I feel well-informed. By Facebook. (Seriously.)
Before the advent of the goddamned Internet, it was possible to feel a feeling called "well-informed."
Back then, you read your hometown newspaper. You listened to National Public Radio. You read The Wall Street Journal. You read a trade publication. And you felt, more or less, rightly or wrongly, as if you had a handle on things.
But then the Internet, with all its nooks and crannies, its infinite capacity to contain odd points of view convincingly expressed, its oceanic ability to remind us that our stupid little place in the world is the real cranny, took that feeling away.
Permanently, I thought.
But no.
In recent months I notice that the feeling of being informed is creeping cautiously back into my head and heart. And I think I know why: It's Facebook.
Here's how it works now: I do my dilligence—I read the local and national newspapers, I keep up on the communication trade as as I always did—and then I rely on my 368 Facebook Friends to give me a heads-up on the rest of it. I reckon—rather, I passively, subconsciously assume—that if something important is happening that's not in The New York Times, one of these friends or acquaintances or who-is-that-again-half-strangers will point me to it.
A quote, a new song, a YouTube video, a new piece of architecure or writing: I've got hundreds of friends or at least like-minded acquaintances scouring the world every day in hopes of finding something to amuse or inform their like-minded friends. (That's me!)
Knowing this, I begin to feel not only informed but, dangerously, justified in the feeling. And, after all these years of forced informational humility, even deserving of it.
Right?
Curmudgeon finds self amazing
When I was a kid, "awesome" was the word we all used to describe things we liked. Walkman II, Raiders of the Lost Ark, jam boxes and Prince—the word for all of these was "awesome."
In that case, the only victim was the word itself, which lost its power. (What's left to say when you stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon?)
These days we have "amazing."
Originally abused by children and winners of Academy Awards, "amazing" has since become the favorite foster child of insipid waterheads everywhere.
You can't scroll through one Facebook screen without reading about amazing husbands, amazing friends and amazing colleagues (at amazing companies).
Dear amazing ladies and amazing gentelmen: Amazement is a product of confusion. Amazement happens when you had not the faintest idea! How is it that Americans are so constantly gobsmacked by the people they work with, eat with, sleep with every day? Do these people have multiple personality disorder or something? Or are we just perpetually "amazed" that we have any friends at all? You would have to worry about a population like that.
Luckily, the truth is that we're not really as endlessly astounded as we say we are. No, constantly telling everybody in your life how "amazing" everybody else in your life is, is nothing more than a rather obvious form of conceit. I'm surrounded by so many amazing people. I must be amazing, too. (The same trick is pulled by people who are always telling you how "brilliant" are the people they work with. Really? You work with Beethoven, Einstein and Shakespeare? Wow, you must be smart too!)
We all have our conceits. But this one is also condescending. I don't want to hear one friend tell her Facebook friends about how "amazing" I am, any more than I want to be told by a 23-year-old colleague that I "rock."
The truth is—and this isn't just my truth, but yours too—is that no one but me knows how amazing I am, and am not. And what's really amazing, my amazing friends, is that I haven't throttled you yet.
Look, if you want to tell everybody you're proud to be my friend, tell them that. And I'll probably return the favor. That's a good feeling to have, and I have it pretty often.
But don't inform the world that, despite the fact that you've known me for 25 years, you still find me "amazing."
They won't believe you, and I won't either.