prasadnaik

It wasn’t fun while it lasted

Man is by nature a social ani… ah fuck this shit. I’m not doing it. This is embarrassing. I thought I could stay away from Twitter for a while but it’s been just over two weeks and I am back already. This has to be the shortest hiatus in the history of Twitter. Or hiatuses. 

For those who did not notice (and I don’t blame you), I was indeed away from Twitter for two full weeks. No Twitter client was opened in the interim. None even existed on any of the devices I owned as I removed them to reduce the temptation and prevent any accidental launches. Clearly, I was serious about this. Or so I thought. 

The purpose of this was simple. It had come to my attention that Twitter was taking far too much time from my life, which was having an impact on both professional as well as personal life. This might seem like an exaggeration but it’s not. Things had really gotten out of hand. 

As I found out, I wasn’t entirely wrong about this. Not having a Twitter client open in the background did wonders while I was working, as for once I was able to concentrate without having to switch windows every few minutes to check for new tweets or reply to mentions. 

As for personal life, here I was dead wrong. I had imagined that by not having Twitter in my daily life I would be able to go back to doing things that I once used to do quite frequently. Things like gaming or reading, which had stopped almost completely in the past few months. Turns out, I hadn’t stopped doing those things because of Twitter. I stopped doing them because they stopped being interesting to me for some reason. 

So in the past few weeks when I was not working, I found myself observing the textures of the walls in my room (whoever painted it did a terrible job, by the way). I had basically gone from doing something to nothing. 

So here I am, back again. Slightly embarrassed. Then again, I was going to anyway. Just didn’t think it would be so soon. I would say it was not a complete failure. For one, I’m definitely not going to keep a Twitter client open while working. Sure, I could have done that before but turns out it takes a lot more willpower to do that normally than when you are completely off Twitter for a while. And when I’m not working, I’m going to fight the urge to open a Twitter app every few minute… HAHAHAHAHAHA that’s not happening. :(  

As for why I did not say anything before taking a break, well for one, it was something that just happened at the last minute without any planning. And second, I honestly did not think anybody gave a fuck. But after going through my mentions tab (oh baby, I missed you so much; daddy will never leave you again) I noticed that some people did in fact gave a fuck (which is why I bothered writing this in the first place). To all four of them, thanks for caring. No, I’m not dead. 

So, what have you been up to? 

Gone. But not quite.

People die. It’s something you have to live with. The knowledge that the body that you currently occupy will one day perish, as will that of those you know and love. And even of those you don’t. 

But off late it has become very difficult to completely leave this world. Earlier, you would still be alive in the memories of those who knew you. But now you also stay alive in the memories of all the servers around the world that saved every byte of information you ever uploaded on to the internet. 

Being on Twitter and other social networking services all day, I end up going through a lot of user profiles. Occasionally, some of these profiles tend to belong to those who no longer enjoy the privilege of being alive. 

Death has never really bothered me that much. And I rarely ever feel bad for those who die. What I grieve are the ones that are left behind. And among these, in recent times, have been these Twitter profiles that no longer have a master. 

It’s an odd sensation going through the Twitter feed of a person who passed away, especially if the event occurred recently. You can see posts from as recent as a day or two old. When they may have been discussing something trivial as their breakfast that morning or perhaps sharing a link to an amusing video. And then it hits you. The knowledge that these messages were once written by a living breathing person. And who no longer exists. The last posts often seem no different than the ones before. The person, it seems, had no idea what was coming to them. And then you look at your own recent tweets and wonder, will this be your last? 

Unless the account information was shared with someone else, it would never be updated again. It dies with the person. In some ways it reminds me of an old, abandoned house that you occasionally pass by. You look at it and try to imagine the things that must have happened there. Someone lived there once. But they are gone now and the place remains as a reminder of the events that took place in that person’s life. 

But life moves on and so do you, past that old abandoned house and amidst ones with living, breathing people in them. Some day you will be going back there but until then, enjoy the fact that you are still alive and capable of creating more memories. Who knows, which one will be your last.