fads that come and go, and the things that remain...

so we got yet another fad. and it lasted a while...
most all of belgrade got hooked within a couple of weeks and smiles went all around... "and then on facebook this and then on facebook that..." we expressed ourselves without reservation, pouring hours terabytes of personal information, childhood photos and those of the guy/girl last night...
the question is do we understand what we got ourselves involved in?
on one hand this is one of those "cheap" ways of achieving web presence, which is something that i've been trying to have for the past ten years (and yes, it's true - people started "finding" me through fb for the first time), on the other hand you're constantly entering information about your (deepest?) self into a machine, which could be linked back to your boss, local police, credit manager... luckily living at the end of the digital earth allows me a feeling of casualness - email is about as far as large organizations have gotten here. ok, perhaps a primitive version of ebanking...
so the internet is still my big playground, where i can buzz around looking for information related to my work, hobbies, interests... and that's about it. i can't order from amazon, i can't even pay for itunes, but i also have fewer worries about security. no one can take control of my bank account, or steal and abuse my social security number, yet i got a domain and hosting service
ten years ago i could only dream of anything more than email and basic surfing... now i have a broadband connection (ok, what is called broadband in serbia), i'm chatting right now with a friend in paris (only because our correspondence started 11 years ago through ytalk -we're oldshool), and i can share coffee and morning exercises with my brother in holland... it just keeps getting better...
... or at least different. evolution... so after a month of fb-ing all the time, i got up one morning and realized that i was kind of out of the loop. i had become an observer - wanting things to happen (to me), but not giving much... i'm satisfied with publishing photos every couple of days, but i could do that just about anywhere. the only real reason here is the exposure. and the fact that people do use the basic functions to communicate real things. after some playing i've found my place and i guess that is it. sorry, guys - don't expect me to answer just any invitation to this or that... i have another (several) program(s) running in the background and they demand my attention. as i wrote years ago "When I got my computer, everybody thought it was a toy... Sorry, but I can't afford a toy it took me almost a year to save the money for..."
the computer i bought then is still sitting by my desk today, although not plugged in... now it takes me only days to earn a computer, and even though i still my email and icq number from more than a decade ago are still active, the party's gone elsewhere. that's why we are here - you, me, and this blog. fb is just the new kid on the block. until the next ones along...