC’s midday show Halftime Report are all discussing the Social Media sector. Primarily because during this latest earnings season social media companies have been getting clobbered. After running up to more than $85 a share Facebook is now trading below $79. Twitter dropped from $55 a share to $38 in one day — you have to imagine having say a million dollars of your clients’ money invested TWTR and having that figure lose almost half of it in less than 24 hours to really understand the ramifications of such a dramatic drop. YELP not to be left behind performed the worst out of all of them so far, dropping from a high of $85 earlier this year to a measly $39 as of today’s trading session — losing 22% of it’s value in just one day and more than 50% from its highs of the year. When you contemplate the insane amount of money invested in these companies by hedge funds, money managers and investment banks — in the case of YELP, a smaller player, we’re talking billions of dollars invested, you begin to fathom just how much money that is to lose in such a short period of time. LinkedIn was the latest social player to kick the bucket: In one day their stock fell from $250 to $203, a 20% loss in less than an hour.

But why? WHY are social media companies taking such a beating? All the talking puppets on CNBC, Bloomberg and FOX Business News continue to talk about these companies with big smiles on their faces as if they are viable investment vehicles — no one ever saying what would be clearly obvious to even the least educated in business and finance: the American consumer is sick and tired of being advertised to, and social media companies make their money, or at least they’re supposed to, from collecting advertising revenue. You see, once upon a time Facebook made mention that it might start charging for it’s services — charging the everyday user to have a Facebook profile and communicate with their friends and family on a regular basis. The backlash could be heard in places as remote as the Himalayas! The week they made this announcement, as ironic as it may seem, the FB newsfeed was filled with posts advertising that the BAN FACEBOOK DAY was soon upon us as everyone and their brother announced that they would not stand to pay a single penny to use Facebook and they would immediately jump ship if such a fee was ever initiated. And that was the end of that idea. Facebook learned a valuable lesson from that stunt — people may love you if you’re free, but that doesn’t mean they have any intention of giving you any of their hard earned money. They don’t love you like THAT.

It turned out that Facebook was not as essential as it thought it might have been and thus they had to go back to the drawing board to figure out just how they were going to actually generate MONEY. See, Facebook WAS hugely successful in terms of it’s popularity amongst users. At one point it reached one BILLION users globally. That’s a phenomenal figure when you consider it for a moment: it translates to almost 20% of every single person on planet earth having a Facebook account of some kind. But the company didn’t make any money. The average person on the street, struggling to just pay their monthly bills always has a tough time understanding concepts like this: how can a company be as big as Facebook (or Amazon or Yelp or Twitter for that matter…) but not actually make any money?!? It seems illogical. And in reality it is. The truth is that these companies BORROW the money they have from what you commonly hear referred to as “angel investors” or venture capitalists. They then use that money to grow their business with the hope that one day they WILL make money… Some do. Many never make it. Amazon — one of the largest companies in the free world still operates at a loss every year. Yep. It’s true. They bring in billions of dollars a year in revenue. But every year they report not a profit but a LOSS, meaning that they spent more than they made. How is this even possible? Simple. They borrow more money and go further into debt based on the idea that one day they actually will make a profit. It’s a funny business. One that just about any average American would love to be able to take advantage of in their own personal finances to be sure. Problem is, banks and venture capitalists aren’t interested in you or me and our ability to pay our bills or even have enough money to eat for that matter. Instead they are interested in future profit potential. That’s life in a nutshell. As unfair as it is, that’s just how it is. You’d have a better chance at borrowing money from a bank — millions even — if you presented them with some dumb idea that showed that you could have half a million “users” by year end 2016 than you would just asking them for money to put food on the table or pay your mortgage. It’s capitalism.

So where were we? Ah yes, Facebook. So here’s Facebook, a simple idea, a dumb idea, at best a rip off of MySpace (remember them?) who was a rip off of Friendster (remember THEM?) showing tremendous growth in “users” but no way to make money from these users. So how to monetize all these users? That was the question…. This was back in the days when Facebook had swept Wall Street by storm by going public and seeing it’s stock price go from $16 to $45 in one day and then having it quickly fall back to $17 where it stayed for a few years, leaving many investors sorry they ever heard of the name. Imagine that kind of a loss in your retirement portfolio. Eventually Facebook got smart and created a very simple advertising vehicle for any and every one to use — a way for users to advertise to each other. “Here’s my Page. Like it!” It didn’t cost that much, you could set the amount you wanted to spend each day, and you could actually see your little ads pop up on the side bar of your Facebook screen now and then. It felt good. And it seemed to generate actual results. It was similar to buying an ad from Google to get more traffic to your website. And we all know how well Google had done… Facebook is presently worth about $178 BILLION dollars. Google is worth roughly TWICE that.

So began the great social media company frenzy. It was 1999 all over again. All a company had to do was show that it could grow its user base, forget about making money or generating a profit, and the investment dollars poured in. Twitter soon leaped onto the scene and ran up to $55 on it’s first day going public from a starting price of around $16. This valued Twitter at about 35 billion dollars overnight. For a company that wasn’t even making a billion dollars a year, nor anything close to it. But it was all about the user growth. Twitter still operates at a loss — meaning that it loses money every year rather than makes it. How would you like that kind of job? TO get paid for losing money? But the pundits had valid points: Twitter WAS popular. People did seem to have a valid interest in and excitement about it. The problem was and still is that that excitement is fleeting. Today’s Twitter is tomorrow’s Snapchat or Tumblr. Remember them? Yahoo purchased Tumblr — and what exactly was Tumblr in the first place? a blog for kids? — for some FIVE BILLION dollars. There’s money they’ll never get back. And Tomorrow’s Snapchat or Tumblr is next week’s Meercat or Periscope. The landscape is constantly changing in the hands of the ever-fickle American consumer. The truth is that they really just don’t CARE.

And that’s the big disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. The average person on Main Street has a life. Family problems, car problems, job worries, relationship woes… They could care less about Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat or Tumblr in the grand scheme of things. When’s the last time you heard anyone even mention Tumblr? But the folks on Wall Street don’t recognize this simple fact of life. These are minor trivialities in the hearts and minds of the average consumer, these “fancy websites” they call social media. They don’t put food on the table. They don’t even offer anything relatively substantial or of value that cannot be had elsewhere. NEW is much more exciting to the consumer than been there done that. It doesn’t mean that mom still won’t keep trying to Message you on Facebook this year. She probably will. But are you really even paying attention anymore?

Environments like Facebook and Twitter have continued to remain semi-entertaining and even useful at times when one has nothing better to do or when there’s big news we want instant access to… But when we’re in the mood for big news, we are NOT interested in ads clogging up our newsfeed. Nor are we interested in ads when we have nothing better to do than scroll through old friends’ attempts at wit or their latest selfie or cat photograph. Let’s face it, social media is fraught with meaningless drivel. Hence the shift back towards more meaningful content platforms like blogs or even texting.

Every social media company is reporting user growth increasing but revenues and profits shrinking. And the simple reason for it is because nobody likes being advertised to. The television world and Wall Street already recognizes this fact as more and more people shift away from traditional TV towards digital alternatives like Netflix or Hulu or flat out stealing online. This is the time of the great peregrination of the consumer away from advertising — why? Because we can. And in an environment like this, you better not have advertising revenue as your main means of generating cashflow or you’re going to be screwed. YELP is the perfect example. Yelp is actually a great tool. Nearly everyone has it loaded on their phone and loves it. The problem is that no one is willing to pay for it. (The music industry is going through a similar shift…) Yelp wants to generate revenue from selling advertising. But the users who use Yelp the most absolutely REFUSE to use Yelp if they believe that any of the data they are reading such as reviews are being influenced in any way by advertising dollars — in other words, people want to believe what they read on Yelp. They want to read ALL the reviews, not just the ones that some company has paid to place there, and they certainly don’t want to find out that companies are able to pay to have negative reviews removed from Yelp. What’s the point of the app then? See the problem? Yelp is basically fucked. A valuable tool with no viable way to make money.

Twitter god love it is in a similar position. I personally use Twitter all day as a means to receive notifications about subjects I am interested in ON MY PHONE. In other words, I set up notifications to come directly to my phone from Twitter about various different subjects or different individuals or even tweets that may mention me — the president of Iran will shoot out an interesting tweet now and then, and where else can one access such data but Twitter? But that doesn’t mean I ever scroll through the Twitter newsfeed or what they call their “Timeline”. The truth is I never do. The notifications come to my phone. I scroll through them. Get the basic gist of what was said. And I move on. All on Twitter’s dime. Or better put on the billions of dollars invested in Twitter by their investors. All without ever paying for Twitter and all without ever seeing an ad. Hell, like most people I’m downright annoyed and pissed off when I see an ad on Twitter. How dare they?!? And yet THIS is precisely how they intend on making their money! From advertising. It’s farcical when you really start thinking about it.

