I have a great new roommate with whom I had a lengthy discussion tonight regarding social media.  He made the comment that people are out there, “just hustling for likes,” and I think he may be on to something.  FB, Instagram, whatever else is out there now.  People seem a bit desperate for approval.  Now, I have been known to drop a photo or two on Insta’ so I do not take exception from my own critique.  However, I have to wonder when we all became so needy, dare I say self-involved?  Not to kick it too old school here, but I remember a time when our daily joytime activities were meant for us and us alone.  When you accomplished something, gave a lecture, ran a race where you didn’t need your extended network of peers to “like” or even care about your achievements.  It’s a different world out there, people.  It’s a world where you shop for partners online, specifying their height, education, meat-eating preferences, sexual tendencies before ever meeting.  A world where and action is followed by a publication.  The question, though, is whether to participate and jump on the social bandwagon, or to reject the mainstream, reject our generation.  Both feel a bit precarious– and I can see the argument for both.

Salmon Fly and Rhubarb Pie

Angus’ Auntie Annie

I learned today about the Tetris effect.  It basically states that if you play Tetris for a certain amount of time each day the world starts to resemble Tetris.  You start seeing patterns, paying special attention to the ways things fit together- or do not.  I get this.  One, because I love, Love, LOVE Tetris.  I played it most days on the bus to and from med school in Seattle and I can attest to it’s literal implication.  But the Tetris effect pertains to actions outside of gaming as well.  It’s having a Spanish dream while immersing yourself in a language.  It’s standing in yoga and deciding how easy people would be to intubate when they extend their necks for certain poses.  The tetris effect is powerful because it shows how our actions shape our thoughts which then shape our actions.  I can’t help but think about how social media use relates to this, and what it is doing to our minds to influence the way we live our lives and what we hope to get out of our endeavors.   Is it perhaps going on a ski/bike/run and thinking in Instagram phrases what you’ll have to say about it?  I can’t help but wonder how the things that we do shape the things we will do.  I just read a Dave Eggers novel called “The Circle,” which is a commentary on such things, and it’s worth the read.

Sundial Peak from “Upper Lake Blanche”

My last blogpost was about how I am going to start trying real hard at life.  But guess what.  That post was Off The Mark.  Because guess what?  I already am.  I go to work and see people dying, people in their 11th hours and using up their 9th lives, and am challenged.  I come home, put on my running shoes, head up to the mountains and start moving uphill– and am challenged.  Go to the climbing gym and talk myself into the next move of a problem, and surprise, I’m challenged.  I love the little creature in me that always endeavors to be better than what I am today, but when I look at my life I suspect that isn’t the issue.  Perhaps joy is the goal that evades me more than any other.  So as I endeavor towards these (dare I say crusher) goals I have set for myself, I’ll keep my head and heart focused on the singular ‘like’ that counts- mine.

…Cover photo shamelessly, and perhaps appropriately, borrowed from my Instagram account 🙂