Apparently, I’m doing this blog stuff all wrong.  I thought I just had to write something vaguely interesting and/or entertaining, press ’publish’ and that’s it – job done. 

But no; that’s not the game.  At all.

No-one thought to tell me about keywords.  Apparently I have to do all the above and seamlessly weave certain words into the text which will activate the Google monster’s antennae and send my Juice website hurtling to the top of the holistic parties hit parade.

And now I feel faintly foolish for my ignorance of yet another element of the tekkie world of cyber speak that I was hitherto blithely oblivious of, and am now totally self-conscious about.   Death by metatags (or rather, lack thereof) edges ever closer.

A similar state of inertia greeted my initial forays with Facebook ;  I was a bit of a late starter, having decided early on that it was a silly fad that teenagers would soon tire of, and confess to having mocked my youngest daughter quite mercilessly over it.  Imagine her justifiably vitriolic delight when, a few years down the line, mother came crawling on bended knee for help with getting her own profile up and running. 

And, although the newbie phase soon passed, the prospect of committing social network suicide, with a posting being ridiculed or – God forbid – totally ignored, meant that I declined to post anything on there for several weeks, and then when I did, I remember obsessively awaiting the Facebook world’s pronouncement of my musings – and ergo, it seemed, of me in the process.

Having shared these embarassingly egotistical reminiscences with a friend the other week, I’m told there’s actually a name for this syndrome:  Facebook Anxiety Disorder – or F.A.D. for short (what else…?) – an apparently growing phenomenon and woefully debilitating psychological condition in which otherwise sane people are being tied up in all manner of knots over points of social etiquette every bit as laughable as anything which would have confronted polite society in Jane Austen’s day.

And it does all beg the question just who or what constitutes a real friend as opposed to merely a Facebook one?  I mean, a real friend would just tell us to get our heads out of our own arses and get a life….wouldn’t they….?

Though according to a quip on a recent edition of QI, “A friend is someone who will help you move house.  A real friend is someone who’d help you move a body.” 

I liked that.  Though I should hastily add that, by that definition, I have no real friends.  Absolutely not.

 

But I digress.  Apparently, anthropological research has revealed that the psychologically optimum number of friends is 150;  either more or less is Not Good, and anything significantly in excess of that number immediately  labels us a ‘Facebook tart’.  So, with some good friends (as opposed to real, body-moving friends, you understand) having more than 500 FB friends, I guess I know a lot of very promiscuous social media networkers. 

And I probably should have paid a little more attention to the comments of an ex, who made a point of telling me his tally of FB friends on our first date.  Yes…..the writing was well and truly on the wall, but I dismissed it as an amusing little folly.  Now I know better;  this, for some folk, is serious stuff, and it does seem that an unhealthy fixation on Facebook quantity over quality often has correlations in other areas of people’s lives.

But, with so much drivel on the telly, it has to be said that Facebook can sometimes be quite interesting and highly amusing (or perhaps that should read ‘addictive’…?) 

 A little ditty I read on there a couple of weeks back appealed to my funny bone:

“Facebook is where you lie to friends.  Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers.” 

Ho ho. 

But actually, when you think about that, the humour conceals a decidedly un-funny point ;  is social media making us less real….is it all just smoke and mirrors? 

Perhaps it would more accurately be dubbed Falseblog….or how about Farcehook….?

And it seems to me that the complex and constipated social moirés which governed the likes of Pride and Prejudice are alive and well in Social Media Land (Blahnia…?) and I suspect future generations will view our twittering generation with the sort of mirth and disdain that we reserve for those antiquated social structures which governed the fluttering fans and tight corsets of those 18^th century social divas.

Gosh, good people, is it time to relax, and – godammit – get out there and live a little…?

‘Facebook’, so one of my FB friends’ posted, ‘is to socializing what masturbation is to sex’. 

Quite. 

Mrs. Bennet –  surely a modern-day Facebook stalker of epic proportions – would not be amused. 

Or is it too late?  Have we – me included – colluded with the Matrix, and become part of an insidious global conspiracy to star in our own Reality TV lifestyles, where image is the name of the game, and real flesh and blood human interaction has been relegated to the substitute bench of the Game of Life?

But what else is there?  We’re all living increasingly isolated lives;  we’re working longer hours, more and more of us are working from home, and conversing with computers at the other end of a phone line is a common occurrence.  Is it really any wonder that this phenomenon has been allowed to creep surreptitiously in? 

Social isolation is medically considered to bestow a level of risk comparable with cigarette smoking, and although the precise scientific reasons for this are hotly debated in academic circles, what studies of both animals and humans proves beyond doubt is that contact and affiliation with others reduces stress and is conducive to enhanced health and longevity.

So, as the world changes, it’s only natural that we’ve developed a plethora of communication options to try and satisfy our innate need for interaction ;  we can ring, ping, email, fax, text, post, comment, tweet, myspace, facebook or skype, almost anywhere, anytime.  And on that basis, we are easily the most connected society in the history of wo/mankind.

Yet, despite [or perhaps because of] our ability for constant contact, feelings of social isolation persist.  Psychologists’ offer the following top 10 tips for overcoming it :

1. Stop comparing yourself to others.  You really don’t ‘know’ anything about their internal world, irrespective of whatever external edited picture they may be painting.
2. Remember that any form of media is filtered, crafted and edited;  it is not ‘reality’.
3. Everyone feels lonely from time to time.  Feel the feelings, and remember….
4. Emotions are thoughts-in-motion…here today and gone tomorrow.
5. Be patient.  Friendships take time to develop.
6. Volunteer to help people who have less than you do.
7. Develop an attitude of gratitude.
8. Work through any deep anger, hate or rage productively with a professional counsellor or therapist.
9. Get off the computer and get out and start interacting with real people.
10. Do something that you enjoy with others on a regular basis.  It really is that simple.
11. Go to Juice – Kent’s only holistic party!

(Okay, so that last point wasn’t so artfully woven in, but you get the idea!)

Juice was essentially set up to fulfil this very real yearning for connection.  We need each other;  simple as that.  We might be spirit in essence, but we are having a human experience, and we do need to touch, sense, feel, talk to and interact with each other far, far more than we’re habitually apt to do. 

Community and communion matter.  And Juice is a safe, nurturing and supportive environment for people to grow, transform and celebrate life whilst interacting with others of like mind and spirit.

“For those who want to live — not to think about it, but to love; not to think about it, but to be; not to philosophize about it — there is no other alternative: then drink the present moment´s juices.  Squeeze it totally because it is not going to come back again. Once gone, it is gone forever.”

Osho

And an important element of Juice is hugging… 

…though it’s not compulsory (nothing at Juice is compulsory!)  but please be advised that friendly, warm, nurturing hugs may be offered.

WARNING

Juice offers real connections with real people.

And I must get news of to this blog posted on Facebook. 

Tart…. who me….?

The next Juice event is on Sunday, 21^st November, and features a workshop with special guest, one of the UK’s top Tantra teachers, Jewels Wingfield.

See the Juice website : www.juice-kent.co.uk for further information