We have to begin to realize and acknowledge that we’ve reached a crossroads in the global economy. We’ve raised a whole generation on free usage based on the idea that we’d make our money from advertising — while at the same time weening them off of advertising on every other platform. There are hundreds of apps now on the market that REMOVE ads from Twitter and Facebook. And one would be right to believe that very soon there will be apps to somehow remove the ads from Pandora and Spotify as well — which is how those companies make the majority of their money as well since they’ve programmed whole generations to believe that music should be free — just about the dumbest thing one could think to do if MUSIC was the one and only product that you wanted to sell in your business. Again, we’re at this major crossroads where at some point soon, something has to give. Investors are going to learn sooner than later — just as they did in the dot com crash of 2000 — that they can’t keep pouring money into businesses who don’t actually make money. And businesses are going to eventually learn that you can’t run a business offering the main product you sell for zero dollars. It’s an illogical business model. And all it’s done is destroy more than one industry, the music business just being one of them. TV is next. Social media never really was in reality. And people are just starting to see that now as these once high flying stocks crash and burn.

As a sidenote with a potential solution, look at the companies who actually DO have a chance at making money. Out of the three Unicorns mentioned above, Pinterest is another Yelp waiting to happen. They’ll garner billions of dollars in investment capital and blow through it all in the hopes of turning all those bored moms and housewives into advertising clicking robots, only to realize that those bored moms and housewives aren’t any more interested in clicking on ads as the rest of us, and they’ll go belly up a year or two after going public IF Wall Street is dumb enough to take them there. But Uber and AIRBnB are different. Both of them actually SELL something besides advertising. Sure there’s a social aspect to both companies. That’s just the new normal — there has to be a social aspect to EVERYthing now. Eventually we’ll have apps where people post their latest and greatest bowel movements for others to see and rate. (If those already don’t exist, which I can’t with certainty…).

But the key is that the social aspect to both Uber and Air BnB is NOT the product itself. It’s a byproduct of the actual product. And that really is the key to this new environment. Social is key. But it can’t be THE key. There has to be an underlying product to be sold. And “to be sold” means to CHARGE MONEY FOR IT. Just as PayPal charges a few pennies on the dollar for every transaction, they’re offering a very valuable product — the ability to exchange money with freinds, family and business associates without ever leaving your home or office, or even your couch for that matter. All from the comfort and ease of your smart phone. That’s smart. Uber and Air BnB are doing the same thing. Small fees. Nothing fancy. But they’re actually making money. And isn’t that the reason to start and run a business in the first place? What companies like Yelp and Twitter are going to do is a mystery. They’ve screwed themselves from the outset with a faulty business model. As have companies like Spotify. The next few months and years are going to be ugly as this grand experiment fails and falls to pieces in rubble all around the feet of Wall Street and Main Street investors. People are already asking “are we in a bubble” everyday now… and truth be told, in the bigger picture of the investing world, no, not quite yet. But in the social media sector we’re beyond bubble territory. We’re in the sloppy frothy messy slime and sludge of a bubble already burst. Most just don’t see it yet. If you’re into shorting, now would be the time…

Facebook Is Here to Stay

September 28, 2014

Someone posted a TIME magazine article this weekend that claimed that scientists have been running computer models that showed that social media is similar to diseases and that Facebook will soon lose up to 80% of it’s users. I clicked. The article was from January. As in ten months ago.

Facebook of course has only continued to grow and immerse itself deeper into global society since January. These scientists were clearly wrong. As I wrote here in 2007, Facebook will eventually become so ubiquitous in our lives that it will come loaded on every phone and be the seamlessly integrated desktop on every new computer sold in the world. Every action we take on or off line will be recorded by it, many of them shared. Like it or not, Facebook is here to stay.

Twitter on the other hand MAY still potentially go the way of Yahoo or AOL. Most people still don’t use it regularly and very few find it indispensable. Twitter’s decision to enforce the 140 character limit greatly diminishes it’s ability to be an effective tool for much of anything except satire, a greatly appreciated and hot trend at the moment in western civilization but certainly not a necessary one.

Facebook on the other hand is more akin to Windows or Apple. Not only does it have more money and resources at its disposal, thus it can easily afford to reinvent itself as often as needed to supply the people with whatever changing needs they demand at the drop of a hat, it also has a complete monopoly on mainstream society — it possesses that very rare blessing of any product or service of being used by almost all demographic groups on planet earth; all races nationalities age groups income brackets social backgrounds and classes. Some may try to go without their Facebook account for a spell, only to realize, like TV 30 years ago, that to do so means they find themselves unable to keep up with their peers come Monday morning at the office. Facebook is not just the social barometer of society — it is also fast becoming the primary communication tool.

We may watch the latest hot viral video on YouTube, but we find out about through Facebook. We may tune in to the latest binge watching sensation on Netflix or Amazon or HBO, but we find out about them through Facebook. On and on this line goes. So deeply immersed is Facebook in human society at this point that it is more appropriate to compare it to the medium of television or the telephone than to other tech companies like Twitter or Yahoo.

In the end Apple, Google and Facebook stand tallest and win the dominance game.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone 8s Custom

Using Social Media as a Launching Pad as a Creative

August 7, 2014

I’ve noticed over the last few years that I have been more and more prone to use posts on social media as a jumping off platform for Transcendence Diaries entries. As I was typing the above I remembered that long before the advent of Facebook Tumblr and Twitter, I was already using these Diaries as a means to communicate regularly with people — though it started out as a social experiment in the very beginning, it very soon became a place to vent, keep track of thoughts feelings and ideas, or just keep friends and fans informed of the latest. Very similar to what we use social media for now.

Remember that it wasn’t too long ago that I posted an entry warning people not to lose track of themselves and their potential great works of art or brilliance in social media — that for all its benefits, social media could very well zap your greatest works by sucking them into the limited confines of a newsfeed that quickly disappears forever; for not only does the newsfeed itself disappear quickly — and therefore your potential audience, but people’s attention is also greatly limited when on social media. Notice how difficult it is to elicit a response from others when posting something sincerely important, let alone just interesting; in other words, wanna tell the world what you had for dinner? Fine, do it on Facebook. But if you’re really attempting to say something, best save it for your next book or at least a blog.

That was a few years ago, and for me that was a big wake up call. Noticing that the decreasing quantity of entries here was almost commensurate with the increasing quantity of posts made to social media. It’s an easy trap to get into, with the lure of all that instant gratification one imagines they may receive from all the potential attention they might get out of hanging out and being seen or saying something noteworthy publicly. But it’s a trap, a lifesuck to be sure. I wouldn’t waste a brain cell on it. And yet we do have a genuine desire to connect with both friends and our audience, to not be a total hermit. (And while we’re on it, there’s nothing worse than someone who outsources their social media excursions to some third party hack or organization that promises they’ll “continuously engage with your fans in a meaningful way so that you can keep doing what you do best”. Yeah, we tried it. It doesn’t work. Your fans don’t want to read randomly generated crap from a 22 year old grad student who believes she’s a “new media” mogul nor from an automated meme generator. They want to connect with YOU. And they can tell when it is you and when it isn’t.

For me the solution came slowly but organically and that’s what made it work out so well and taste so good. I noticed that the immediacy of instantly expressing one’s self via Facebook or Quora or Twitter had it’s advantages in terms of the creative spark it elicits in us; there’s a certain excitement in the wow of being able to personally express ourselves so readily and publicly that we really don’t get from anything else in our day to day lives — it does something to our creative juices, inspires us in a way, that we don’t necessarily feel from any other form of personal expression. Not even blog posts. And certainly not working on a book or a screenplay where it may be months or years before what you’re working on sees the light of day let alone someone else’s eyes.

(As hard as this might be for some to believe — due to this recent wave of anti-smart-phone obsession that’s hit the fringes lately, proclaiming that people are spending too much time inside their phones as opposed to being present in the here-now of what’s happening all around them in the real world — some people don’t realize that other people just don’t have a lot going on outside of their smart phones (as sad as that might seem to some… it’s not really sad; it just is…) so being inside their phones is actually more social, more exciting and more satisfying than putting it down or attempting to take one of those new age “technology breaks” that have become all the rage with the Oprah/yoga/vegan/raw foods crowd. They fail to realize that even personal one on one interactions with many or most people in our lives still may not be as exhilarating as interacting with the people we connect with regularly using social media — at least for SOME people. Frankly I don’t as of yet at least see anything wrong with this fact. Sure it’s weird. But so was the car compared to the horse and buggy and so too were talking pictures compared to the silent ones. The point is that social media posting sparks us in a way that almost nothing else does. And that power can be harnessed. Just don’t waste it all there.)

When I feel inspired to post something or comment on something, i do it. I let it rip. No matter what it’s about and even if it soon turns into a five page rambling essay much too long for a social media post. If at the end of it I feel that it’s still relevant or worthy I hit Enter. Why not? It’s better than more pictures of cats and babies. Most of the time it’s fine. Occasionally it’s length or quirkiness (people aren’t used to intelligent social media posts; they’re considered quirky at best, annoying by most) clogs the airwaves and creates controversy and pandemonium. But that’s rare. Usually it just is. As any other post or comment is.

