“Nicotine,” January Sketches, 2012

Here is a conceptual poetic sketch I wrote a few nights ago. I haven’t posted any poetry of mine on here for awhile so I’ll liven up the place with this oddity.

“Nicotine,” January Sketches, 2012 

“Moments like these only happen
while smoking cigarettes at midnight”
the man says. we light up.

contemplation and
thoughts.

the pause,
the puff.
fire pours into lungs.
the miasmatic exhale.
fumes curl to disguise our faces.
we squint against the midnight cold –
old weathered men,  gray-faced,
phantoms until a winter
draft diffuses the smoky mask.

ponder among this silence –
but tobacco embers are smoldering,
it is too quiet for us to hear.
the breeze exhales, too,
with our coughing.
we spit in the snow.
then the distant drone of a man
in a pea coat growling along with
music only his plugged-in ears hear.
I salute him, and drag.
and imagine his direction.
he passes back into the solitude of night.

now, in this snow-speckled fantasy,
we substitute the sublime with
bellows of smoke, nerve death
in our ice fingers. we’ll die from
cancer a week before
we reach nirvana.

but the contemplation. It is the
beatitude of now, the thinking
about thinking. the deepest
truth. we smoke again and again.
winter floats about the fleeting,
crippled illusion of youth.

there is no romance in a spell that
shows us there is a way to go on
but never get away.

#Facebook Withdrawals: Day 24

As the first month of 2012 edges on, I get closer to a landmark in my daily internet life: nearly one month without any use of or affiliation with the enormous online community and network known as Facebook.

The world of the social network does not seem foreign to me quite yet. I still catch myself sometimes thinking within its terms. For example, I might find something interesting that I previously would have posted to my Facebook profile to share with all of my contacts. But even if those thoughts still exist, they are irrelevant. Not only am I disinterested in sharing such things, I am incapable of doing so. I’m logged off and locked out, for good.

At first the pain and difficulty was obvious. I was experiencing headaches and found myself constantly apprehensive. Generalized anxiety. My mouse searched around for the link to Facebook but could not find it. My settings were wiped and I received nothing. That is still the case, although my anxiety is close to gone. Another feeling has taken its place, though. With no way to participate in the digital community I feel left out, lonely and exiled. So I ask myself: what am I missing? The answer is that I’m not really missing anything. With such a distance from a community that became toxic to me, I don’t have to care about melodramatic issues between friends and all of the other memes flowing through that place. I imagine myself hiking into virgin forest of sorts. Perhaps that metaphor is too strong: I live on rural farms and in the woods, now, rather than the dense metropolis.

So what have I learned in 24 days? I’m not quite sure of that, either. And there is nothing that needs to be said on the subject other than the obvious. For now, I choose to live somewhere else. By doing so the adverts for Facebook stick out everywhere, where as previously they were seamlessly integrated with all forms of media. The television tells me to “‘Like’ us on Facebook” or “Check out our Facebook page” and I recognize this attempt to pull me in and, with pride, say no.

The power to choose is liberating.

The World in Place of Itself

I recently read this book and its excellence deserves a mention here on my blog. I’ll review it in layman’s terms that are easy to understand and not fanciful and gaudy like those pieces you see in the New York Times.

Cover, "The World in Place of Itself" (2007)

There is a certain feel of poetic enlightenment in this 65-page premiere by Bill Rasmovicz. Rasmovicz’s work has previously appeared in publications such as the Mid American Review, Gulf Coast, and The Cafe Review, among others, wraps itself together into a coherent a moving way in The World in Place of Itself. Organized into five chapters, his poems weave a story contemplative of daily life and curiosities among his lucid imagery, such as the recurring progression of an amorphous poem called “Abberations,” found at least once in every section.

More recurring than the instance of abberations, though, are the patterns in his images that give the reader a hint either to the nature of the speaker or the nature of the world. Crows and blackbirds appear in almost every other poem, calling at or watching the speaker, or lingering in a way that’s more familiar and comfortable than looming. No “quoth the raven” to be found here.

