Imaginary Landscape

I just read an article (" I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook for 2 Days. Here's What It Did to Me," by Mat Honan, from Wired , Aug 11, 2014 ) that a friend shared on Facebook. This author discusses what happened to his Facebook news feed when he "liked" nearly everything for two days. As one might expect, the news feed became entirely commercial or article-related -- no posts from friends -- especially on mobile versions of Facebook. "Liking" on Facebook is the new forwarded email joke. Remember? Everyone had at least one friend who persistently emailed jokes to you, sometimes more than once a day, old jokes, bad jokes, boring jokes, and often little cheery bits of fluff along the lines of 'somebody loves you' or 'forward this or go broke and then die." If you complained to your friend: "Stop sending me this crap! Can't you just say 'hello' and tell me what's up with you?" the target of your complaint

If you cut yourself while chopping onions in the midst of dinner preparations one evening, or if you burn yourself on the oven as you remove a tasty cake, someone might see that you favor a certain finger, or she might see that you've a nasty blister on your forearm. Perhaps she might even ask, “Oh! Did you hurt yourself?” She might wish you speedy healing or remark on how nasty the injury looks. My son is a chef, and his fingers and arms are full of scars from cuts and burns. One can trace the errors of his profession on his hands and arms. I have a scar from a hysterectomy, one from the time I burned myself with the iron. It is easy to see when someone is physically hurt and, for many years, to watch the healing process. When the hurt is emotional, it’s more difficult to track and even more difficult to understand. All of us deal with disappointment and hurt on a fairly regular basis. We have arguments with loved ones, we miss out on chances and promotions we’d counted on, m