Proud Mary

Here’s what I like about Facebook:  It gives me instant access to the wit and wisdom of people I would otherwise never encounter, and those people frequently make my days.  Right now, I’m thinking specifically about my friend, Mary.  She just made me laugh so hard that it lifted my whole being.  If not for Facebook, Mary and I might never have reconnected, given that she lives in another state and we haven’t laid eyes on each other since my sophomore year in high school.

The other day, I was listening to NPR and caught part of show wherein the guest was talking about how the internet had made it possible for bad ideas to go viral.  I have no idea what else he said because that sent me off on my own rabbit trails of thought, and I started considering how small the world is on the internet.

When we’re online, we aren’t bound to countries or cultures.  We are citizens of the internet.  Citizens of the world.

I have friends in Spain (hi, Isabel!), Australia (hi, Cat!), Canada (hi, Elspeth!), England (hi, Sandy!), South America, India, Germany, Russia…the list goes on.  And when we are interacting online, it is with an ease and comfort that certainly transcends a passport or a postage stamp.  It drives home to me that we are truly the same–just People.  Not Russians, or Germans, or Indians, or Australians, or Americans, or New Yorkers, or Texans–we’re just humans.

Of course, that made me worry about the humans who have no rights, and Third World Nations, and starving babies, and trafficked children, and political systems that treat their populations as currency.  And that made me sad.  For a few seconds I wondered if we could really be one nation, and if we could find a way to overhaul the world so that we were under a single government, taking care of our citizenry and helping one another to achieve success.  Then I remembered what was happening in the EU right now, and had a sad.  Then I remembered that we can’t even agree on Obamacare in this nation.

For the record:  As I have aged and experienced more life, and as I have seen people around me experiencing life at difference levels and for various reasons, I have come to believe that healthcare should be considered a basic human right.

But that’s all so serious, and Mary just made me laugh so hard that I was forced to shed the skin of the week past, and am now shimmying around in a new, sleek, happy set of mental togs.  To sum up: Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, hello, Friends, and let’s try to help people who need it as we are able.  And also, yay for Mary!