But it doesn’t end there. 99% of the time that post or comment isn’t too far away from what I’d post to the Transcendence Diaries under normal circumstances; or if social media didn’t exist at all. So I simply copy it over. Usually it’s brief, punctuated by hard stops, road blocks and detours that wouldn’t normally exist in a Diaries entry, so I’ll take the time to elaborate on certain points or amend aspects of it to add fluidity, work it a bit until I feel that it’s complete, worthy of being a Transcendence Diaries entry. Usually there isn’t much left to do with it though, other than edit and clean it up grammatically for essay form — and yet BAM there it is, a something where there might have been nothing.

This post in fact was a reflection on marriage. It started off as that at least. But then it occurred to me how often lately I’ve been using social media posts as a launching pad for Diaries entries. Thought I’d mention it. Remind myself and others how important it is to remember not to waste too much out there in the world of social media. Remember that as creators our job is to create. To complete a “something”. A something that can be saved for posterity, saved to enjoy later, saved to review and revisit, saved to inspire or provoke. Think song, album, sculpture, painting. Don’t mistake interacting on social media as creating something. Hell, don’t even mistake it for “doing” something. Unless it’s going to directly lead to something else. That’s the rule.

Social media is the exact opposite of the above named “somethings”. It’s for that photo of you and the crew enjoying lunch or a video of that kid down the block who can sing like Robert Plant, or a quick hello to friends and family when you’ve been too busy to pick up the phone, or an inspiring quote, or to remind people about your latest work of art, or a goofy meme about the Kardashians. It can also be a truly fulfilling means to connect with others in a meaningful way. Remember, people don’t go to social media to read or think or feel. They may WANT to read what you’ve posted (whether it’s your’s or something you’ve found interesting of someone else’s), and they may believe they want to think and feel; but the structure of social media takes over their mentality and squeezes those desires right out of them before they’re even aware of it. There’s just too much vying for their attention particles to warrant them stopping long enough to take IT in. YOU on the other hand have so much more to offer than the ten seconds that most people are willing to relegate to what you’re offering. So don’t waste it there on Facebook or Twitter. Start a blog. Write a book. Record an album. Make a movie. Who knows… You may just change the world.

The World’s Problems Ain’t Mine and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

August 5, 2014

More and more posts on Facebook, Tumblr and other social media here in the States are exclaiming how they don’t want to see the horrific sites of what’s happening the world. I just saw another one today. It read:

“Wtf! Everyone on Facebook, around the world knows that there are horrible things going on in this world… we all fucking know this.. we are all aware, but some asshole feels it’s necessary to post horrific photos here, and frankly my friendship with this person just ended. I don’t need to open Facebook and see a severed child’s body on a morgue table. I don’t give warnings or second chances, my work with you is over, because you are contributing to a problem that I am full aware of you shameless piece of shit.”

I commented: “Ended up feeling so passionate about this post that i used this comment box as a platform to write a post for The Transcendence Diaries?. Please disregard and feel free to NOT read if you choose to. No harm in that and no offense will be taken.”

I’m very torn by this post frankly. As any intelligent mind would be, knowing that only the very bluntest of minds feel 100% one way or another about anything… Life is far too nuanced for that. Part of me totally gets it, agrees with it. We don’t want to be bombarded by grotesque sites everywhere we look. Especially not in our cherished world of social media. we’d rather look at pictures of cats and babies and wedding pictures. I get it. I’m with ya. Why SHOULD we have to see things we don’t want to? And yet we don’t really… do we? And we aren’t being forced to, not in reality. Let’s face it. 99% of the time everything in our cheery privileged world here in the US is the exact opposite of horrific pictures or “grotesque sites” — instead we are surrounded by smiling photos of Andi and Josh or the Keebler Elf or Captain Crunch or the cast of the Today Show; at worst we may come across some pseudo-shocking revelations about Justin and Jen or Kanye and Kim. But for the most part our lives here are pretty much Disney Family Movies?.

Meanwhile, just across the pond there are three entire countries, Gaza (Palestine), Syria and Iraq (at least… 5 or 6 really, if we include Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and let’s not forget Ukraine…) completely demolished and destroyed AND the reasons and causes for the devastation pretty much all come down to us, here, in the US, in one way or another. But still, why should we care if we don’t HAVE to?

Gaza is a literal trash heap now. Completely demolished. almost 2,000 normal everyday innocent civilian folks killed, for no reason. That’s more than 1% of their population. It is akin to 340,000 Americans being killed in three weeks here. That’s three hundred and forty THOUSAND dead Americans. It’s astounding to consider. We wouldn’t have any clue how to deal with that kind of loss here in the US. We’d literally lose our minds if someone did that to us.

The means? 110% American tax payer money that paid for that. And American weapons that did the killing. NOTHING else paid for it EXCEPT American tax payer money. We pay the taxes and every year Israel receives 3 to 6 billion dollars of free American tax payer money. Why? How? How does that happen and we don’t even have a say in it or how it is used? But we don’t want to see images of what our money is doing on Facebook… It’s too sad. It’s too shocking. It’s hard to fathom, hard to swallow, hard to contend with. Impossible to feel the responsibility. We tell ourselves it’s not our fault. WE didn’t pull those triggers. We didn’t blast off those bombs. We’re not over there shooting people or blowing up homes. It’s not OUR business.

And yet… It is our business. Because it’s our money that pays for it and our support that permits it to happen. Just imagine Russia killing 2000 people ANYWHERE in the world and watch what the US does. Hah! Permit it we certainly would not. We would be OUTraged. But with Israel… we not only permit it, we condone it and supply the weapons and money to do it.

Same with Iraq. Sure we tried hard to “free them”. But we destroyed the foundation of an entire country’s governmental system in the process and now they’re weeks away from a bloody civil war the likes of which only Hollywood could replicate, but only in CGI –and the American people…? They now say they want no part in it. So no, sorry Iraq we’re not going to help you. You’re going to have to fight this one on your own. It’s already a disaster. But its about to be armageddon for these poor people. All because of the US and their pesky invasion and desire for “freedom”. At least that’s what they say. Frankly the Iraqis believe it had more to do with their oil… But who knows. Who cares? We’re again way over here, far from all that chaos and madness and destruction. Why should we care?

Then there’s Syria… God only knows how much the US has or had to do with it. Libya too. There’s another country we destroyed and is now crumbling before the world’s eyes.We stirred up a hornet’s nest there in Libya and now it’s getting so bad that we’re yanking our people out of there faster than Kim and Kanye marry and divorce. But the Libyans? They’re not going anywhere. For them, the Americans leaving means things are about to turn even uglier. God forbid the Americans have to see it.

Syria, God only knows how much or little we had to do with that…. sure we’re funding a host of different so-called freedom fighters and terrorists there in Syria — because we aren’t sure WHO to fund, so we’re throwing money at all of them — why? — because we just know we want that particular leader, Assad, ousted and thrown out of his country but we don’t have the courage or the fortitude to be honest about it and go do it ourselves. We know the world would never allow it. So we secretly and covertly (but openly) fund THEIR idea of “terrorists”. THIS is legal. Accepted at least. Hell, ANYthing that the United States does is legal and accepted. No matter what. It’s a twisted thing. Almost a million of their people have now been killed. In a year. How can we even fathom that? Clearly it’s not our fault. At least not 100%. This is THEIR civil war. We’re just playing a few sides to see if we can come out on top in some way when they’re done killing themselves. As we always do. (Chile, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Vietnam, Colombia, Iran, et al.) That’s our game if we can’t be directly involved.

But regardless of who’s to blame, it’s difficult to think that while we’re sitting pretty over here in Disney World that all of these people in Syria are dying or being injured. One gets the feeling that we should be doing something about it, that we should be doing something besides logging into Facebook to screw around and type funny messages to each other or play Farmville or Words With Freinds. There’s that nagging moral urge to help. At least in some of us. Frankly I feel that it exists in all of us, and furthermore I believe that’s what prompts the kind of posts that I quoted above. This girl is obviously feeling the pain created by this urge to help but not knowing how to… so she’d rather ignore what’s going on. It hurts too much to see it. Trust me, I know. I’ve never been in more pain than i have been sine Israel starting bombing Gaza three weeks ago. Talk about helpless.

Which is why at times I disagree with the above post. I get it. I really do. Why should WE be reminded of Syria and their desire to kill each other? Just like in Darfur a few years ago…. What was it our business? (Well that actually WAS partly our doing and thus our business…. bad example. But you get the point.) Why should we be worried about seeing gross images on our fun funny kooky cool social media sites just because the rest of the world is in utter chaos? We have no inherent responsibility to help our fellow man. We SAY we do. We pretend we do. We teach our children that we do. But in reality we don’t really feel that way. We don’t REALLY want to be bothered with all that. There’s too much good to watch tonight on TV here in the US. And there are too many good dates to go on and too many good restaurants to go to and too many good songs to listen to. Hell, there are just too many good apps to download! We do NOT have the time to worry about other people on earth who are dying or injured. And yes, by that standard, then it’s perfectly understandable that we should not have to see that shit on FB.

