Remember days when you went through those Readers' sections from newspapers and hoped you might get some answers you seek? Not needed anymore and how! In today’s times when even aunts tell you: “Beta, aap yeh cheez google kyon nahi karate? (Why don’t you just google this?)”, the world-wide-web is your oyster!
So, there’s that exact same health advice being sought for a very specific condition; there is a heart-breaking story of unrequited love; there is an especially quirky financial issue that needs resolution; hilarious comments/reviews that only you can totally identify with; posts that completely get you and only you can completely get!
So whether it's Stack Overflow or Quora or any other such discussion forums, you are definitely going to find some companion for your boat! In a way, web content tells you there are people who are going through similar miserable, happy, tricky, challenging, exciting times. As weird as it sounds, Internet kind of becomes your sympathizer -- even a confidant (most definitely so if you wish to contribute content yourself?). No wonder Mark Zuckerberg thinks he needs to do social psychological experiments on Facebook users and can actually tamper with people’s emotions!
Obviously there is 99.9999% of the stuff that you filter out, laugh off or don’t agree with. But the rest 0.0001% is just so uniquely relatable, it’s hard to believe it’s just statistical anomaly!
Where does this characteristic similarity of feelings/behavior/situations come from, then? A friend of mine, who excessively loves paradoxes and convolutions, keeps saying: "You are as unique as everybody else". Let’s just say: these networking sites are a good place to find some solace. Or, may be, to discover you are actually almost soulless?
Let me explain. There’s this all-time-favorite movie of mine called "Before Sunrise”. Here’s one of the many random things Ethan Hawke’s character says: (There are some loopholes. To begin with -- I am not sure if these numbers are right; but that’s besides the point anyway.)
"50,000 years ago, there are not even a million people on the planet. 10,000 years ago, there's, like, two million people on the planet. Now there's between five to six billion people on the planet, right? Now, if we all have our own, like, individual, unique soul, right, where do they all come from? You know, are modern souls only a fraction of the original souls? 'Cause if they are, that represents a 5,000 to 1 split of each soul in the last 50,000 years, which is, like, a blip in the Earth's time. You know, so at best we're like these tiny fractions of people, you know, walking...I mean, is that why we're so scattered?"
(Yeah, well, I am talking about souls; I am quite cool like that! )
Isn't it an absolutely crazy thought? Looks like I need to do some soul-searching.. or "soul-surfing", if you will!
