Next time someone sees you glued to your computer, let them know you are not procrastinating. Tell them you are not wasting time. You are saving time. You are saving your life.

The daily life expectancy for those who remain indoors, camped-out online, is triple to that of the people who step outside and interact with the planet, off-line. Individuals who venture outdoors, away from the safety of their desktop computers can succumb to great bodily harm. Bodily harm is a symptom of death.

There are certain ailments, regardless of indoor cyber use, that may affect us, but if we statistically focus on the “outdoor induced” causes of fatality it will be quite clear that the internet increases your lifespan.

NOTE: This does not apply to people using the internet while outdoors. Specifically not the ones you’re trying to have an in-person conversation with, but instead they text or call other people. Calls and texts to those other people who didn’t waste time meeting them in public.

Compiled below are alarming facts, all of which reiterate how your stay-at-home social networking increases life expectancy by avoiding life’s “unexpectancies.”

.DEADLY STATS.

• Motor Vehicle Accidents: In America, an average of 114 people die each day in car crashes.
• War: Well over 100 million documented war torn deaths since the year 1914.
• Airline Crashes: 120 people killed on average each year.
• Struck by Lightening: 90 people are slain annually in the U.S. by lightning.
• The Flu: 20,000 people die from the flu and its complications every year. This virus is commonly caught by people who leave the house.

.MORE DEATH ORIENTED STATS.
Albeit a fewer percentage of people are snuffed-out by the following, but it’s just as fatal:

• Taken hostage in a bank robbery; bound, gagged, and heinously murdered.
• Being riddled with bullets in a drive-by shooting.
• Pancaked on the street by an exploding manhole cover. Specific to New York City region only.

As proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by the horrifying list above, people who regularly leave the house have a shorter life span than those remaining indoors. Your every home bound tweet or Facebook post is indeed adding to your longevity. The more you remain inside, the greater the statistical amount of breathing time you’ll have to live online, and off.

Let’s face facts: other than food, water, jobs, money, health care, transportation, and clothing –all you need is love. Love. Love is all you need.

.CYBER CRUSHING.
It’s common knowledge that people with DSL are prone to be more promiscuous than those with dial-up.
The typical internet romance involves two people who have never met and in most cases never will, because the more you get to know someone online, equals the amount you get to dislike them, online. Regardless of internet speed, crushing-on cyber people poses very little threat to your life expectancy. However, same as in a real romance, you can run the risk of a broken heart. Luckily it’s much easier to get over that kind of break than a “real” broken relationship. The depression one suffers via failed electronic commitments passes within a shorter time frame than the ennui and misery of an honest to goodness one-on-one love affair that involves actual human proximity.

If psychologists gave a crap about this sort of thing they’d surely agree.
And any crap-giving doctor worth a crap would tell you, virtual relationships rarely transmit STDs or yeast infections.

Life is your most valuable possession. Going outside to live that life, could kill you.

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I had a thought today — yes sometimes it accidentally happens. That thought was about Twitter. What would I have tweeted if Twitter was around well before 2006, up and running by the time I learned to walk and talk and ask “Why? Why? Why?” Asked over and over because that is what kids do, as soon as they learn it’s a powerful question forcing their parents into speaking to them. #Cool

All right, so, my noggin’ was havin’ all kinda thoughts about my own personal Twitter Time Machine. There have already been a bevy of articles written re: “What if Twitter had been around [fill in the blank]. But all I’ve ever seen of these pieces focuses on a historical/ famous figure’s possible tweet out. Sure, Mark Twain was awesome, but c’mon, I’m way more interested in what you would have said, back in the day.

Of course when we were learning to speak, let alone type, there was no internet, but let’s not be sticklers for the facts. Facts can be boring sometimes. Just go with me here…

I’m sure being a naked fat-head as my mother snaps pics probably pissed me off and would have spawned a slew of tweets. Incoherent baby babble ones, sure, but we’ve seen that before.
Later, yeah, I imagine I’d have bragged about my first time, it’s never as good as the first time…

“WOW!!!! Just got my FIRST bra! How many tissues should I stuff in it?”

And of course there would be a rant over getting fired from that fast food job as a teen.

“I hate McDonalds! They suck! I didn’t spit in the food, I only pretended to!”

What tweets do you think you would have posted? Or wished you hadn’t, but know damn well you would have? Perhaps tweets that would embarrass you for years to come as you grew older and wiser and your vocabulary expanded beyond the words, “Dada” and “Mama” into “I’m refinancing my mortgage today, right after I sign the divorce papers.”
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I’m angry. I’m furious. I’m fed up and don’t wanna take it anymore. Currently still taking it though, regardless of vehemence and bafflement. Over the past year I’ve been meeting people who act like they’re kind, attentive, thoughtful and in-tune with me. As soon as I open up, a little, they flip the switch. Suddenly the connection stretches until it’s so thin it could snap at any moment, or at least I could. SNAP. Next I’m left wondering if I should do the same, act a fool. And if I don’t then I’m allowing someone to jerk me around.
.
.
If I return the tardation then I’m playing games and I don’t want to do that. I especially don’t want to be forced into it simply because I genuinely want to keep up the contact. But what to do?