But what if we DO help? What if we give money to causes that try to help? And frankly we just can’t bare to see that much grossness all the time if we are expected to go to our jobs and raise our kids well enough to be able to afford to donate to these causes, right? We do our part. It’s a free country. We should have the choice. I get it. And if we say NO to grotesque images of reality, then so be it. The answer is NO. Because that’s what freedom means.

Now…. if we could just find a way to integrate THAT totally justifiable feeling with the fact that we are actually funding 90% of the devastation that is going on all over the world THEN i would feel totally comfortable with taking this stance. The problem of course is that we ARE creating and funding either directly (Israel) or indirectly (Syria, Ukraine) the majority of the root causes of the “grotesque images” we so desperately don’t want to see. And because of that, then by all means shouldn’t WE be forced to witness these horrific images as often as these people who are experiencing them are? At least until we figure out a way to stop our government from doing these things? How else are we going to be motivated to DO anything about what is happening in our name and with our money?

As a last thought… if WE had thousands of people dying all around US in a bloody civil war ala Israel or Ukraine or Syria, we WOULD do something about it, one way or another. We’d SEE it. Smell it. Hear it. We’d fall asleep at night listening to it. And we’d damn sure do something to stop it. Well I bet that the Palestinians feel that way right this very minute. And so too do some Israelis. And the rest of the world’s peoples struggling and suffering. Hell knows that Ukrainians are now wondering WHY they let the US come in and oust their president and government now that there’s a war going on in their country between the US and Russia over oil and natural gas. Maybe we just need to be reminded — as these people are on a daily basis — what it is that we are doing, so we can actually stop it. Hell even if we aren’t even involved anymore, Libya, don’t we have a moral obligation to help? Or did that go away with the advent of Facebook? This is what I contemplate all the time… Is there really such a thing as a moral imperative? Or is it just something we tell ourselves to make us feel better about ourselves in between bites of hot freshly baked just delivered pizza?

Something Special is Happening

December 25, 2013

[An old draft recently discovered, transcribed and edited.]

Had to share this post from someone i saw on Facebook early this morning. Woke up at 3:45 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. So i surfed for a while. I usually avoid religious posts. I don’t Like them or UnLike them. I just don’t pay attention to them. Any kind of public religious zealotry tends to turn me off, whether it’s pro-religious or anti-religious. Atheists are some of the most religiously zealot people you’d ever not want to meet, though they don’t realize it. But many of them are prone to the same kind of proselytizing that radical evangelicals or Muslims are. Personally I find it peculiar, the apparently dire need some people seem to have to profess preach or proselytize their faith to others. Especially in a mixed setting like Facebook or other social media websites where we’re sure to encounter people from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, faiths and religious traditions. Chances are, we’re most likely in the minority; if not due to our religion per se — Christianity is after all a surprisingly popular religion globally — but in our desire or willingness to talk about it publicly. When religious views are so personal; when we are fully aware that our own personal religious views are not being solicited by others… and are most likely not even welcomed.

It’s akin to running around town buck-naked, this trend to go social with your religious views. We all get naked when we have to. That’s a given. It’s a fact of life we all quietly and humbly accept. But we don’t find many people asking anyone else to show it to them publicly. At least not if they’re sane or rational folk. Public displays of religion have always struck me in a similar fashion. Not only is your own nudity generally unwelcome in public places, it can also more often than not just be downright insulting to some; this assumption that everyone wants to see your wanker flopping around in the wind. So if you live in a world where everyone does their best to be respectful, you simply keep your clothes on in public. The same rule should apply to waving our religious flag all over the place every time you open your mouth or type something publicly. I’m not against religion. Certainly not against being religious. Obviously. I just believe that it’s a very personal thing. It’s hard to pull off publicly pronouncing one’s faith when it wasn’t requested in the first place.

When it comes to religion, especially as it relates to Christianity in the United States, there is an unspoken — unfortunately sometimes spoken — idea that some people have that “their way” is the “one true” or “best way” there is, insinuating that all other religions are somehow inferior to theirs — simply because they aren’t christian. When someone posts something super religious unsolicited in a social media arena for all the world to see, knowing damn well that the majority of the people who will see it don’t share their views, it comes across snobbish, holier than thou, cocky, sometimes downright insulting. But if you go deeper, and attempt to view them in a respectful way, it may not be as cocky or snobbish as it is just ignorant; just not being as aware as most people. I try to view it that way sometimes. To give them the benefit of the doubt.

So yes, I do tend to respectfully ignore those ultra-religious posts by others, regardless of which faith tradition they happen to entertain themselves with. For all the reasons listed above. Every now and then though something will catch me. This morning was one such occurrence. Perhaps it’s because it’s the middle of the night and I’m still half asleep. Or perhaps it’s because it just really resonated with me. We won’t know for years really… till this post becomes a forgotten re-read. But what grabbed me was a prayer. A simple prayer. A public prayer. Hung out to dry in the wind for all the neighbors to see. Just so happened that what this person posted resonated strongly with me; probably because I’ve been praying the same damn prayer nearly word for word for weeks now myself.

I’ve felt a strong compulsion to pray a lot more and connect with the Divine a lot more lately. Not sure why. Something special is happening. Has happened. Something bigger than usual, larger than just me or “us”. And I cannot help but feel that it doesn’t have to be inherently religious for those that choose not to go “there”. But science has now discovered a cosmology that is big enough, expansive enough, (magical enough if you will) to allow for this kind of thought and still permit “rational thinking” for those who normally would never venture into those waters.

It isn’t like the old days — ten yeas ago? Five years ago? Even one year ago? Where one had to choose between being religious or being intelligent, sane, rational or logically minded. We can clearly see that in times past this was a choice that one had to make. All of the great faith traditions or religions that humankind has come up with (excepting Buddhism, which is NOT a religion in the strict sense) have been rather kooky, to put it kindly. They’re filled with contradictions and hypocrisy, legends and myths so glaringly unrealistic and manmade that you’d feel a fool to take them seriously. Once you study them that is. [And let us remember that a lot of religious people never make it to that point — which is why I recommend being as respectful as possible when interacting with someone overtly religious. They’re raised in a religious household and they never reach a point where they study it from a historical or academic perspective. They just take it at face value. Based on what they were taught as children. It’s important to remind ourselves of this; for perspective and respect.]

But for those who have taken the time to study the world’s religions, or even their own, it becomes apparent rather quickly just how insanely irrational and made up they all are. Usually this leads to a slingshot kind of reaction. One minute you’re religious and the next minute you’re super anti-religious. A logical pragmatist. A realist. Some even go so far as calling themselves atheists, though that’s a religion too. The anti-religion religion. The smartest minds will tend toward an open minded agnosticism. Which is where most of the civilized world seems to comfortably rest now in consciousness and in our cultural tendencies. But this Divine Force still pulses out there. In here. It’s still alive. Living. Existing. Creating. Sustaining. How involved It is in OUR day to day lives, one cannot be sure. How available It is to us even, we can’t be sure. But there’s nothing wrong with trying. No harm in it. In fact I’ve always found it to be a beneficial endeavor.

Which is where we started here roughly an hour ago. The sun is rising now. I will drift back to sleep soon. But not without first praying. I almost always fall asleep praying. Whether it’s night time or day. A full sleep or a half hour nap. Just what or who we are praying to… that’s a difficult thing to qualify. For everyone the image is probably different. I once heard a friend casually explain to a small group of us that he almost always prays to Jesus “because he was human” and he finds it easier to pray to “something he can understand”. I found this idea remarkably peculiar. Only because I personally feel the exact opposite of this. I tend to shy away from “praying” to Jesus on a regular basis — precisely because he is/was a human. I see him more as a conduit to the Divine, rather than a divine force himself… Not that I “don’t believe” that “Jesus was God”. I would never claim to know either way. Frankly I don’t know how anyone can make a decision about that one way or the other. I wouldn’t dare. So I remain optimistically open-minded about it. But when I pray I tend to pray to “something very large, expansive, all-knowing, all-loving, compassionate and omnipresent”, something that is big enough to hold the entire universe in its mind and/or beingness and yet small enough to fit inside the smallest sub-atomic particle. But see, that’s MY version of the Divine. Surely very different than the next person’s.