Rasmovicz also proves that he has an extensive and incredible vocabulary, but it’s clear that he doesn’t write in such a complex way just for show. I found myself pausing and thinking about his word choice often, but realizing that he was being as playful and introspective as the crows. He uses words in ways that the reader might not readily expect. It is this quality that gives life to everything. The way that his words jump around follows the way that meaning can jump around. To Rasmovicz, an accordian “prophesizes,”  human lungs are “evaporating” and late at night the stars can drool their light. Most profoundly, though, in his winding way he asks us to truly wonder  “What tethers us to consciousness?” This thought can be ultimately profound and thought provoking but a little bit scary, too.

When I began reading it was difficult to stop. There is a very high re-read value for this book and I expect that I’ll be keeping it close for awhile, referencing its poetic wisdom. Now that he’s told me I am my own “dispossessed muse” and commanded “pretend you are more humble than you are. / Pretend you are a god, that words / don’t matter, / that they are everything” I suspect I’ll be writing a whole lot more for awhile to come.

To learn more about the poet Bill Rasmovicz or the fantastic cooperative press  it was published by, visit the following link. Enjoy!

Bill Rasmovicz, The World in Place of Itself, Alice James Books 

December, Dawn

The old golden radiator sputters,
seethes and pops. It whinnies
like the engine of dad’s old Mustang
heating up during the deep freeze.
The furnace groans onward.
I sprawl naked against
the cold stillness atop
the disheveled bed
in the tick-tock silence
of deep December.
A rising, whistling scream
wails from downstairs.
I reach for the warmth of wool.
It’s the time to make coffee or tea,
I must have left the stove on.
I’m not going to turn it off.
Not yet.

#Facebook: Day 6, Physical Withdrawals

It would appear as though my blogging here on Wayfarer as of late has become a journal of my journey away from social networking. Facebook, in particular. You could call me a hypocrite because any internet use at all can link to networks of chatting, forums and blogs. But I’m okay with that. I’m not a purist about this. What I’m telling you is what I’m feeling now that I have little more to do on the web but look things up, read interesting articles, and write here.

So, the title of this post — physical withdrawals? Yes, it’s been six days now and as the days drift along I am beginning to feel physical withdrawals and ramifications because my life is not perpetually interconnected to Facebook.  Perhaps this sounds preposterous — after all, how could a website cause physical changes in the human body? I am no doctor but I can explain this with plenty of clarity.

When I climb in bed at night to rest I find that something has changed. I’m one of those deep sleepers that usually can sleep through an air raid or anything short of a fire alarm close to my head. I sleep long and I sleep deep. My dreams are luminous, vivid and often lucid — I have a great time exploring the surreal landscapes of my resting consciousness. It’s a rare occasion that I wake up even once in the night. Since changing my habits, though, my sleep has changed dramatically, too.

I’ll fall asleep at a regular time for myself and within a few hours I’m wide awake again. Something bumps me out of my dreams. I’ll look at the clock and only a few hours will have gone by. No, not hunger or the need to use the bathroom will have woken me up. Instead I lay in the darkness waiting to drift off again but never seem to find it. My mind is racing. I am a person that, when necessary, can harness incredible focus. When I go to sleep I never have an issue. It takes only a few minutes and I’m gone for the night. Now I am stuck awake, craving sleep, wanting nothing more than to be immersed in dreams once again. But it’s not there. Songs that I have listened to during the day play along in my head. Lines and nuances from television shows distract me to near madness. I want to scream, thrash, and fade into suffocating exhaustion. None of this comes to me.

In an attempt to fight off my mounting craze, I pick up a book of poetry and delve into the deep recesses of its beauty. Sublimity is with me once more. I shiver as I scan and softly speak each delicate line, one after the other, twisting into an immaculate form that surrounds me. My eyes grow heavy, so I put down the book and open myself to the dreaming world again. It fails to come.

This went on for hours last night and for no logical reason. I had been exhausted the entire day. In fact, I’ve been a little bit more than exhausted lately, napping or nearly passing out at inopportune moments. Eventually, desperately, sleep will take me when I need it most.

