Peace and Quiet

About a fortnight ago I made the decision to get off Facebook for a while. I have little in the way of willpower, so to make sure I stuck to it I had Leslie change my password to something of his choosing. I felt in desperate need of some peace and quiet; a reprieve from the constant barrage of information coming at me that I had increasing difficulty filtering out. All of that background noise in my brain was starting to become a health hazard. As it's impossible to control the stimulus that is caused just by everyday living, which I'm finding exhausting enough in itself at the moment, the least I could do was shut up the cacophony of voices competing to tell me minutia of everyday life when I'm least able to tolerate the din. My Facebook news feed was just another reminder that life is going on as it ever did for everyone else, even those who were touched and affected by Max's death.

I have a lot of anger towards the general populace right now, which I've been told is normal. I am more keenly aware of injustices than ever before - I see them everywhere I look. I cried at the intersection outside the Austin hospital when I saw tens of nurses giving up their days off to protest against changes to their working conditions  - changes that would affect people like me who needed their support when things go wrong. I cried with frustration that they should have to fight the government simply in order to be able to provide the best care for their patients. That is not fair. A friend's uncle who had gone about his life quietly, without harming a fly, discovered he has terminal pancreatic and liver cancer and may only have weeks to live. He's not even retirement age. All the while, murderers and rapists live out decades in our prisons at our expense attaining higher degrees, all in the name of rehabilitation. That's not fair. I could go on and on. My frustration is not simply that life is not fair, as I guess deep down the fact that we were all born in a wealthy country to parents who could provide for us proves that unequivocally. I'm frustrated that we are ever taught, from the youngest age, to expect that life will be fair to us if we play by the rules. That's a crueller lie than Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy combined.

I've taught in primary school classrooms. We do endeavour to teach children to act fairly in their games and in their treatment of their peers. It's someone else's turn to have a go if you've had all the good stuff that day. I can't remember how many times, in my very short teaching career (!) that I mediated over squabbles concerning what was fair, and every time, I was as guilty as any other as instilling in those children the idea that fairness makes the world go around and we must abide by its unspoken rules. Those poor kids are in for a rude shock when, in a few years time, they start to realise they've been duped. The people that work the hardest aren't always the ones rewarded, the people that want something the most aren't always the people who will get it, the people who have the most won't be the ones to share it. Is it any wonder that we go about our lives trying to turn the tables back our way by attaining status or worldly goods to compensate? To get 'one up' on the person next to us?

Facebook has become a catalogue of all the things in the world that are unfair, and as the vast majority of my 'friends' on there are not really my friends but historical acquaintances, I found it hard to diffuse my unchristian, uncharitable thoughts about the photos of their healthy babies, their ridiculously infuriating links to vaccine conspiracy theories, the Liberal National Party's press releases and Andrew Bolt's 'journalism'.

I haven't really missed it, either. Apart from the fact that I don't really know what to do with myself anymore when I get on the computer, being unconnected has caused me no inconveniences and no sense that I'm 'missing out'. I didn't quite realise that people would miss me though! My ex-colleague and friend, Pauline, sent me a very lovely email saying that Facebook was not the same without me. Mostly, I think, because Pauline and I share the same warped sense of humour and she got a kick out my cat videos and links to satirical news items on The Onion! Still, it goes to show, that the people who actually care about you will think about you whether you are updating your status at the supermarket or not, and that you might actually communicate with them more frequently, and on a deeper level, using a medium other than Facebook.

Anyway, I'm not saying I'll never go back, but for now the peace and quiet is sorely needed and is helping me find some shelter from people who don't get it, and don't get me. Perhaps we should all take a Facebook fast from time to time?