The question is, can God (the Goddess? Not gender based at all? Completely removed, evolved beyond gender-based organisms…?) be flexible, pliable, malleable enough to encompass all that we attribute to it and yet still BE what IT IS in reality? If anything? I’d venture to guess yes, He/She/It can. And does. And it is precisely at this time in OUR evolution that we are beginning to see and understand this. Surely God / the Divine already gets all this. Waiting for us to get it. Slowly but surely it seems as though more and more of us are coming around. As I’ve already recounted numerous times here in the past, I didn’t find God or religion as much as IT found me. The gift of that is not lost on me. I still remain exceedingly grateful for those experiences. For I know very well what it’s like to use one’s head to try to “figure God out”. It’s a maddening process. Your heart may long for one thing but your head always gets in the way. Logic and reason. Without some kind of a super-natural or paranormal experience one is usually left with just human logic and reason. God doesn’t tend to fit too easily into a rational logical view of the world. Especially when approached through the small minded lens of one or any of the world’s major religions. But once God finds you, once you come face to face with It, heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul, once you FEEL this divine presence, or hear it… it’s hard to deny it, no matter what logic or reason or rational thinking tell you.

And now we’ve caught up, scientifically speaking, to just how grand this God-construct can be or possibly is. Our science is expanding way beyond what it used to be, how small it used to be. Physicists are finally starting to create cosmological constructs that are expansive enough to make room for this Divine force. And thus prayer can be not only possible, but encouraged. At the very least for experimental purposes. (And that’s out of respect for the still-purely logical pragmatists who find the existence of an external Divine force in the universe unlikely). But for many, ones who have extended beyond that kind of thinking, or who, like me, have experienced something other-worldly that has permanently shifted their views, prayer just may be the fastest way for us to get to the bottom of what this special thing is that we’ve been calling God for so many thousands of years. I am most fascinated imagining what our beliefs will be like in another ten years, or another fifty, or one-hundred, pertaining to this Divine force. Who will strike theistic gold first? The scientists? Or the spiritual? Or will it be a more subtle vectoring of both worlds simultaneously? A sudden realization of the merging of both worlds without a deliberate attempt to do so…? Seems very likely. But we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime it’s certainly an intriguing proposition.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone

Why Promote Your Status Update? Exploring the Personal Expression Age

June 18, 2013

I now notice that Facebook is offering a Promote button on personal profiles, where for a few quid more you can advert your status updates to receive more attention/exposure. (I’ve promised a new blog entry to The Transcendence Diaries daily from now on, as in days of old, so if any status update goes beyond 4 lines I turn it into a blog btw. Standby and we’ll see what happens here…) Point being that this new trend compels one to realize that the world is quickly jumping to a “whoever has the most money gets the most attention” model, (in point of fact it is actually swerving damn fast towards “whoever has the most money gets ALL the attention” — but this jumps the gun a bit) even on traditionally free platforms such as social media. Of course there is the “whoever makes the biggest arse of themselves that day” model as there’s always been, but that’s usually just good for the requisite “fifteen minutes (now fifteen seconds) of fame” type of exposure; in one ear and out the other faster than that pregnant mom of eight sea-monkeys in Kenosha, Wisconsin can find a crack publicist who’ll take her on for a three month stint.

In general the prediction made in the book We Are the Revolution — Welcome to the Personal Expression Age about the coming trend of “the commoditization of the individual, of every individual” as a Signature of the age, is slowly inching toward becoming a very solidified reality in Western culture and thus globally. (Even the most ardent despisers of all things American still recognize that, one, in order to make a big splash financially one normally has to make it in the USA, and two, that in terms of cultural perception of mainstream success on a global scale, “making it in the US” is still the benchmark of how successful one is perceived to be). But that’s subtext.

The bigger picture point is that if regular everyday folk using social media to communicate mundane daily activities with friends, classmates, family and neighbors are now being encouraged to “Promote” their status updates for no obvious or immediate economic benefit, what’s next? [Okay so now this is where we switch to a cut and paste from this Facebook status update to a blog entry usually, which despite my aversion to the extra work involved and a deep seated though irrational longing to just stay right here and keep typing, I will now do. Here we go. That’s better.]

In order to answer this ‘what’s next’ question perhaps it would be helpful to remind ourselves of the primary driver, and trigger, of this new Age of Personal Expression, i.e. we’ve now entered an era where growing up moderately healthy and successful — doing well in school, graduating from college, getting married, buying a house of your own, having 2.5 kids, retiring by age 65 with a decent pension — is no longer enough to fulfill the average human being’s need for personal gratification, satisfaction or validation.

The need to be publicly acknowledged and/or recognized through Personal Expression (PE) of nearly any and all means necessary (or available) has replaced the more traditional forms of personal satisfaction. Becoming public, becoming a public sensation, even if for a brief moment, has become the new “got married, had a kid, just earned my Masters or bought my first house, etc.”; UNLESS any of those events happens to make it easier for someone to “draw a crowd” or gain more access to the plethora of perceived public attention that appears available now to anyone, i.e. if getting married can be perceived as being a unique form of Personal Expression that may garner one more attention than the average bear, then that event is still perceived by the person to be a major life moment worth investing in.

If not, then it feels plain, ordinary, pedestrian and therefore might not be as exciting as endeavoring to attempt something else that feels more authentically PE; at least and especially while one is young and still believes themselves to have plenty of good years left, (or old and feels like they’ve already “been there done that” with the more traditional vehicles of personal satisfaction mentioned above). [This is a deliberately short synopsis of a much larger paradigm explored fully in the book, but it should suffice in order to follow the main point(s) of this blog entry.]

From where we sit now — nine years into the research of this age and the book that explores it — the above summarizes both the primary continuous driver of the age AND the primary trigger that got us here in the first place. So, with the “commoditization of the individual” Signature now starting to trend in real time, e.g. “Promote your status update or Tweet to your friends to “let people know it’s important”” [a direct quote from Facebook June 18th, 2013], which costs money, it is clear that our global society as a whole is definitely heading toward a “whoever has the most money gets the most attention” or better put, “whoever has the most money gets all the attention” model of day to day life. And yet ordinary folks with no financial or career-goal gain to be had from going more public will still feel compelled to participate in such activities such as promoting their status updates or tweets or anything they can think of in order to garner more public attention, even if it just means among their local community or friends group.

The truth is that most people will never gain much of anything from such an action. One promoted status update or tweet in this overcrowded marketplace of pseudo-celebrities (another Signature of the Personal Expression Age) does not a celebrity make. And yet because of the two primary factors triggering, allowing and continuing this trend — the relatively new longing of the average individual to feel famous, and the corporate greed that creates the technological platforms to make the fulfillment of that desire or at least the perception of it available — people will still jump at the chance. Facebook will bring in tens of millions of dollars in extra revenue this year from regular everyday Joes being willing to pay for the perception that “more people saw their promoted status update”. No one is claiming that Facebook will not in some way “promote these paid status updates” to a larger target audience than if one didn’t pay to promote it. That isn’t the implication. Nor the point.

The intriguing takeaway is that people will do it in the first place; and the fact that someone who works at Facebook actually had the idea in the first place — and furthermore that someone else higher up actually thought it was a valid enough experiment to at least try. It is a clear indication that we have now passed the threshold in mass consciousness of understanding the undercurrent drivers of the Personal Expression Age — they are beginning to be taken for granted — AND have reached the first stage of a global trend toward the Commoditization of the Individual en masse.

More later. Much more. Just thoughts in the moment.

Facebook’s Success

October 6, 2012

Facebook’s success can be traced to its ingenious evolution into a public instant gratification machine that appeals to humanity’s most basic and primal pleasure triggers, accessible to all, for free, from nearly any and all platforms. Need a little attention? Post a status update. It doesn’t matter what it says. After someone posts a status update, just underneath it immediately appear the words “Be the first of your friends to Like this.” It can’t get any easier than that. Like a 25 cent bubble gum machine, it’s all about making people feel good, no matter how great or small their actions. Frankly I see nothing wrong with it, haters be damned.

It may have started out as a deceitful theft by an unpopular nerd with no scruples, few friends and a chip on his shoulder. But like anything that serves the public good more than it harms it, the machine has become bigger, and more valuable, than it’s dubious origin. By now those who were ripped off in the beginning have been duly compensated and if the company plays its cards right it can have a long future. For many years I have predicted that Facebook will soon replace the “desktops” on our personal computers, Macs, laptops and yes even our smart phones. It is only a matter of time. Some argue that Google might beat Facebook to this distinction, but I doubt it. Facebook has attached itself to the human psyche. So far nothing on earth has attracted the customer base that Facebook has in the history of human commerce. There’s a good chance that nothing ever will again.

God Giveth God Taketh Away

June 4, 2010

For some reason I still don’t feel that lying around the house crying sadness. But rather, a very intense painful and boiling rage; a looking forward to biting the head off of anyone who crosses my path kind of rage. Looking forward to it. Welcoming disagreement for a chance to take a swing or burst another into the kind of tears I should be shedding by now. Normally the gentle gregarious and oh so very social Ambassador. Now I seethe. Ready to pounce. This event has brought out the worst in me. Someone I know well, but have not seen in many years. When I was a boy, we knew each other very well. Best friends. Brothers in arms. We used to fight every chance we got. I tore the faces off of every kid I had the chance to with my fists back in school. I was the king of cynicism, vandalism, self destruction, and tearing people down. A rebel with many causes. The angry young man, but not the Billy Joel type (who the hell sings high soaring melodies when truly angry?), but more of the Clash, Sex Pistols, Iggy and the Stooges type. Decades have passed since those fiery days and that aspect of self had seemed to pass along with them. Or so I thought. Every now and then, he returns.