My struggle to focus and gather myself is troubling. Ever since I sent my Facebook account into oblivion there is a growing stress on my body. I should be sitting in my chair or on my bed, laptop at the ready, browsing through profiles and chatting away. But none of it’s there. Now even more timeless distractions batter me, like the television and its endless drone. I laze around lost, unsure of what to do next. Yet fear not, with sword in hand I will cut through the madness and find wholesomeness in my calm center. I have all the more encouragement to do so, now aware that dropping off the social network can physically bother my body.

On the flip side, I’m plowing through a marvelous book of poetry by Bill Rasmovicz, published by a fine little poetry press I have the honor to be acquainted with. As soon as I’m finished I’ll be posting a review of his work and soon after posting a new piece of my own!

#Facebook Interruptus: Withdrawals & Discoveries

Facebook acted as the grand fakebookof my life. As if crowding my bookcases full of untouched volumes in order to make myself look like an intellectual on the surface, so have I spent limitless hours forging an identity that was not true to my own. An identity I proudly broadcast to the world in order to forward one agenda or another. I was proud of the self I saw when I looked over my profile and expanded upon my information. Whether I was conscious of doing this or not is irrelevant. That it happened and fooled others and myself into believing  I was somebody I wasn’t is the weight of this issue. I doubt I am the only one to experience this.

Presently I sit in a quiet room with nothing but this blinking cursor and the need to write to capture my attention. I’m wearing a cozy lambswool sweater, sitting with a mug of water, a phone that’s been silent for almost a week now and a warm halogen lamp beaming yellow light through the winter darkness. Soft voices echo up from downstairs and an old-fashioned alarm clock ticks away in the corner. This moment borders on lovely tranquility yet with this peace I feel a hint of unease. How could a scene so comfortable and still be unable to diffuse my restless mind?

I find myself restless and weary all-over. When I open my browser and look at my speed dial, I don’t see Facebook anymore. How I would race there to check things, to gaze at the endless streaming news feed with excitement, to recapture the enchantment even if for only a minute or two. There I could find live connections to all of my friends. I could see pictures of what they did over the weekend, or pictures of them taking pictures of themselves, and speak to them for hours to come.

Mark Zuckerburg, CEO and President of Facebook

More, I could send messages to everyone, I could check how everyone was doing, all at once, whenever the time! And to those people I scarcely knew but recognized by face, well, I could add them to my list as a sign of recognition, acceptance and practicality. Perhaps in the future I needed to contact them — or found myself falling for those lovely, mysterious women. If it was attraction I found or curiosity, with this mighty social tool I had unlimited time to review profiles, photo albums, messages, and so many chances to make moves and hope that an internet infatuation could turn into internet romance and romance in real life!

Ah, listen to me. I speak of the virtual realm with the sort of sentimentality that I might give to my loved ones. This Facebook-rooted sentimentality is fleeting, though. After getting rid of my account and purposefully locking myself out so that I can guarantee there is no way I will falter and go back into that way of living and communicating, life has been interrupted. I name this post after the long standing, risky method of birth control called coitus interruptus or, more colloquially, “pulling out“. This is because my attempt to free myself from Facebook has been a great struggle and on many occasions I found convincing evidence on both sides to be in conflict. I wanted to leave, but imagine what I’d be missing — it was just too enjoyable to keep calm, keep thoughtless and keep Facebooking! Yet another side of me yearned for the old days before Facebook was even out when I had no such community holding me back. In the end, I pulled out for my own mental safety and to experience a future filled with less clutter and more free time.

Such has been the result. Without the subconscious/unconscious reliance on a social networking site my days have become almost entirely free. It is difficult to make sense of this without experiencing it for yourself. It is not as if I inhabited Facebook like a second home; some days, yes, I was browsing for hours through my friend’s profiles and recreating my own, chatting along the whole time. The real issue, though, is that Facebook created something I am going to term the “concentration void“.  Whenever I was working on my computer Facebook was a constant companion that, even when closed, could manifest again at any moment. It’s instantaneousness is enchanting. Even if I only checked it for a minute or two (hell, even seconds) those short breaks added up. Eventually dozens of short Facebook breaks amount to hours and each little break causes a void in your concentration. Projects, papers, essays, creative bits of writing, art, everything — it all gets set aside to simmer and Facebook takes centerstage. It becomes drug-like and your dependency is no better. Even those most resistant to its allure often become pulled in at one point or another and stop thinking about how their mind has been lowered into treachery. Focus and concentration, even for the most astute of us, becomes a void of swirling distraction and nonsense.

