I LOVE Facebook. I fucking love it. I always see people posting about how much they hate it:

I totally empathize with the frustration many of you are feeling. You’re lonely. You have no tribe and hardly any, if any, real-life friends that you see on a daily basis.  And Facebook has become simultaneously the consolation prize and a constant reminder of those depressing facts.

So instead of recognizing the root of the problem – the isolated, monogamous, nuclear family structures and single-family homes civilization has squeezed us into, along with the long work hours we have to put in to stay afloat in this society – we blame Facebook for our loneliness.

Yes, Facebook and other social media outlets can exacerbate the problem. As a replacement for real-life human connection, we can become addicted to the constant flow of meaningless tidbits about our “friends'” lives on our news feeds.

But… we don’t have to let Facebook become a replacement for real friends. We can tailor our news feeds so we see only the stuff that’s really interesting and inspiring to us. Whatever’s not interesting or inspiring, unfollow it. Narrow it down to only the stuff that really makes you tick, even if that’s a page dedicated to Terrence McKenna, Osho or Henry David Thoreau memes.

In addition to the thought-provoking pages I follow, I follow several thought-provoking people who ask deep questions or make really intelligent jokes – like this genius who no one ever pays attention to – and am part of private discussion groups with like minded members (like Teal Tribe, Sex-Positive Polyamory and several natural parenting groups).

I never would’ve met about 95 percent of my current friends if not for Facebook. And it’s hard work finding people I can stand who can also stand me. If not for Facebook, I would’ve had to resort to actually getting to know my neighbors, whom I probably would’ve discovered I had nothing in common with (excluding the one cool neighbor I’ve ever had, who currently lives to the right of me when I’m facing the street).

Since we are no longer born into tribes, and I can’t get on board with the herd mentality of our current culture, I would’ve lived as a social outcast, as my parents did, and would’ve had no option but to force my kid into public school and pray she’d randomly get stuck next to a kid who didn’t think she was a freak.

Finally, it’s good practice with the law of attraction. Whatever I focus on, whether I like it or hate it, I get more of it in my news feed. It’s a real-time reminder to me that I co-create my own reality.

So…. while I want to spend more time in the flesh with like-minded friends… I don’t want to cut myself off from the best tool I have for finding those friends and exchanging paradigm-shifting ideas with them.

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