Cursed

I have blown my chance for good luck.  I have offended God, Jesus, and probably every other religion and deity in existence (and a few that probably have even been created yet).  I have been declared unpatriotic . . . a communist, socialist, and every other “ist” there is . . . because I didn’t “like” a particular post.  I have been called mean because I did not share another person’s post with all of my “friends” out there in cyberspace.  I have become cursed for life because I did not respond to game requests, share requests, and chat room pokes.  Cursed!!

Only a daily basis I am bombarded with requests to share, like, participate, and generally be social on Facebook.  Each of these comes with passive-aggressive suggestions of what could happen if I do not participate . . . my luck will run out . . . God and Jesus will doom to hell for not liking them . . .  my prayers will be broken and left hanging out there in the heavens . . . I will be audited by the Internal Revenue Service because I did not support our troops by “liking” the 500,000,000^th request to honor our warring warriors . . . I will never be invited to a birthday party because I forgot to send a birthday message—again, nor will I ever receive a birthday present because I didn’t click on the link to get the celebrating person a gift . . . I will be offered a one-way ticket to China by both the liberals and conservatives because I didn’t “like” their ever-changing causes . . . and, on and on and on the curse builds.  I will probably lose what friends I have on Facebook once they realize that I am cursed.

But, I am not going to apologize for my accursed state.  I never did join the Facebook Community to actually become a part of a digital chain letter . . . nor, did I join Facebook to be social—remember I am an introvert.  We introverts don’t need lots of people or friends in our lives to be validated . . . we have all of our imaginary friends running around in our minds!  I did not join Facebook to participate in the games that one can play with their friends . . . ask my family and they will tell you that I do not like playing games.  So, if I don’t play games with my own family, what in the world makes you think that I want to play games with anyone else!  No, I am not going to apologize and seek forgiveness from the cyberspace gods . . . I have already offended them . . . it is too late.

Thus it is that I have to deal with the consequences of my choices.  I lose my luck . . . I get sent to hell . . . I offend all of our founding fathers . . . I break the chain . . . I miss out on my chance for a million, billion dollars . . . and, my prayers are thrown away.  I am branded “unsociable” . . . Facebook probably has put some sort of tracer on my account that is fed into the federal government that rings a bell in Washington, D.C. every time I ignore a request on my newsfeed page.  I imagine that they are probably tired of that darn bell ringing all of the time.  But, hey, it is my choice to be cursed.

I joined Facebook like many in my generation . . . to keep tabs on what my children were doing . . . again, probably another reason that I am cursed.  But, over the years, I have come to see Facebook as a tool.  Primarily I use the social network to share my photographs that I like to take . . . I use it to share information with my congregation on their page . . . I use it to share my blog (again, probably another curse creator in my life).  I may be an introvert, but I still like to throw stuff out that has been floating around in my rock garden for a while.  Plus, I only have to put it out there once and not have to repeat it over and over again.  This is a BIG plus for us introverts.  On the other hand, I do not use Facebook to further a political cause . . . or religious cause . . . social justice cause . . . sporting cause (though I sometimes come close with my love for the Nebraska Cornhuskers) . . . or any cause.  Because I don’t use Facebook that way, I would like to be shown some respect by others and not have them do that to me.

I realize though, that I am cursed . . . I will never find that respect.  I have been offending the cyberspace gods for way too long by not participating in their rituals of redundancy and boredom.  In the thirty minutes I have spent lamenting my accursedness, I have received another twenty requests to “like” or “share” or “participate” on my news feed . . . the creator of Facebook is laughing sinisterly at me as he walks to the bank . . . I am cursed!!!  Click on “like” if you agree . . . or, beware the curse!