And so once again he is here. I am. So he is. So I am. United once again. Breathing and seething together as one. We need each other now. During moments like this. For sometimes life is wicked and cruel. Slaps us down like the pathetically arrogant while still unknowingly ignorant tree climbing bug eating home destroying parasites we are. Such is life for the lost baggage that we truly are. Left to live or die, fend for ourselves, suffer, groan, cry, scream, kill or be killed. Left for dead on a giant rock that floats in the middle of nowhere in what appears to be empty space. When I contemplate our fate, I welcome my new-found old friend.

Princess Little Tree falls into a puddle of tears, face soaking wet, sobbing, a few times every hour. But I don’t. I am a desert. I am a weed-covered hauntingly deserted wall of no emotion. Red brick turned black from soot. Angry acerbic biting vicious cutthroat and cynical. Waiting to pounce. Hence I write. There is not much more I can do. Yesterday I was walking down the sidewalk with both shoulders held wide and broad to protect the pregnant Princess from all the thousands of people we share the city with; she who was holding my hand and walking just behind me. She who was holding our two newest members of our family in her beautiful little belly. Today there is no need for this protection we are told. It is a sudden shocking realization. Just like that. In simple terms, we are no longer pregnant. Some people call it miscarriage. Though this early on…. who knows what to call it. What I do know is that I have a printout of a microscopic photograph of our two precious twin embryos and they were living inside of her perfect body. Now they are not. She has not miscarried yet. In typical fashion. No blood. No pain. Just no more HCG, the hormone which indicates pregnancy.

The first question that comes to mind when hearing of such a fate is always the same: “So where ARE our babies?” If we are not pregnant, then where are our babies? We SAW them. We felt their presence in our home. We watched the Princess grow and grow and develop all the symptoms typical of a woman pregnant in her first trimester. So where are our babies? It is a hard question to answer. Our doctor, a man so endeared to us and vice versa that he attended our wedding, finds the question scientifically impossible to answer. He can only quote statistics and other scientific data and tell us what a good job we’ve all done, how beautiful a couple we are, and how one day soon we will indeed be celebrating the birth of one of the many of our children.

There is nothing like the feel of pregnancy. The feel of being pregnant. I’m referring to pregnancy from the man’s side. From the husband’s side. The father’s side. We seem to glow just as much as the women who are pregnant do. Proud. Protective. Lion-hearted. Head held high. Shoulders back. Chest out. Our pregnant wives feel like cherished treasures to us. Objects to behold in awe, hold delicately, and speak softly to. To pamper, adore, and protect above all other things. How many times in the last three weeks have I sternly grabbed hold of a driver, looked him in the eye and asserted “My wife is pregnant. You need to drive slowly… and smooth… Do you understand?” (New York City drivers are all from somewhere else EXCEPT the United States. Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, Israeli, South American, Chinese, but never American. And they almost never speak English. No matter how many times you request it from the dispatcher. You still end up with a driver who cannot tell you “I’ll be there in three minutes” in coherent understandable English.) So one has to look them in the eye when you get into the car with your precious cargo. Gently lifting your lady’s hand up and in. Then eyes dart to the driver, serious, focused, predatorial: “Hello. Hey, listen. Wife pregnant.” Pointing to wife…. “So no hitting the gas, no hitting the brakes, no weaving in and out of traffic. Just smooth driving. Do you understand?” Luckily we use a service that understands and values repeat business from frequent clients. For we have rarely had an upset once we let the driver know our situation.

It seems to me that there is something nearly transcendental about a pregnant woman in regards to other people’s reaction to it. Something ethereal and mysterious happens to almost 99% percent of humankind when they learn you are pregnant. For more than a month now Princess Little Tree and I have conversed with people all over the world about our latest blessed news and good fortune and the reaction one receives from others is always predictably elated and excited; sometimes surprised, but always near intoxicating joyful. And so for weeks now, we have been riding this high, for we as everyone else knew what a miracle it was. She the beautiful little mother hen, growing a wee bit plumper and prettier everyday. Me the gallant bold warrior placed on the earth itself to do everything in my power to guard and protect her and the little ones growing inside of her. Or so we thought.

This time it was twins. Not sure if they were boys or girls yet. But you easily find yourself playing “name that gender” as soon as you find out you are pregnant. It’s one of the many fun and blissful aspects of the experience. Twins. Imagine that. Twins. My God. Look at the beautiful precious little Princess and her belly. What a marvel she is. What a beauty. I had no problem playing husband and housewife. Her soft regal demeanor and glowing beauty, combined with the delicate state the doctor told us she was in, compelled me to. Easily. With our particular pregnancy, primarily due to the slim chance of a woman becoming pregnant at her age, we both knew, everyone knew, that it was nothing short of a miracle. Friends, family and fans alike cheered us on with well wishes and positive vibes via text messages, phone calls, Facebook and Twitter. The Princess is pregnant with twins was the battle cry. And it felt good.

Doctor’s appointment today. Just a routine checkup we were to believe. To see how our babies were doing. Two beautiful living breathing embryos cellular dividing at a rapid pace, not quite fetuses yet. But soon. Life creating. Deep inside her. Precious love. Manifest through the creation of two more souls to join us on our blessed journey.

The office staff at the center were all excited. As they always are. For whatever reason — and this is more often the case than not for Princess Little Tree and me — though we aren’t sure why but sure are grateful for it — they love us to death; we can really feel they are on our side. They want it as much as we do. We can feel it. More than anything for us to make many beautiful babies together. One of our nurses who has been working for us now for over six months told us during one of our many routine ultrasounds, “I’ve been doing this for four years now and I’ve seen thousands of couples. You can tell the real ones from the rest you know,” she casually tells us in a thick Jamaican accent.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“ You are the real thing. You two. The way he holds your bag over his shoulder and your hand in his, the way you look at him when he isn’t looking. The trust between you. The way he holds your hand during every ultrasound. Most husbands don’t even come with their wives for all their appointments….”

“Really?” we ask. I couldn’t imagine not being with Princess Little Tree on one of her appointments… though I also understand that I am a young man, new to marriage. And therefore want to do things that older more experienced husbands may not anymore. So I take the comment in stride. Though it does help explain the exuberant response we receive every time we enter the confines of their little womb of life creation in the heart of Manhattan. Sophia is from Jamaica. She is superstitious. Which contradicts and tends to bump up against my super-optimism. Despite our pregnancy, Sophia always refuses to speak of it, afraid we will jinx it. Perhaps it comes with the job.

When I first walked the Princess into the doctor’s office a month ago, I was more like a proud soccer coach. “So… we’ve done it again doc! Whaddaya think of the little Princess now?” I exclaimed as he put on his rubber gloves in order to examine her.

“So how is the Mother hen feeling?” he asked her in his rogue South African accent.

“I feel good,” she said. “I feel big!” Yes she was bigger. Plump more like it. But delightfully so. Persian Goddess face aglow. Sweet. Always sweet.

“She’s got all the signs Dr. B. Check it out. This time, I’m telling you, it’s gonna be twins!” I announce excitedly. Sure enough it was. More than twins. But that’s another story for another time.

Yesterday we were told that we’d hear back in two hours with the latest test results. But no call came in. Princess Little Tree began to get worried. I not at all. I was already sure we were fine and on our way to our own private “Eight Is Enough.” At six PM on the dot we got a call. It was Dr B himself. Uh oh. “Fishy can you hear me?” he asked, his voice somber. I knew then that it wasn’t good news. If it had been he would not have been able to keep it in so long nor would he feel a need to wait for me to get on the phone with the Princess. “I know this is hard on you both, but Princess Little Tree you are no longer pregnant. The test results were negative.” The Princess burst into tears. Her face crinkling all up like a child.

“That’s impossible!” I shouted back over the iPhone’s speaker. “Of course she is! What were the scores?!” Yes, I continued to argue back and forth with the good doctor as boldly and rebelliously as anyone who knows me knows I am capable of. Taking down every single test score number of every single test, scribbling madly with a pen on a piece of scrap paper.

But suffice it to say, that was the proverbial that. Princess Little Tree fell to the floor and started sobbing… like a little girl. I go to her, wrapped my arms around her and started rocking her while she cried It out. I lift her up and set her on our new brown leather reclining smoking chair, the one every man longs for his entire life. She cries and cries. All of our effort for naught. I am in shock. She finally speaks. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry I am doing this to you honey,” she sobs. “I’m so sorry I’m putting you through this.”

“Honey, what are you talking about? You’re not doing anything to me! This is our life. This is us. This is something that has happened to us. Something we created together and discreated together… You aren’t doing anything to me. You were amazing babe!” I try to calm her down.

