Saturday, Oct. 02, 2010 5:54 p.m.

the social network

I am back home fresh from having seen "The Social Network".

I suppose I feel somewhat inspired by it. But at the same time, saddened by what I sometimes feel is a lost potential I may have once had.

Facebook is obviously an enormous part of modern society and has at times significantly impacted my life (and most everyone else's lives currently aged 35 and younger). I found it really interesting how it all began, and how I'm able to re-trace my own life through the film's (and facebook's) timeline.

In the beginning of the film (and I presume somewhat true to actual reality as well), the main character is "blogging" on livejournal. In my mind, livejournal is always coupled with diaryland, and in fact, post-dates it. To me, DIARYLAND was the beginning of it all. I remember the early days of this place, when diarists would announce that they were leaving and going to livejournal. I always considered livejournal the "shiny" diaryland...and that I always prefer to stay at traditional, and original, diaryland.

I've been writing in here, and under the same user name, since Aug. 2001. As time passes, I am very proud of my history as a diarist.

Something else about me: I could have been a computer nerd just like those in "The Social Network". Very easily. I even dabbled in it. I bought my first book about html code when I was 17, in 1998. Not because I was studying it in school - I bought it because the idea of making webpages sounded fun to me. And html was the way to go.

I studied web production in college. I created my "My Thoughts on Things" website when I was a freshman, in early 2000. Though it is no longer in existence, that website was the precursor to this diary...and holds a very, very dear place to my heart. I wonder if there are any people out there reading this entry who actually knew me back then. If so, then they also hold a very dear place in my heart. (And they should email me: agirlouttheresomewhere at yahoo)

When I graduated college, I started working in the web department of a television company. This was the same semester that facebook was conceived. I could've stayed in web. I could have been an official geek. Parts of me sometimes wish that I had stayed in it. It always secretly suited me well.

But I left it to peruse a couple other careers...that I routinely passed through and on to another. I like my job now, and I'm tired of changing careers, so I highly doubt I ever will again - but I do wonder what I could have been. Or if I even could've been anything at all.

Did Mark Zukerberg use diaryland before livejournal and before founding facebook? He would have been in high school while I was in college, but did we ever run in the same "online circles" secretly? What about the others from the old days of diaryland? Where are they now? What happened to all those people who emailed me from my Thoughts on Things website. The ones who told me, a random stranger, of their struggles with depression or the desire for suicide or even just their deepest thoughts on religion or love?
Where have they gone and what have they done in life since then?

Where have I gone in life? What have I done since then?

Even now, I still consider that website, and the subsequent emails, to the most important thing I have ever done with my life. One of the few very things that ever made me feel like I could matter.

It's time to feel like that again.

In doing what, I don't know. And it's a little bit later in life than I'd prefer, but maybe with the dawn of this upcoming new decade of my life - I can become something important again.

I know I have the ability to do something great...somehow...in some way.

Perhaps, even with infertility and the inability/difficulty in leaving something to the world through my own children...I can still leave something else great.

I just know that, believe it or not, I have the capacity for great passion and drive...it's just that the majority of the time I am bogged down with boredom of what people expect from people in life. And this boredom, and the feeling as though I am unsuccessful with what is normally consider successful, eventually causes the depression I so often face.

I have always been a little weird inside. I know how to behave and tone down my weirdness and appear normal...but sometimes, I just don't want to be normal.

I want a passion. I want to be a little ADD. I want to let my mind explore in order to see what it can do. I want to have potential for something still.

Because otherwise, I don't really think if it's worth waiting around in hopes that my life turns out somehow.

I really hope 30 is not too late to get started.

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