I want the flower back, the blooming relationship that got me into the friendship garden in the first place. I’ve expressed this to them. But it’s like telling an alcoholic they’re drunk. They stumble out a rebuttal that slurs into a lie smelling of vodka puke. I feel it’s sorta the same with passive/aggressive people. Attempt to let them know their behavior swings like a pendulum and they claim it’s you, that you’ve got it all wrong. Some may even go the extra mile and claim you’re psychotic. “Oh God, another crazy chick full of drama.” I didn’t create the theater. They wrote, produced and directed the entire 3-act play and expect you to pay for a ticket. All the while claiming they don’t even like plays.

Meanwhile you’re simply trying to get a fair shake and hope they stop the split personality so you can still like them and one day relax without wondering when the next u-turn will take place. Hoping you’re not standing in the middle of the road when it happens.

I have to back up, I have no idea how to deal with these people. They perplex me beyond belief.
I’m a very direct, upfront person and always have been. I know what I want, what I need.
I know who I am. I know my failings and my good traits. Sometimes the bad outweighs the good and when that happens, I apologize. I haven’t a clue how I became a magnet for these passive/aggressives? The entirety of 2009 they came out of the woodwork in droves. Mostly via social networking sites but a couple of them somehow found me IRL buried in a crowd.
.
.
Maybe I should stop bathing and stink them far away from me, but I imagine there’s a better option.
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If you’re the type to use the same password for every site, I hope it’s a difficult one.
Something super hard to figure out, like: QRTxxxv2569286v~!*
That’d make people think you were deep, complicated and had a memory of steel.

Or, um, is it more like: Your First Name + Birth Year? – Sue1985 or Fred1946 – perhaps?
That would leave everyone imagining you were a simpleton, but a dolt with nothing to hide.

I hear quite a few people use the formula: First Pet’s Name + The First Street You Grew Up On
to decide a password, and that’s a bit safer. Or maybe that’s only a password used for peeking into Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s bedroom.

Here’s the question, if, God forbid, you decided to abandon your current life and disappear into a country with no extradition treaty… thus leaving unsuspecting relatives behind to clean up or take over your social networking sites, how would your chosen passwords reflect upon your legacy?

With that in mind I decided to change all passwords from things like: Ihate9876people,
to something more friendly, like: PeepsBeSoCoolMeLoveYouAll69, as well as smart stuff like: Nietzsche~#1.

I also granted certain social network account passwords to specific dear ones in my last begotten Will.
It’ll be doled out as follows:

My mother gets the Facebook because she’s older and that’s a comfortable place for the elderly. Just sayin.

My brother gets the Myspace because there are a lot of naked girls and he’s into that sort of thing.

I leave my Twitter to Ashton Kutcher because I figure, every once in awhile, he’d love to be an unknown, rarely followed, often blocked tweeter.

And last but not least, I bestow my Gmail to the Pentagon. I bet they could finally find the WMDs they seek after reading a few of my sent emails TO Ex-BFs from over the years.

->YO<-
Who would you leave your social network accounts to?
Your Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube… to whom, who scores which of these? WHY?
* What are the passwords for these particular accounts?
Have you ever seen the Pam Anderson, Tommy Lee video? I heard it was a big, huge,
very large deal, a long, lengthily long time ago.

“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.” –Mark Twain*

I’ve never done any of those things, have you? I dance like the world is dancing against me. Sing to annoy and you better listen! Love like passion is pummeling me and live like tomorrow is heaven. Unfortunately for me, since tomorrow soon becomes today, I wind up having to wait yet another 24 hours for heaven and so on… One day maybe I’ll get ahead of myself. Overall though, I’m quite happy, in so much as, heck, life is good, mostly.

I love Mark Twain. I’ve read his books and even biographies. Interestingly I’ve never seen mention of him singing and dancing or loving without repercussion. Truth be told, Twain was a bitter old misanthrope, even as a kid. He was a depressive. A brilliant one, mind you, but sad all the same.

But I hope you’ve read Twain.
I sometimes wonder if Twain were here and on a social networking site would he accept my friend request? I often conclude that he wouldn’t and that usually makes me happy. I’d prefer he keep to himself so he has more time to finally dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like he’d never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on earth.
.
*The actual quote is indeed attributed to Mark Twain, but was actually coined by William Purkey* Or was it?

[This piece was originally posted October 8, 2009 as a guest blog on
Dust Bunnies]

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