“But this is because of me and my age. And we both know it,” she cries out, tears shooting out of her eyes. “I know how much you want a big family with children of your own….” just more tears and tears.

“Goddamnit this is bullshit!” I shout. “I know you are freaking still pregnant!”

“Honey please… your language.”

“I’m sorry Princee, you’re right. No excuse, forgive me. But listen, for all we know, this has nothing to do with you. This could have everything to do with ME. Maybe my sperm are just messed up from living the rock and roll lifestyle for so many years….” I try to say whatever I can to calm her down.

“Honey Joon,” (she calls me, meaning “dear one” in Farsi), “one-hundred and fifty eight million sperm per milliliter? I don’t think it’s your sperm… you were tested. Your sperm are never going to be an issue. Our babies are fertilized babies. It’s not your sperm. It’s my eggs… and we know it. And I didn’t want this for you honey. I know how much you want it….” she continues to cry… she is torn up, wrecked.

“I know. honey. I do. And I want it with you. With your eggs. Your family tree. Your bloodline. That’s why I married YOU. But that does not mean that this is your fault in any way. You did everything you could possibly do Princess. Everything. you didn’t even leave the apartment for almost a month! You didn’t take a shower for two weeks! What more could we have done? Nothing! You did everything you could do. Period. So you have nothing to be sorry for. But cry honey. Cry. Let it out,” I can see myself from above kneeling there beside her holding and rocking her but I feel nothing but a seething anger deep within my belly.

The time comes where we have to call family now. Our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones all over the world… all joyfully assuming that we’ve reached that next stage of marriage; excited for us and the beginning of our new family… They all need now to be informed of the news and let down just as we have been. Every phone call and conversation will be filled with tears on both sides. This will be a brutally painful and very real human 72 hours. I do not welcome it.

I still feel like a statue. A computer that has frozen and is only capable of but a few simple tasks. I can eat, picking at food on the plate, taking a bite now and then… I can drink, walk – like a zombie I walk, talk when I am forced to (but still feel ready to snap at the first person who speaks anything that remotely sounds disagreeable to my own sense of things). It took two full Valiums to finally knock my mind and body out last night. I lay in bed until 5:30 AM staring into the darkness, up at the ceiling. Not sad. Unlike the Princess, who continued to wake up and cry every half hour or so. Me I’m just dead. Blank. Eventually I must have dozed off.

But no, I do not long to speak to my family nor the Princess’s, nor do I care to listen to their words of consolation or console their own grief. I am well aware that “God has his plan” and that “everything happens for a reason” and “it will work out in the end don’t worry.” I could write a blog a day with all those millennia-old platitudes that we tell ourselves to ease the burden of being alive in this chaotic universe and still not feel that any of them are true, nor feel the better for it. The only thing that would make me feel better would be for Princee to still be pregnant.

“C’mon,” I shout, an hour or so after we got the news.

“Where are we going?” she shyly asks still sniffling.

“Downstairs to buy a freaking pregnancy test. I just don’t believe that we aren’t pregnant anymore. I just can’t believe it.”

“I know. Me either. I still have all the symptoms…”

We stroll through the drug store downstairs below our apartment like zombies. Nothing looks interesting. There is a numbness that takes over you when you receive such a blow. Grab the test. Stare blankly at the same girl behind the counter who has served us hundreds of times in the past as if we’ve never seen her before in our lives. She must sense something is wrong. She doesn’t even look at me in the eye. I must appear to be as upset on the outside as I am on the inside. I notice as we walk out of the store my body automatically go to protect Princess Little Tree as I had been for the last three weeks from all the other pedestrians. And then it occurs to me. “We were just told that she is no longer pregnant. My God. So what does this mean? No more paranoid overbearing chivalry? Just let her do as she pleases as if she were really not pregnant?” But I cannot. Not yet.

We run upstairs and immediately open the wrapper to take the test. How many times had I been in this position hoping for exactly the opposite result? The irony. Cursed self. Wretched self. Three minutes in and the generic store bought pregnancy test confirms Dr. B’s diagnosis. Not pregnant. Though I continue to stare at the test hour after hour as if it is going to somehow miraculously change and turn into a positive. But no such luck.

“God I’m a fool!” I shout. “I’m fucking asking us last night what are their middle names?!?! We’re trying to figure out Katherine Olivia versus Olivia Katherine for two fucking hours! And for all we know they had already died. Weren’t even inside of you anymore…. I feel like such an idiot!”

“You aren’t a fool honey,” the Princess consoles me. “We didn’t know…”

Then rage hits me. I go into my office to smash things. Anything. Everything. Smashing things usually makes me feel good.”Don’t go smash things Prince Baby Joon” the Princess calls out to me, “go outside and take a walk.” But off I tread into my office. But for some strange reason I couldn’t get myself to smash a thing. Granted, I need everything that is in my office. My precious guitars are in there… I had this moment of epiphany that it just wouldn’t accomplish anything. Whether I felt too dejected or have just evolved to a higher state of beingness I am not sure. But I shared with Princess Little Tree when I returned to our room that “I understand what Abraham is talking about now. With the news that we were just given, we see what we don’t want. And by seeing what we don’t want, we more clearly see what we do want. This contrast hurts. But it makes things more clear. To be sure. I can drag my physical self through the mud of what we don’t want and continue to vibrate that. Or I can head in the direction of what we do want and continue to vibrate that. Despite the news of the contrary. I felt that to be destructive when mourning the destruction, or lack of creation, of something would only perpetuate more of what we don’t want. If anything it would only intensify my already agonized heart.

It was a good idea. Because the whole time I’m in shock, the Princess is still crying…. hour after hour. Sobbing, gasping for breath in between giant undulations and heaving of her cute little chest. That cute little chest with those enlarged and extra tender breasts that assured us that surely our pregnancy was in the bag. But what now? What to make of them? Why all these symptoms? How can we be pregnant with two beautiful little baby embryos and then not be? Where are they now? That of course is the million dollar question for millions of couples who have been through this before.

I pass out at 7PM from sheer exhaustion; flat on my back, on the bed, crawled under the sheets up to my chin and just pass out, mouth gaping open. The mental and emotional anguish feels crushing. I can’t quite let it out, but I also can’t seem to physically bear it any longer. So I just pass out.

The princess wakes me up at 8:30 “Honey Joon you wanna wake up?” she calls to me.

“What time is it?”

“It’s 8:30. You won’t sleep tonight if you keep sleeping now…”

“I won’t sleep either way,” I answer.

“I know. Neither will I,” she replied. “But we have to try to be strong my love,” she whispers. I lean up on my elbow shivering cold from the air conditioning sipping hot coffee… I begin to mumble, still unable to open my eyes.

“We did EVERYTHING. Everything! I just can’t believe this. We have to start the whole process over…” I complain.

“I know…” she whimpers, still half alive and half drowning in tears.

“ I mean, we kept you in a horizontal position for three freaking weeks! You didn’t even shower! What the fuck?!?! This is just so not fair. It can’t be you. It can’t be your fault. Or your body. it has to be the eggs. Or the doctor. Or something. It’s not YOU,” I shout into the stifling air that feels like it is slowly suffocating us.

Later, much later, I start putting my shoes on. It’s well past 1 AM.

“Are you going somewhere?” Princess Little Tree asks me nervously.

“I just gotta get outta here. It’s so freaking hot and stifling. I can’t breathe,” I mumble.

“Do you want to go alone?” she asks.

“No, of course not. You come with babe. Always. We’ll call my mom.”

“I already talked to her tonight,” she tells me.

“I know. I could hear you while I was sleeping… did she make you feel any better?” I ask.

“Yes. She did. She said that we never know what God has in store for us two… we just have to wait it out…”

Walking out the door I said, “I just don’t get it. I CREATED THIS! I mean, no secondaries, I CREATED that “We are pregnant with two beautiful little healthy babies!” using Avatar tools. So what happened? I just don’t get it… I had NO secondaries! (anything other than what one is creating; or better put anything that might prevent one from creating something).

We pause. And then “But I just heard a message in my head “She IS pregnant with two beautiful little healthy babies Fishy… just not NOW. But she will be. You are right. You did create it. And you will experience it.”

“Oh my God, Baby Joon! I just heard the same exact thing in my head too!” Princess Little Tree exclaims.

“You did?”

“Yes! Just now. I heard the SAME message.”

Wow. We smile. We begin to walk. Dark and empty streets mostly. But still more activity than one would see anywhere else in the world at this time of night.

“Listen babe, better this than we bring our children into the world with genetic abnormalities that make their lives a burden of suffering. This I don’t know how we would bear. Perhaps as some say we are being selfish… trying to use our own eggs… they are though our eggs to use, your eggs, and as long as you want to keep trying, I’m willing to do it, but maybe we are so strong, so powerful, so connected with God, with Source, that he knows what is best for us all, and he knows what he is doing in this case as well…” I continue to share with her.

