This Bitter Earth

I have felt the pangs of loneliness. I am generally always content to be on my own, but as I was pet sitting this weekend, I was desirous of company. There was none. No company. I spent mere minutes on facebook during the past several days, and am truly beginning the arduous process of cutting the strings which bind the book to me. I loathe facebook. I like the idea of what it could be: a way to connect and share with others. What it has become instead is a replacement for real interaction. As I intentionally dropped off the digital map over the past four days, I found myself becoming increasingly forgotten. Obsolete. Alone. I finally feel alone in a suit of skin, composed of cells that don't check in online to let the rest of the body know needlessly where they are in the epidermis. My imagination doesn't need to post a status update to invite others into it. Or, at least, I had hoped it wouldn't. But perhaps I am wrong. I and the rest of my generation, and all that will follow, have become digital renderings of humanity; we are megapixelated. Will those of us with any remaining organic existence go the way of the dinosaurs, as with our relationships and interpersonal skills? As our organic bodies decompose and turn to dust, we will exist for all time digitally immortalized in photos with the people we didn't have the decency to call or to really love. I hate not being missed. I hate that no one has noticed or cared that my online networking presence has ceased. I don't want to be made of megapixels. I want to live in my skin, in a world with oxygen, in a body with capable hands that do all they can to reach and grasp other organic matter. I long to clutch the cords that keep us "connected", and rip them from the walls. The irony of me typing this all into a blog as I listen to music on my laptop is that I don't hate technology; I hate what we've done with it. Or, more specifically, what we've chosen to do with it. We are no longer human.