Now I have nothing. I’ve picked up interest in this blog again, in furthering my musical capacities, and in honest, loving time spent with people forever important in my life. Oblivion has never felt so good.

p.s. If you’re interested in joining me and getting rid if your account once and for all, I wrote a comprehensive tutorial covering just about everything you’ll ever need to know. Safe voyages, traveler!

#Facebook: How to Erase Your Account. Forever.

If you intend to read any further into this entry and make use of the information contained herein, I am going to supply you with a warning in advance. Read the following disclaimer very carefully:

I present you this guide purely as an informative log detailing how I closed my account. The guide provides no guarantees or promises. Under the circumstances presented it seems to have worked and, if you are willing to risk damaging your account in order to delete it, you are more than welcome to repeat this experiment. I cannot be held responsible for anything you do. Nor can I control the distribution of this article. You are allowed to freely spread it anywhere and everywhere, provided you include my name with the document and do not modify it in any way. If you wish to report inaccurate information to me, send a message to h.f.raven@gmail.com and I will gladly discuss changes. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Now that you’ve read my ridiculous disclaimer, let’s get to the juicy part.

So you ‘wanna delete your account?

I’m going to lay this out as a list and, if followed correctly, you’ll free yourself from the beast. Don’t jump around — follow the steps from beginning to end. This process is a little bit lengthy, but if you’re set on ditching Facebook altogether, I can’t think of a better way. Let’s get started!

Part One: Erasing the Valuables

1. Login to your Facebook account as per usual. Nothing special or different about seeing that newsfeed, those timelines and all of those apps, updates and blipping chat windows. Prepare yourself mentally because, if you’re serious about this and intend to no longer have a profile, it’s the last time you’re going to see it for a long time.
2. IMPORTANT: Contact your closest friends and family — the people that mean the most to you. Inform them that you’ll be exiting the digital Facebook community. 800,000,000 people will miss you — or at least that’s the snag Facebook likes to say when you imagine leaving. Exchange physical addresses, e-mail addresses, instant messenger accounts and phone numbers with the people you want to stay in contact with, if they don’t already have these things. It’s generally a good gesture to at least lightly inform people that they won’t see you here anymore — at all. Remember that everything you have on Facebook is intangible and surface. Good conversations late at night over blipping message windows may have provided you entertainment at one point, but nothing can compare to the discussions over coffee and tea, close and personal, with friends and family you now have more time to enjoy. Ready?
3. Start erasing. The good news? You don’t have to erase every status, post and message from the beginning of time. No, that’ll be taken care of for you later on by the Facebook Team, provided that they’re honest. It’ll at least be inaccessible to the Facebook public. I erased all of my photo albums and profile pictures to start. You may have to spend awhile backing up photos if you don’t know where else they are except Facebook. It’s a complication you’ll just have to endure. In the process you will have time to understand the weight of this data — how much is it really worth to you? Does it really matter that much at all? Will you be stricken with sadness if it was damaged? Keep going.
4. Now it’s time to sunder your internet identity, whether it’s true to who you are or not. Start by erasing where you work, go to school, hang out, etc. Get rid of all of your likes, interests, books, movies, inspirational figures, musicians, etc. Absolutely everything. This may sound heartless but you can even erase your family connections, your lover, your relationship status. Get rid of it all. If you feel uncomfortable about this, you’re not alone. Important: If appropriate, contact the people that will be affected — such as your romantic partner, if you are in some sort of relationship — and inform he or she that you’re not “breaking up” but rather severing your connection with Facebook. Remember that as ridiculous or sensible as it sounds, Facebook often becomes a measure of ones connectedness to not only the world and the people around you, but to romance. Excuse my cynical tangents, but when it’s “Facebook Official” it’s REALLY official.
5. Did you erase all of your information? It’s okay if your wall is still cluttered with posts and status updates. Just try to wipe the basics. This includes your birthday. Facebook will remind you that you’re only allowed to change your birthday a limited number of times, and it will ask if you’re being honest. Quite a snoop, eh? Ignore its threats and make sure that you’ve set a random age. Get rid of all of your “likes” too. These are the pages that you pressed the +1 thumbs up on. There might be a dozen or there might be several hundred — try to get rid of them all. Likes are one way that Facebook customizes your experience in order to more successfully advertise to you, using your identity as nothing more than a way to make profit. It is likely this information is sold or traded to third parties, so if I were trying to escape from the Facebook experience entirely, I’d take the time to unlike everything.
6. Erase all of your friends. All of them. It doesn’t matte if you have a dozen or a thousand — delete them all. It’s a painstaking process that involves a hell of a lot of clicking, but it can be done. This step is optional and has not been completely tested. However, if you’re looking for a cathartic or emotional experience by tearing yourself away from Facebook, I’d recommend it. You’ll probably find many people you don’t really know or connect with in any way — other than the show of gratitude and recognition by adding them on Facebook. As an advantage, if your account somehow stays active, nobody will be able to link anything to your profile. This will include tags and the whole nine yards. To be truly un-taggable, though, you’ve got to untag yourself from every photo and document you’ve ever been tagged in. That might take hours, and it’s not necessary to erase your account, but if you’d like to do it, go ahead.That’s it. Your profile should be a barren land with information only found on the wall. At this point your entire built identity should have vanished. Good work! The process gets much quicker and easier from here.