“I agree honey. I was thinking the same thing. It is like we are being protected. It is hard to bear. But perhaps there really is a silver lining here that we are not seeing. One thing I am seeing is that Princess Little Tree and I are eternal optimists. Mere hours after hearing that we miscarried twin babies we are already starting to move in the direction of looking at the bright side.

We hit the corner of Broadway and 96th St. Its nearly 2 AM in the morning but the city still breathes life into our bodies. The lights, the cars, a slight but cool wind blows through us; half the stores still open and lit up.

“God I love it here,” I say, taking big deep breaths.” Just feel this. This is why we needed to get out. Just to feel this.”

“We just needed some fresh air. It feels good,” she agrees. Not in the least frightened of where we are or how late it is. The Princess trusts me implicitly.

We go to one of my favorite neighborhood hotspots, this giant “bodega” that sells fresh flowers. Lots of them. So we begin to buy flowers. Lots of flowers. All light colors. Gerbers, roses, carnations, Astor lilies… I make a comment that it is as if we are buying flowers to honor our little ones who have passed on. She cries again. I hold her. Feel her chest heaving in and out. Her tears smearing on my cheek.

We were going to call them Kate and Leopold. From the movie. Olivia and Leonidas were their original names way back when we first started realizing that we were going to be married one day and have babies. But for some reason, these two just didn’t fit those names so we named them Kate and Leopold… whenever we spoke of them. Though I already felt bad for Leopold and how much he’d be made fun of in school.

“You know sweetie,” I comment into the thick muggy air around us, Karmically speaking, I almost see this as us just working with these beings, helping them… we’ve miscarried several times now this year since we’ve been trying. Each time we were excited, thrilled, sure of it, hopeful at the least, and each time they leave us in a few weeks. Perhaps we are just helping these beings come in for all they want or need out of a life experience and it is just a few short weeks. Then they leave,” I finish.

“I like this thought. While they are here, inside of me, they experience more love then anyone could ever expect or want… from our love together Baby Joon, from our loving each other and loving them…” she adds.

“And maybe that’s all they need, is just a few weeks to finish off some karmic obligation and then they pass. We are helping in that. One day soon OUR babies, our children will come in and stay with us” I say feeling more positive.

“I know. I feel it. I love that idea honey,” she cries and grabs onto my arm with both of her small hands, puts her head on my shoulder and cries some more. We are squatting next to a bucket of hydrangeas and peonies in the middle of the sidewalk on the Upper West Side at 2 AM in the morning on a very quiet New York weeknight… It is odd. Painfully odd. But it is also very New York…. we are safe here. Safe in that we belong here. More than any other place in the United States, New York is home now. One of the only places where you would never give a second glance to two people huddled together squatting on a sidewalk next to a bucket of flowers crying…

Later, much later. we are still awake.

She’s crying. Again. sobbing. Weeping. She looks like a little girl. Never a women. Often times a lady. But inside she’s always a little girl. My little girl. The girl I love more than anything else in the world, right up there with mom and Brother John and the five nieces.

“Are you tired? Or just sad?” I whisper to her.

“Both…” she cries some more. “I just want some kind of a sign… just some sign of what has happened and what will happen. “I feel like such a fool,” she cried, echoing my exact words hours earlier. It’s nearly 4AM. Princess Little Tree eventually passed out crying… just laying there crying in bed next to me while I held her. Eventually fell asleep. Longing “for a sign…” She woke up a few minutes ago. “Aren’t you tired yet honey?” I’m hunched over my laptop on the bed in the dark typing away like a madman. If I don’t get it down, I will surely end up dead or in prison, for the pain is so unbearable to me that I feel like writing may be my only way out of its clutches or else I am going to do something mad. I imagine myself shooting half the people I know.

But instead I write. Safer.

“No. I’m just not tired babe. I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop writing?”

“No. You go ahead lovey,” she tells me.

Truth is, I feel almost nothing. Not yet. Like shock I guess. Like someone in my family has just died, or as if my leg has been blown off in battle and I just can’t feel it yet. in fact, I still feel as though we are pregnant for some reason… and that this is just part of a temporary bad dream. I don’t know why, but I don’t feel anything at all. Just a very strong subtle seething rage and anger deep inside of me, and then on top of that, a hope that this too has a plan, a purpose, and that underneath the blatant sadness and unfairness and sudden grief of it is some kind of master plan or purpose that is going to make it all better. But this thought doesn’t do much for me. I throw my body back to the bed forcefully, rejected, “Oh lord, where are our babies?!”

“I find myself in such a depression that I look at a bag of Twizzlers and don’t feel a desire to eat one,” I tell her (One assumes from this passage that “Twizzlers” must be something the lead character in our story adores, such as how women adore chocolate or ice cream…)

“I know honey. I have noticed. You’re just depressed,” she says. “Let it out my love, let it out.” But I cannot. All of our dreams disappeared with one phone call. All of our work. Weeks and weeks of injections to prime her body and make it fertile. Her belly and buttocks black and blue for weeks, like a minefield or a battle field. “How do we recover from this?” That is what keeps going through my mind and coming out of my mouth. “How do we overcome this grief?”

We wake up crying. Dawn hits. Too early. But it is too late. The reality of the events of the day before already begin to sneak into our consciousness… both of us with our hands in more jobs, careers, projects, non-profits than ten people should comfortably be. On top of it, we are in the final stages of buying a new house. Now is not the time to lay in bed and cry. But for a brief spell it is all we can do.

The Princess tells me this morning over coffee that she is amazed that though I am in mourning, I am doing a great job at it, that it is an expanded type of mourning…. it does not appear at least from the outside to be a debilitating depression compared to what one would normally feel in this situation, not if compared to what we have experienced before.

“Perhaps it is because you are writing about it, allowing yourself to feel it through writing, but it’s very admirable how you’re handling it honey,” she says. I find this a strange comment since I have been a vicious angry faced monster for most of the last 12 hours.

“I have no choice honey. That’s the thing. I have no choice. You are my wife. You are the girl of my dreams. YOU are my soulmate. I married YOU. I want to have children with YOU; I would do anything to have a bunch of babies with you, anything. I want to have a large family with YOU, so we have encountered a secondary, a bump in the road, a slight obstacle, but I have no choice but to keep on moving forward in the direction our Primary” (goal/desired outcome in Avatar-speak).

And yes, writing like I do really helps. Feels as though I am accomplishing something. Anything other than just moving on and forgetting about it. Or acting like I have forgotten about it. Or as if I am trying to forget about it. It is too early on for me to want to forget about it.

So there it is. For friends. For family. For fans. For posterity. But most importantly for our own sanity. There is nothing like the act of writing it out to relieve the pain or pressure; at least for those of us who write. Reading seems to give similar such relief. For those of us who read. Princess Little Tree seems to benefit as much from my act of writing as I do. Which gladdens my heart. She always has. Last night just before she retired for the evening she logged off of Facebook and read my last Status Update and burst into tears, which is what eventually tired her out enough to fall asleep. It was as if in 420 characters I had managed to express something that had been crawling around inside of both of us, unspoken, and once let out, she could let some more of her pain out. I held her and stroked her hair, but my own pain… still too far removed.

White Bear was one of the few real alive people in my personal life who gave me the gift of reading and writing. Shared his own passion for it with me. It is not a surprise that twenty years later he too has his own popular blog. The two of us galloping on our steeds through life side by side – though perhaps a few thousand miles apart spatially. Reuniting with him once more I can again feel him in consciousness as I do with all who I consider close friends. In the dead of the night, or early morn as it was, I read his response to my last Status Update: “Talk to me my old friend” he wrote. If he had any idea how much that simple sentence meant to this stone heart of mine.

Father Bloopy commented simply by typing two sad faces. Again. Simple gestures. But enough to make me feel again, as I have many many times in the past, that the next person who talks shit about Facebook and how horrible they think it is should get the hell off of it and shut the hell up. For if they cannot create positive experiences with something or someone, chances are it has nothing to do with the other person or thing, and everything to do with how they are interacting with it. Like writing, hence the popularity of and love we have of blogs and blogging at this revolutionary time in our lives, this new Age of Personal Expression as I call it, Facebook and other social networks have become the new fabric of a giant virtual blanket which we all collectively use to keep ourselves warm and toasty and dry from all the rain. And I like sitting wrapped up warm and cozy inside of this virtual blanket with my friends; and even with perfect strangers.

Pregnancies happen. Or else no one would be alive to read or write this. Sometimes a blessing. Sometimes a curse. Many have experienced both sides of this coin. Miscarriages happen too. Hardly feels like a blessing now. But through the fog of my pain I still somehow cannot help but mutter (when I find the rare moment when able to speak) to the Princess or just to myself staring off into the space before me “You know, I bet this is some kind of blessing in disguise… and we just don’t know it yet.” That’s the best I can muster right now. And that’s o.k. We are alive. More than anything I need to be there for Princess Little Tree. My love. We will make it though this too. You’ll see. We always have.

TheTranscendenceDiaries

Tag: facebook

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