Social animals

I glanced up after scoring a goal in FIFA11 to see what the professor was teaching. I also glanced around and saw everyone on a blue screen of Facebook. (Yeah, that's catchy because we have a terminology in computers, Blue screen of death). And I thought why do we want to socialize after-all? Everyone was hypnotized, giggling to themselves as they liked it. Some were just browsing around, visiting profiles, stopping occasionally at the ones that had a picture of a pretty looking girl and delving a little deeper if privacy settings allowed so. That was funny. We are social animals and we love society. Or rather I should say, we love attention of the society and yes, social networking had a massive shift in it's paradigm. It's no more a platform to catch up with people who are geographically separated. Instead, it's a platform to show how cool you are. Yes, deny as hard as you can, but you are no different.
A boy, who in real-life strolls around as a macho-man who fears no one, goes home and likes the album "Cutest bunnies" that his love interest / interest has put up. And he finds that he isn't the only one. Infact he's number 21st to like it and 37th to put a comment "wow they are really sweet". Really? Really they are sweet? And then there are people who like to show they are carefree. I happened to follow few people on twitter and all they could tweet were abuses. Everyone's profile description had very selective yet similar high profile english words like enigmatic, eccentric, overly ambitious. Their tweets, however, said otherwise. Very few of them post something that made sense. Others, reek profanity. Indian youth. I can't blame others. I am no different. I too had my moments of social stupidity when I did what others would like and not what I wished. But yes, a few days break gets you closer to yourself. Sometimes, the best way to socialize is to not socialize at all.
We have become too obvious to each other virtually that we have forgotten how special we are to each other in reality. When you call someone, there is no element of surprise as their life is an open (face)book. You can't talk about what you know through and through can you? You make plans to hang out, but aren't you cautious about doing things that'll sound cool when made public? "Just ate with my friends and drank too. Now driving home, drunk. :P (10 likes)" Bleh. "Cops caught us. We bribed them. Bloody corruption.(15 likes)" Ohh, now you notice corruption? "Came home, sneaked in bedroom without getting caught by dad. (17 likes)" "Monsoon started.. watching rain. So cleansing." I'd would rather go out and play football in rain and enjoy myself than sitting glued to the screen awaiting responses. Surfing the internet has become surfing the facebook.
Look, Society, that we try hard to fit in, is a dog who'll eat you when you don't do things that are cool. Rules of what's nice and what's wrong are written by people who are knighted "awesomely cool" by weaker people who don't believe in themselves. They need someone to look-up to. So if their icons of coolness visit Cafe' Coffee Day or buy flip flop from ink-fruit, they HAVE to do the same and put it on facebook to show the world that they too have similar tastes like the others. And the world likes it. Because everyone wants the world to be as they want to see it. If someone goes against it, he's treated like a pariah, a neanderthal in 21st century.
People argue by saying that they get to know what's happening around and yet we see people on national television who don't have a clue of what happened in Ayodhya. I'd say, bother about your life, not other lives that are perfect, virtually. Because, I assure you, people will never put their deadly demons in public. They'll put those lame angels that'll make them 10+ likable. It's a succubus syndrome.
I must have angered a few people who hold facebook dear. Few must have grabbed the word hypocrite and are ready to comment it. I am not a role model but realizations are always good. There's a saying in Zen. "When you are eating, eat." Keep that in mind.
And ohh, if you love your sister, call her. If you get my drift.