Facebook to be precise.
They ask me why I am always online.
They ask me what I do there,especially now that it has become so monotonous.
The answer lies in the way I begin each day.
5:30 am: The lights are switched on.I squint and see what the hell just happened and hear my sister screaming.She's changing.I prop the pillow on my head and sleep.
8:00 am: I wake up.The lights are still on.The silence is weird.I walk up to the living room,then the kitchen.No one there.
I try and shrug it off.
Millions of children wake up to an empty house.
What's new right?
8:15 am: I take out the Muesli aimlessly.I sit down and eat.
I don't know when it is exactly that it strikes me,but there is a point when all I want is someone to look at me.
Know for a fact that I am still alive.
Maybe an elephant sitting with me on the sofa.
Or even a hampster.
Its too early to call any of my friends.
Too early to message.
8:25 am: I go online.I chat.I blog.I comment.I feel human again.Someone 500 miles away asks me how I am.I tell him everything.The room doesn't feel empty anymore.
And they ask me why I am addicted to the internet.
I don't know if this is called loneliness.
I don't want to call it that.
I have friends.Family.People.Animals.
I cannot call it hollowness either,because it sounds too poetic.As though it is a figment of my imagination.
It is physical.
And I can feel its presence.
As though I am talking about all this only to gain sympathy from strangers.
I cannot call it emptyness too.
Because I know for a fact I am made up of a lot.
People say that the internet is making an anti-social out of me.
I know for a fact,they are probably right.
They say that it is so addictive,almost a tech drug.
But there is a reason for it.
And the reason goes deep into human psychology and the basic urge of every human.
I wake up,along with millions of other kids to an empty house.
If I could,I would tell you how amazingly,startlingly shallow your life feels in that one moment that you realise that your father has left for office,you mother has left for her work and your sister is at school and you are all alone.
And they ask me why I am an internet addict.
Can
they
not
see,
how supremely..
fulfilling....
typing out my life...
to a complete stranger...
...is?
The addiction vs the loneliness.
One of the two will kill me first.
Which one will it be?
That is the question.
This post is dedicated to all those people who are found online at 8:30 am.
And to the millions who wake up to the sound of silence.
And eat their muesli without an elephant on the sofa watching them.
12 comments:
This is the first of your recent posts i felt like commenting on.
But i had nothing in particular to say.
So this is not a "hi", or a "Oh, i empathize with you" comment.
This one is just to acknowledge that i read this.
But, hey, i warned you i was weird to begin with.
Peace.
beautifully written!!!exactly how i feel sometimes.its so wonderful to write everything in your mind to someone miles away,someone who you don't even know personally!!I thank you for putting words to my thoughts,and also for writing so beautifully.I wake up at 8:30,and even before breafast,i come online,cus,its the only place where i can be my true self,where i am respected,where i make amazing friends who help me!thanks for this post!!!
I read this and typed away a message to my friend asking him to read this. The same one who wakes up to an empty house too. and yes, what sidd said. this is to acknowledge that i read this and also to tell you that you can always come by and share your muesli with me. :)
Online at 8:30 AM.
You mean me, right?
;-D
You know you love me :-P
PS - Great writing, you.
Well
First of all , great blog .. great post..
And you go online at 8:30am ..I go online at 5:00am..
:)
And i sleep by wishing goodnight to my lappy only.. so it is only for 4-6 hrs .. that i am not without my lappy and internet.
"I am always online" ..always in the unreal world.
Its amazing how I totally get this! I spend 90% of my day online at work and still somehow on the weekends I find myself online again. Not waking up to an empty house but actually to a house that is way too loud with 7 other people who share the same house. They're family and I cant seem to have a choice but to zone out and log in!
The reason I started my blog was cos while I was abroad for a year, working in Dubai, I was lonely. And being a woman who loves to talk, I was lost without friends to talk to about my thoughts. So I started writing and people liked my stuff!
And its true, there is nothing better than a complete stranger appreciating what you have to say!
Limpidus put me on to this post, and I must say that I'm glad she did. We do share that in common. 9 out of 10 times, especially during the hols, I wake up to an empty house. The house would be empty even with if my parents were there.
I think I should stop commenting in here, because you've really got it into my head to reply to what you said with a post of my own. Eyes on my blog a while later. ;)
A tribute to all those (us) cool people who wake up to an empty house and scout facebook for a sense of company. :D
Cheers.
This is sooo true!! Cant agree with you more...
I know your feeling exactly.
Sometimes one tweet, one comment is enough to give you the warmth people you know fail to provide :)
Keep it going girl!
Well, you have a crazy awesome header to say the least.
wow.
Count me in, I do wake up to the silence of an empty house, but I'm not found online at 8:30. That's just because I wake up too late.
Oh and yes, a couple of times, I have woken up to see the elephant, but not on the sofa, on the floor. My previous made was fat. Surprising, but true. And she had the house key.
She left. Our new maid, is thin, thinner than me! ;) =)
Rudi. =)
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