ADIOS, FACEBOOK (Don't Let the Door Hit You)

Bless me, Mr. Zuckerberg, for I have quit.  It has been three weeks since I last looked at FB.  For my penance, I shall read three books and walk each day in the fresh air.

I joined FaceBook 16 years ago.  Three weeks ago, I deactivated my account. I had several reasons for doing this. First, I am pissed with Mark Z. for toadying up to you-know-who.  Second, I don't want Mark Z. up in my business.  Third, I was addicted.  

Sigh.  Yes.  Addicted.  It's not that I was looking at it all day long; I didn't have it on my phone, so there wasn't that temptation.  Still, every time I would sit down to use my computer to write or pay bills or read email, I would first take a quick look at FB.  Sometimes, that quick look would lead me down a rabbit hole, from which I might not emerge for 15 or 20 minutes.  

How many hours of my life have I wasted on such rabbit holes?

I will confess that for the first two weeks after deactivating, I experienced something like phantom-limb syndrome.  I would sit down at my computer and look in my history for FB, only to remember it was no longer there.  I'm happy to report I'm past that now.  Sure, I will miss seeing what some people are posting or talking about, and, yes, I will miss the opportunity to share the link when I have a new blog post.   But the negatives now outweigh the positives.

I have struggled with my addiction for too long.  Over ten years ago, I wrote a post in which I vowed to only look at FB once every second or third day.  Clearly, that didn't work out. . . So, adios FaceBook, and kudos to those of you who never joined or, if you did, never became addicted.  

FB friends, I'll see you in the real world.

                             Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

(I deactivated, rather than shutting down, my account because I didn't want to lose Messenger, which is the only address I have for some people.  When I collect contact information for those I want to stay in touch with, Messenger can go too.  I have kept Instagram for now, even though it is also owned by Meta, because I like to see family photos and I no longer post anything personal there.  If it gets to be too much of a time suck, I will ditch it too.)

And what about the other two members of the billionaire, sycophant triumvirate?  I can't afford a Tesla, and even if I could, I would not give a nickel to that man. 

Jeff B, you're next on my list.  This one is really difficult for me. I love the ease of Amazon and I hate to get in my car to shop. But, enough is enough.  I have cut down on my Amazon purchases, and when my membership year is up, I shall quit (ouch).  In the meantime, I understand that Jeff's ex has given away half of her fortune, and since some of that money came from me, I will console myself with the thought that my purchases have indirectly supported good causes.

And now, I'm going to take that walk in the fresh air.  

YES, YOU CAN BE TOO RICH OR TOO THIN

“You can never be too rich or too thin”

-       Attributed to Wallis Simpson, among others.

 

I beg to differ, Wallis.

Some time ago, I found myself alone in an airport with a few hours to kill before my next flight.  Looking for a mindless way to pass the time, I went to a newsstand and bought a couple of magazines.  Upon opening one, I was confronted with a familiar sight -- the first ten or so pages consisted entirely of photos of emaciated young models, wearing frowns (they never smile), and posing their puny bodies in aid of selling one thing or another.  

Without hesitation, I sat down on a bench and proceeded to tear out said pages.  As I was energetically tearing, a woman unknown to me came over to cheer me on.

"Don't those pictures drive you crazy," she asked.

"Yes," said I, ripping with ever greater enthusiasm.

I was on a roll.

Of course, my ripping out the pages was not going to change long-standing advertising strategies.  Still, I refuse to spend time looking at these images.  It infuriates me to have our daughters (and ourselves) presented with images of dangerously underweight women as if this were something to aspire to.  

We don't have to buy into this, do we?

Let me assure you that this is not the sour grapes of a woman with a large body. I have always been naturally thin.  (At least until menopause when, I gained a bit around my middle). My weight, however, is not a sign of virtue or of any particular effort on my part.  And I certainly don't aspire to look like those models.  In fact, at my age, too much weight loss is a sign of either illness or drug addiction.

Indeed, I suspect there are drugs involved in keeping those models so painfully thin.  

But, maybe it isn’t the models I need to concern myself with.  After all, if young people are reading magazines at all, they are probably reading them online, where ads can be skipped over.  Maybe I should be turning my attention to social media “influencers” bent on convincing average-sized young girls that they need to lose weight.  Down that road lie anorexia and self-loathing.  

I sure don’t want that to be the future for my toddler granddaughters.

So, yes, Wallis, it is possible to be too thin, and to create unhappiness by urging people in that direction.

And what of the notion that one can never be too rich?

I know there are plenty of people in this world who would conclude that I--sitting in my comfortable house, with a car in the garage, and a bit of disposable income--am too rich.  But for purposes of this post, I am confining myself to the filthy rich, the one percent.

Elon Musk’s wealth is estimated at $221.4 billion.  Jeff Bezos’ net worth is $210.2 billion, while Bill Gates comes in at $133.3 billion.  These are big numbers, and when we put them in perspective, they look even more alarming. A quick Google search revealed that the top one percent of Americans control more wealth than the entire middle class combined, with the middle class defined as the middle 60 percent of households by income.  

Okay.  That was wealth.  Let’s look at income for a minute. Social security data reveals that the average annual wage of the bottom 90 percent is $40,928; the average wage of those in the 90^th to 99^th percentile is $187,609; and the average wage of the top one percentile is $916,928.  Parsing things even further, the top .1 percentile earns an average of $3.7 million. 

One more figure:  CEOs were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021.

Enough with the numbers.***  It is clear that a few people control most of the wealth in this country, and that a great swath of our citizenry is scraping by, while their bosses get richer and richer. 

So, yes, I would argue it is possible to be too rich. Embarrassingly rich. And yet I suspect that the mega rich, cocooned in their bubbles of wealth, are not embarrassed.  (Asking for a friend – Do they not realize that if our way of life topples under the weight of their wealth, they will not be spared the fallout?  Do they not see that if their greed overcomes environmental concerns, their children will inherit a dying planet? That income and wealth inequity lead to social unrest?)

It is said that power corrupts.  So, I think, does great wealth. And they usually go together.  On that note, I will leave you with this suggestion. If you want an example of how power and money corrupt, get yourself a copy of Empire of Pain:  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. There you will read of the corruption, not only of a family, but of the lawyers and doctors they drew into their web, along with the FDA and the DEA.  As this book demonstrates, very few are immune to the twin siren calls of money and power. 

One last thing.  Perhaps it is time to update the adage with which I began this post.  How about this?  You can’t be too kind or too healthy.  

 

                                                     Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash

*** Different studies turn up different numbers, but all demonstrate great income and wealth inequality.