Remembering the time!

Oh, how Micheal Jackson's recent death has sent my head and heart spinning back to my childhood, early teen years and time in South Korea. I had a Facebook chat today with a male friend of mine in Oregon-- someone whom I've only known in cyberland--as we have mutual friends and interests. The matrix of cyber connection (hence, this blog being a string in that web of connection) can carry us to places and people we would never know otherwise. This friend recently commented on a Micheal Jackson link I put up-- and I thought upon reading it, "Have I ever even physically met this person?". So, being the bold lady that I am, I sent him a message asking him such, to which he replied, "No, we have not met--and we connected through Myspace [when I had an account there!]. But I think we have mutual friends in common."-- to which I discovered we have one. This is someone I almost went on a blind date with, but didn't and now we're engaging in hour long online chats and perusing each others' travel pictures. How interesting cyberland is.

It's almost like Neverland--but without the rides and cotton candy. I'm finding a sense of play and maintaining friendships across the globe with daily chats and Facebook check-ups that keep my mind connected to the happenings of all of those I've engaged with in a long-term intimate, and short-term superficial way.

I hear my mother saying "You never know how you're going to meet that special someone. One day, he'll just pop up out of nowhere--when you're not looking." And what used to mean physical "pop-ups" can now be a cyber pop-up-- like a random guy from Oregon that starts a chat with me. The possibilities for meeting someone with cyberland now seem endless. And the impossible is less likely.

I'm constantly fascinated--and sometimes disgusted by technology. When it is available, it is all consuming. Thus, I find myself seeking respite from "the matrix of the word wide web" by going to remote places for a period of time where I know I won't have access to it. When I was in Thailand recently for a month, I chose not to get a cellphone, even though they were very cheap there. My friends there were constantly nagging me about not having one-- because we had to setup meeting dates the old-fashioned way-- by planning a time to meet the next day and being there! Strangely enough, I felt like I was 8 years old again meeting up with my neighborhood friends. And if we didn't plan, then someone would show-up at my doorstep at just the right time. It was romantic to live that way again and remind myself that life is simple and easy and that humans are in tune with each other without Twitter texts or Facebook updates.

However, the cyber-age doesn't need to be discounted either. I mean I was able to order my plane ticket back to the states and plan my trip within a day-- as well as talk to family via Skype for free!

It's the Middle Way-- the way the Buddha lived--that seems to be the key to happiness for most of us.

So... my question....

What is your middle way? And what ways do you feel your soul has gone astray???

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