"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
I've quoted that before, but I was reckless, for now is a more apt occasion. What is the place of wisdom in a life we must try our best to enjoy? Tonight, I got two clues.
First, I went to a party where I said everything I had to say to anyone there. It was not much. It could almost have been nothing. Is this an emanation of wisdom? Am I so sated with knowledge so as not to need any more? Obviously I say this tongue-in-cheek, but even so, what sort of way is that to be happy? I can sit and look in the mirror and confirm that "success" (in whatever asinine form this is supposed to be) has visited me. I am certifiably knowledgeable enough to be bored by some people into having very little to say, through no fault of their own, or mine (as far as I can tell).
The second thing I saw tonight was the new profile timeline feature on Facebook. Even as a product guy (by employment), I don't really care about the details of the "feature" in any conceptual sense, although it was fun enough to play around with. But I got hopelessly caught up in scanning back through old posts and events from my past. The thing that really struck me is how people's use of Facebook has changed. Especially the tone and quality of their posts.
By definition, I generalize here, but people's tone today, on average, is more refined. Fine. But the sad part is what that turns out to mean about quality. Facebook is not a book. It is not articles or ad copy or an email or a phone call. It is truly unique. And it turns out that the Facebook medium - through brevity - calls for earnestness, for no facade. That is its strength and its opportunity and the truest measure of "quality" in this medium. But time is carrying it away. As people refine their skill for creating posts, they are concealing the earnestness. They... it... is becoming something else. We end up with a marketing tool instead of an urgent communications tool. It is because people are infected by a sort of creeping common sense that steers them inexplicably away from being forthright, exposed, and earnest and towards being measured and calculated, and it is everything that kills me about interacting with certain people.
I guess what I truly miss is my friends and the things they would post on my wall. And ironically, out here in the real world, I miss the days when I had things to say to them, too.
