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The Great Social Media Waves

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"We live, as we dream--alone." Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Every morning I wade out into the digital social media ocean, I no longer tip my toe to test the water, now I just plunge head long into the water. As I come back up for air, I am so far out into the ocean that I cannot see any land.

I am floating face up, the sun on my face, the bottomless ocean below me.

This is what the social media world feels like-it is a limitless, bottomless world. With each keystroke we swim further away from the land that grounded us. In the digital ocean we become larger than we are, we become giant sea monsters that rule our own oceans. Yet we are alone as much as we are connected.

With Thanksgiving behind us, and the New Year ahead, the world contracts and expands like a bellow with messages of love and friendship whipping back and forth, spinning around the planet server to server until it lands on our desktops, tablets or mobile devices. We are grateful for the ease that we can share; the days of mailing a letter and waiting for a missive of handwritten love is over. Now it is quaint, and really, you might have changed your mind by the time the letter lands in your beloved's mailbox. Now we can exit in seconds with a few punches on the text field.

I may be screaming into the wind, but I swim with the current. Without the internet, I would not be sitting here typing this up; or be connected to some of the most interesting people from Switzerland to the UK to Asia to the US of A. I am content never to come back to shore.

But as I wade out into the deep blue, I keep myself tethered to the shore, so that I can find my way home, where my heart is.

"I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself." Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Image: A collage I created of the Facebook and Twitter Logos with a nod to Hokusai's The Great Wave Off Kanagawa . Ophelia Chong

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