Part Two: Locking Yourself Out — forever.

1. Visit www.mail.com and create a new, free e-mail account. Feel free to have fun with this step and name your account something outrageous, considering we’ll only be using this e-mail once before it’s intentionally “left to rot” forever. It will probably ask you to put in a backup e-mail address in the case that you need to recover your account information. Put anything in here.
2. Give your new e-mail account a complex, random password. Use a bunch of letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, and fancy symbols, such as these: !@#$%^&*()}{. Make something you’ll never remember, even if your life depends on it. Finish creating the account, log in and copy and paste the password into a text document. Keep that document open so you can refer back to it for the time being.
3. Now that you’ve accessed your sparkling new e-mail account, open a new window and log into your Facebook. Go into your Privacy settings. You can find that in the drop-down menu in the top-right of the screen. If it for some reason isn’t showing up, view your profile and go to the “Info” section. Then, scroll down until you find the section listing your cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc. Click “edit” on this page and you’ll be directed to a page where you can change your active and displayed e-mails.
4. Now you’re going to need to open yet another window and log into your primary e-mail address. This is the one you use to login with. Keep that inbox open as well the inbox for your other e-mail account.
5. Add a new e-mail address to the e-mail list on Facebook. Put in the address of the new e-mail you made. There is an option on that menu to make it your primary — click it.  It is going to send some confirmation e-mails to that address. Click on the confirmation links. Check your other account, too, and confirm that you’re switching e-mails in case it asks you to confirm this change.
6. Almost there. Now go back into the main privacy settings menu. Here you’ll be able to edit your account password. Put in your current password. In the two boxes below this, where it asks for your new password, put in the random, incomprehensible password that you made for your e-mail account. This should still be on your clipboard so you can either press Ctrl+V or Right Click –> Paste. Save these changes. Keep everything open, you will need it until I tell you otherwise.
7. WARNING: It is of the utmost importance that you DO NOT LOG OFF YOUR ACCOUNT. If for some reason you closed the text document containing your randomized password AND your web browser closes for any reason, it is likely that you will be logged off from Facebook AND your new e-mail. If this happens, we’ll, you’re screwed. It may be impossible for you to ever access your account again and you will have no way to delete it. Ever.

Part Three: D-Day. Let’s get ‘outta here!

