We All Get By With A Little Help From Our Friends

I may have mentioned this in Blogland, or I may have forgotten to mention, that I joined Facebook quite recently and usually say that I joined "accidentally on purpose". I did join for a reason (to follow a certain author, who's website said "Follow me on Facebook") but that reason didn't really help me out much. (I later met with the author, but our meeting was not the result of my "following" him on Facebook; I don't really even know what "following" someone on Facebook means.) So, now I have a Facebook page, and twenty-five Facebook "Friends". I am surprised to have that many Facebook Friends. I didn't realize that so many of my friends were "on" Facebook. (I have to admit that my 25 FB Friends include some relatives and many work colleagues.) I look at my Facebook page daily, and am likely to comment on the wonderful east coast weather (although one word could easily and fully describe it: "changeable") or some other mundane topic unlikely to get me in hot water with friends or family. I have recently been on a Facebook quest asking my FB friends to submit their craziest ideas to stop people from speeding past my dad's house, to no avail. (Well, one friend did respond, and she's a few years older than me. The young just don't take me seriously.)

Yesterday, I looked at the FB page of a young friend of mine, a friend in her twenties. She has 539 FB friends. Unbelievable! I don't even know close to that many people. How could such a young person have so many friends? Well, after some thought by me, all of her friends USE Facebook, probably religiously, and they have friends who use Facebook, and they have friends on FB. What exactly is the mystery here? Duh? But, I asked her anyway. Turns out, she is "friends" on FB with everyone she went to high school with, and probably middle school and college as well. Me, I have ONE friend I stay in touch with from high school, and FOUR from college. Forget middle school (please, forget middle school) . A few of my friends don't even use email or have cell phones (seriously). My siblings use email....occasionally. Snail mail is faster. Don't you see the problem here with my generation? We are the baby boomers, and we are turning our backs on technology, because we don't understand it; either we don't understand how to use it, or we don't understand how it might be beneficial to our lives, or both. I have to say, I myself know nothing about Twitter, and if not for one particular author, and my two teenage nieces, I wouldn't have a clue about Facebook either.

So, just what is my rambling point? Well, another friend of mine asked me today "What exactly is a blog?" and "why would someone want to have a blog?" and "what do you write about?" and "how would I find your blog in cyperspace?" I could answer the first few questions, sort of, but had no idea about the last. Is there some cosmic index out there to find blogs witten about certain topics, blogs written by certain authors, blogs written by young parents about their harrowing or frustrating parenting experiences, blogs to brighten up an accountant's otherwise boring day (I can say this because I am one), blogs for the "grey-hairs" among us (that would be the over 50 generation, regardless of their current hair color), blogs for bluegrass music lovers, blogs for the frustrated and blogs for the eccentric and those on the edge of sanity? How does one find a blog of one's liking, of common interest, or of comical theatricality?

I have 25 Facebook Friends and twelve official "followers" of my own blog. That's a long, long way from 539.