Saving face sans Facebook September 28, 2009

I have so far managed to resist the lure of Facebook, not that friends haven’t tried to co-opt (sorry, I mean invite) me.

Whenever I read about privacy breaches on Facebook, both of the data and dating kind – surely we all read about the girl who emailed everyone, and not just her latest date, about his great kissing techniques – I wonder if I am the smart one by not signing up? Or am I missing out?

Some would argue that I could slim down my international correspondence by sending universal updates and photos on Facebook. Well, maybe, but my friends are individuals and I like to personalise my communication. And if I bombard everyone with my latest travel and holiday snaps, then I will have to reciprocate by wading through their albums. Groan…

But what concerns more is the loss of privacy. I don’t want people with whom I shared the milk queue at school contacting me thirty years later, nor do I want to hear from ex-flames, past boyfriends, ex-colleagues, one-night stands or people I travelled with for a week back in the 90s.

I have a website, a blog, an email address, an embryonic Twitter account, a landline, a mobile, a wad of paper, envelopes and some stamps. These media platforms (to speak the speak) equip me to stay in touch with lots of people and to strike a balance between personal and professional networking.

And that’s the problem with Facebook; it’s basically a free-for-all and you need to be able to address all your various audiences at once. In an article in The Age’s Sunday life (27.9.09) magazine, author Chad Taylor highlighted this one-size-fits-all approach well. He wrote: “How could I say I’d seen Friend A when he was arguing with Friend B? How could I say I’d been out drinking with Friend C when I’d blown off a date with Friend D?

I’m happy to share details about my professional life – after all networking is the name of the game – but in my personal life, I like to keep a bit of mystique. Call me old-fashioned but broadcasting status updates daily, or even weekly, is just a bit too much in your FACE for me!

Slowing down to real life September 22, 2009

Did anyone else read the article about booster broccoli and other so-called superfoods in last weekend’s Sunday Age (20/09/09)?

Surely, describing these enhanced foods as ‘all-natural’ is a contradiction in terms? The more we muck around with and modify our food, the less natural it gets.

If you want super nutritious broccoli then head to the nearest farmers’ market and buy veggies that have been locally grown and recently harvested.

The trouble is that this takes too long for fans of one minute noodles and instant gratifiction. And that’s why these quick-fix superfoods catch on. It’s all about pandering to our multi-tasking, super-fast and driven lifestyles.

I recently attended a Zen Buddhist and Ayurvedic retreat at the Mudita Institute, where the emphasis was on bringing our minds and bodies back into harmony with nature.

In one of his beautifully worded and beautifully delivered lectures, Mudita’s founder and spiritual director Sensei Doko Michael Hatchett talked about our de-natured life. Our quest for cures, quick-fixes and miracle, health-enhancing cures is all part of this departure from nature, its goodness and wisdom.

The more we try and outwit nature and defy the rhythms, seasons and natural processes of life, the more fragile and unreal our existence becomes.

Super-foods, performance-enhancing drugs, cosmetic products and teeth whiteners designed to make us perfect are never going to make us happy, stable, calm or wise.

We are like any other living organism on the planet and need to move in tune with the seasons, the rhythms of the sun and moon, with the earth and in tune with our own bodies.

Why do we try so hard to avoid what nature has gifted us? Another article in the weekend papers talked about sexbots being just three years away from prodution. These are sex dolls with electro-mechanics that presumably have, ahem, moving parts. If we get more pleasure from hanging out with a sexbot than a flesh and blood human, then we really have lost the plot. What is wrong with the real thing?