At this point you’ve compromised your account in a way most avid, dedicated Facebook users would consider completely mad. Your identity is waning and everything you have built up about and around yourself is going to crumble at any moment. In fact, it will function act as if you never even existed. It took you awhile to savagely delete all of your most prominent, in-your-face data, and that was good. But now you must do the most important task of all: actually doing it.

1.  Go back into your account options, where you found the “Privacy” settings in the last section of instructions. There should be a menu option to the left of the screen that details applications (apps) integrated with/allowed to run under your Facebook account. It is extremely important that you locate this. It will bring up a (typically) long list of different apps, such as games you play (Farmville, Mafia, etc), news feeds you connect to (Yahoo, Washington Post, NY Times), your mobile phone associations, apps that allow instant message programs to connect to FB Chat (Pidgen, Trillian, Meebo) and others. You have intentionally or inadvertently given everything on this list special permission to gain full access to your profile and information, even if you’re not online, and it can use (and sometimes trade) this information in subversive ways. You must delete every application and, by doing so, refuse all permissions given to any third party. If you don’t do this, this entire process has been in vain because, before you know it, your Facebook will likely be accidentally or secretly reactivated AND your deletion request will be made void.
2. Keep browsing through your privacy settings. Remember that getting rid of your Facebook forever means that you will have to destroy all connections it has with your mobile phone, too — that is, if you have a smartphone and use Facebook on it, your application’s gotta go. There should be a section dedicated to connecting to your phone. Disable EVERYTHING on that list and do make sure to the best of your ability that Facebook no longer has any rights to your phone, location, etc.
3. Once you reach this step, the nitty-gritty is completely done. This step acts simply as a reminder. If you’re truly dedicated to removing yourself from the social network, make sure to apply the entire process you just read on every one of your accounts. This includes independent pages, if you’re so compelled, although the purpose of this tutorial is to wipe only your personal account and information. It’s more than likely you’ll have the desire to log back in, perhaps even under the excuse of “just once more” but if you give in, you’re doomed. You’re back in that place. Everything you’ve done has been in vain. It’s been pointless. You need to absolutely lock yourself out or the addictive nature of this environment WILL bring you back (no matter what you are thinking right now)  like an addictive drug to a junkie. In fact, it is an addictive drug and all 800,000,000 account holders are junkies. Excuse my asides.
4. Let’s get to the DELETE BUTTON. No, it’s not above Backspace on your keyboard. It’s not the “Deactivate” button found in your privacy settings, either. This button contains much more power. Staying power. To find it you need to access the Facebook Help page. Since it’s probably impossibly difficult to access without searching for hours, here is the link that will set you on your way. Remember: you must still be logged in to everything at this point. The “Delete” button will ask you to type in some letters and/or numbers to prove that you are not a robot and then ask you again if you’re sure. If you have read and followed my tutorial, you’re absolutely sure. Click okay. Facebook will alert you that you have 14 days to reconsider by logging back into your account, as if it was merely deactivated. (In case my hyperlink didn’t work, he is the direct address: http://www.facebook.com/​help/​contact.php?show_form=delet​e_account )
5. Did you click it? Were you logged out? If so, CONGRATULATIONS! You just began the total annihilation of your Facebook account. FOREVER! All of your information (everything!) will be erased by the Facebook Team within two weeks. Even though you were given a 14-day grace period to reconsider your choice, you can guarantee that you’ll never return to your account by closing the text document containing your new password (don’t save it!) and logging off your newly created e-mail. You can even erase Facebook from your speed dial/most visited pages/favorites so that you won’t have the temptation. For best results, restart your computer. It will wipe your RAM and the clipboard so that there is no possible way of remembering your new password, if you made it random enough.

You’re done. The tutorial was lengthy but necessarily so; it is my intention that everyone from computer programmers to those new to the computing world can pull this off. By doing so we regain control over our real and internet identities, and recognize the important differences between the two. If you would like to fully wipe your computer of traces of Facebook so that you browser will never log itself back in when you click on Facebook-related links (if it somehow stored your new password/email in an HTTP cookie), I highly recommend using the free software known as CCleaner, from Piriform. You can download it here. By running it once-over your system will be wiped of any data that could somehow redirect you to the website you just escaped.

