Tag: Social media

Family, Myself, Random

Disconnected

Sanjay Sabarwal
English: on skullcandy
English: on skullcandy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was a beautiful morning yesterday.   Wisps of wind traveled around me, and the sun pierced jaggedly through scattered clouds. It was chilly by Southern California standards (69 degrees or so), but one filled with small bursts of heat. Bella was busy sniffing at each clump of grass as it was something wondrously new, and at that moment I could honestly say I was grateful for what I had in life. I saw this girl on a swing, going back and forth but something was different. She couldn’t have been more than 10, but she was glued to a phone. I wondered what had to happened to just experiencing things for what they are. What is this need to amplify every experience we have by posting it on social media or just mindlessly do it while we miss out on true beauty on us?  As I looked down upon her, my headphones squawked to let me know a call was coming. Shit! I had my headphones on, and while I defensively thought that I was listening to Shabads, the truth was that I was no different from that little girl.

It struck me that I have been walking for weeks, and because of my headphones, I barely managed a hello to strangers or to the old Indian cross guard who always smiles and seems like he wants to say something more to me. In a sense, I have been using the headphones to disconnect myself from the outside world.  I want that time to catch up on Umano or listen to Simran so as much as I would like to be friendlier, it struck me that I want these early morning walks just for me and Bella. As someone who has taken a break from social media, I find myself that I am no longer aimlessly scrolling through countless updates about what people had eaten for the day (something that I am notoriously guilty of doing myself), and that I have found other ways to fill in that empty time by catching up on the New Yorker, Men’s Fitness and Poet and Writers. It’s funny how more and more of us are becoming disconnected by posting things up on Social media in the hopes of finding validation. We are no longer engaging in conversations or connections. We are just pounding on the chest that we are HERE! LOOK AT ME!  At some point, that just doesn’t do it for me anymore.  Don’t get me wrong, I do miss knowing about friends and family, but I have found that I can always text or whatsapp them, and in the end that has made all the difference.

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Family, Myself

MOM

Sanjay Sabarwal

Mom. I just don’t have the words to describe what you mean to me. That’s what I wrote in my scrawl on your birthday card, but here I am going to try. I was going to do a status update on Facebook, but something about that just did not feel complete. I don’t tell you enough I love you. I don’t tell you that you are my friend. I don’t tell you that your opinion means the world to me. I don’t tell you that your love of books is the one bond that makes me feel we are in an exclusive book club. I don’t tell you that my moral center came from you.

So much of me is you that I wonder what I did right to be your son. You have supported (and financed) most of my dreams, and not once complained. I love that you text, and Facebook. I love that you make lunch almost everyday with the expectation that we will come, and call if we don’t come for a few days. Your love for all is abundant, yet you make me feel like the favorite (yes, I know I am).  There is not much you don’t know about me, and even then you have accepted me. I have failed numerous times, but not once have you made me like a failure.

I know I am quiet most of the time around you, but  I hope you know that you are in my life and heart all the time. I already know that these words are not enough, but you know what, they are a start. You are one of my guides, and I hope that I become like you. Kind, spiritual, loving, thoughtful, intelligent, honest, and accepting. The list has just begun, but really I just wanted you to know that I love you and I am sorry for the late post. Even though this is just a sliver of  what I feel for you, it seemed to be right that I shared them.   I wanted the words to be just right, and even if they are not, I hope you see how much you mean to me.  Love you, Mom.

Journal, My Past, Myself

Oversharing

Sanjay Sabarwal
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

I talk too much. I post too much. I tend to do everything too much that pleases me, and when I do something that pleases me, I like to share it. I never thought much about how it affects other people. I just know how I feel, and when something moves me, I like to forward it to people who I think would benefit from me.  A friend of mine advised that perhaps of just blindly forwarding, I explain why I am forwarding to that particular person, because to some it may just look like over sharing.  I know I am struggling with things personally, and I have an inkling that others are too. I just read something that hit me, we are all bozos on a bus.  We all pretend that we are OK when we talk to each other, saving our real feelings only for a few or none.  I lived that life, and it got me an unhappy life.

Yet, my friend has a point. If I quietly forward an email or share on Facebook, what will that person get out of it?  I guess I am afraid of offending them. “Does he really think I need help with exercise?” or “Who does he think he is telling me about depression.”  I create their response in my head and so I forward in silence because I am too afraid to really tell the person what I feel.  It’s also because I am afraid of being rejected if I reach out to the person.  Or it could be that I have this tendency to want to tell people how to live their lives.

I don’t know when I became so afraid when before I would blurt out whatever came to my head.  That also got me in trouble because I usually ended up revealing something about someone that probably shouldn’t have been shared.  That’s been my problem my whole life. I either over share, don’t share enough, or not at all.  I am struggling with my own thoughts and feelings on a constant basis. I realize how whiny this post may seem to some, but I’d rather share than err on the side of not really being myself.  So you’re gonna have to bear with me while I share because I’d rather been seen as a oversharer” than someone who did nothing.

That does not mean I will forward blindly, but if you do happen to get a forward from me that’s not a joke, perhaps, just perhaps I am trying to say something to you politely, or just reach out to you in my way.  If its unwelcome, tell me, but no matter what, tell me something, anything rather than the deafening silence I continually face in my forwarding marathons.

0333-2

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Myself, Writing

Energy: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

I remember writing few months back where all my energy, ideas and focus melded into one need to get the story done.  I was smiling and truly enjoying the process, just living the dream of being a writer, knowing that what was being laid down was pretty good and I could do this.  I want that moment back, those blissful hours when it seemed becoming a writer full time was not a fantasy, that I was good enough dammit!  Yet lately, I seem to have found people who either don’t think much of my writing or dismiss it.  Worse, still I have others who manage to always feel bad about blogging or posting on Facebook even when I am supremely careful of not blogging names and keeping my status updates to a minimum.  I feel stifled and trapped into being a certain type of personality on social media as if I have to apologize for being open about my thoughts and feelings.  Sure, I have said too much sometimes and called out others when it was not my business to, and to that I can only apologize and call it a learning process, yet I feel trapped with the label of someone who talks too much.  It’s soul and creativity killing to know that my words are scrutinized to be either dismissed or confirm my status as a big mouth.

I want my words to have the energy they did when I wrote freely and got them out of being in my body, bottled up for so long.  That’s where I want to get to.  Let’s hope that the ones who are judging me know that they are killing me softly.

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