I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.—Herb Caen

Just a few days ago, I underwent something shady. The girl I had been seeing for a little while did me dirty, and my closest friend stabbed me in the back. The two instances are related.

It feels pretty damn bad to have the rug pulled from under you by the two people you trusted the most, and expected to be the last two people to ever do anything of that sort, and it hasn’t left me in a good way. I feel like I was punched in the stomach, and need to vomit as a result. I feel like I want to beat the living shit out of somebody, preferably one of the two assholes, preferably the one I used to call my best friend. And I feel like I want to use to the point where I can’t think, even if I try. Which is bad news, because I have issues with moderation.

Most importantly, I want to run away from this little bit of history, and delete it from my past completely. Forget about it forever. Which is something I can’t do, of course.

I read an article today in the New York Times about growing up with FaceBook. The author says that FaceBook might prove a problem for those of us who grew up with it when it comes time to leave everything behind us, and go off and find ourselves, form ourselves into new beings. Basically, that it will make it so our past will follow us wherever we go, as a result never giving us a chance to invent ourselves as independent adults.

At first, I was in complete agreement. To hell with my past, and to hell with FaceBook. If I can’t run from bits of history, then life is going to suck. All FaceBook is doing is setting me up with torturous reminders for later life, things that I will end up trying my hardest to shake and forget, but will be forever immortalized in a page on the interweb.

But that’s not true. I want to get as far away as I can from what happened to me this past weekend, but that would achieve nothing. Of course, I might need some time away from everything to get my bearing back, but all said and done, what happened is a part of my identity. It’s one of many defining moments in my life, and I need to own it, and accept it.

I can’t invent myself as an independent adult without my past. My past is everything that defines me, and without it, I don’t exist. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve seen, and everything I’ve experienced are all in the past, and that is what makes up every fiber of my being. The worst thing I could do to myself in my development as a person is try to get rid of my past.

Of course, not everyone will agree with me on this, but even if someone DID feel like FaceBook was holding them back, they could just delete it. All the information would still be on the internet, somewhere, but it wouldn’t be haunting them anymore, which is where the supposed problem starts, right?

Don’t misinterpret this as me defending social networking. I think it sucks. I just feel that the idea of your past following you being a bad thing isn’t very true. Without it, you’re nothing.
—Silvano Pontoniere