Closing Notes

Thanks for reading my tutorial. I will report any progress or failure in later articles in case this becomes outdated. In the mean time, enjoy all of the freed up space in your mental environment and all the time you will have to put towards productive, wholesome projects because you’re not spending hours chatting, forging an identity, browsing pics, and watching the news feed stream past you. You no longer need to hear endless, unimportant surface information about the lives of your friends and their second cousins. Pick up the phone. Text if you have to. Write letters. Send e-mails. Most of all, meet up on the streets!

Facebook Suicide: The Ethos of Self-Annihilation

Several times now I’ve declared some official self-imposed exile from Facebook or another. The connectivity of that website is brilliant and the ability to share with anyone and everyone still startles me every time I visit. On the other hand, I feel relentlessly bothered by how proliferated my personal information is. With the advent of the new “Timeline” feature there is a growing weariness inside of me. I feel that it does not tell a person’s story whatsoever. Instead, it further bolsters the ego and the built, phantasmal identity one can create by having Facebook. After all, we share only what we want to share.

The other day I posted a rude and rather obnoxious, flagrant post about this to my profile. It received both sympathy and insinuations of “If you don’t like it, why are you here?”  So, having thought that concept over, I recalled my past attempts at giving up the website recently and the three-month struggle I undertook quite some time ago. In fact, I encourage you to read all of the posts leading up to that, detailing literal withdrawal symptoms I had a hard time overcoming. With this evidence and experience behind me, I decided it was time to take the literal plunge, once and for all: I completely annihilated my account. Besides the pixels of me in images others posted on their profiles (which are now completely unlinked to my non-existent profile) my presence on Facebook has been destroyed. I can’t login to save my account even if I wished to do so. Such a feat was not easy to accomplish.

I was initially inspired to eventually go all the way when I saw a friend’s issue of Adbusters magazine in 2008.  In issue 77, contributor and cultural critic Micah M. White wrote about an increasingly common undertaking known as “Facebook Suicide” — in short, erasing all of your friends on Facebook to alert them of your coming disappearance and then requesting the administrators to permanently delete your account. Although White goes into a lengthy, optimistic dialogue and tells a rather terrifying story about his own identity falling prey to the social networking giant and how he escaped, his wishful thinking has fallen short of its goals. On the other hand, permanently deleting your exploitable presence on Facebook may sound fantastical, and White’s method is rather dated, but all of it is possible. I cannot vouch for anyone to leave or to stay, but in the following post I can share information that will help a user say “sayonara sucker” and escape the grasp of the juggernaut.

Bill McKibben Arrested

It is not in my style to link to other blogs nor cover any major news stories. I leave that for other forums and means of discussion. However, famous author and environmental activist Bill McKibben has been arrested for sit-in activity outside of the White House here in “good ‘ole states”. I find this utterly unacceptable. For protesting the construction of an international tar sand pipeline, McKibben and nearly 70 others have found themselves jailed. This must be brought to the attention of the public.

If unaware, McKibben is one of the spear-headers of the 350.org environmental movement that began two years ago. I participated in the first global 350.org day and ran a booth at a conservation fair. Not long afterwards, before a planned rally speech, I personally met Bill McKibben in a private dinner we had with two dozen or so people in my town. Bill is an inspirational and incredible man. I encourage everyone to not only read his literature, but to find out about 350.org as well as the growing issue with tar sands. For more information about his arrest, here is a link to a green blog:

http://www.greendump.net/tag/bill-mckibben-arrested

What is our country coming to? I’ll let you decide.

#Operation: Facebook

So it’s about that time again. Like the bountiful harvest nearing its death, so is Facebook — in my life, at least. Like many times before I’m drifting away from that dreadful juggernaut of a website. Sucked in relentlessly I’ve had a difficult time escaping. This time, though, is a little bit different. Rather than deactivating my account — which, in effect, is pointless because you’re still saved on the server and one login from being back — I’m going to just leave it be. Well, I’m going to troll my account and THEN leave it be. We’ll see how it goes. The FB quick-link will be there on my bar and my speed-dial every morning when I first logon to the web. This is a true test in self-control.