Let people die their natural death
As someone who moved between various different schools and cities I naturally made a lot of friends along the way. A friend recently asked
"Man in the age of social media, how have you lost contact with so many of your past friends?"
I thought about it for sometime and realized that they were a part of a chapter of my life that I have now parted with. I did not feel remorseful for doing so. I think friends and acquaintances come into our lives as part of the context that we are in. Once that context is lost, we fail to maintain the relationship. The context of the people around me, the school, the city were all factors that led to the various friendships that I have had over these years. As the context changed, past friendships died a natural death.
Social media interrupts this natural phenomenon. People, from a past life, come to haunt you on your "For You" page. Social media usage has become ubiquitous with being human. This means any and everyone from every chapter of your life is a click away. This is not how it always was. Before the 2000's when people met and they lost contact, they lost contact and that was it. The most you could do was a landline number in the local telephone directory. There were visiting cards for commercial contacts that needed to be remembered and people maintained a physical Rolodex for efficient storage and retrieval of these contacts.
Technological constraints forced people to be deliberate about the people they really wanted to keep in touch. Social media would still not have been a cause for concern if all it did was to maintain a glorified international telephone directory. A place where people could go find contact information of those they wanted to talk to. Here communication became voluntary, and also deliberate. Poeple would have to go through the pain of having an actual conversation. Social media makes this process vulger, allowing you to "follow" and "chat".That is essentially communicate without having to communicate. As a naturally inquisitive species we can not resist the urge to a sneak peek in the lives of these old acquaintances.
Though when people develop relationships, they are bound to influence each other's life world. The other individual brings with them the burden of their ideas, experiences and emotions. Over time we develop as individuals, as result of our contact with those in proximity and the world at large. This is when people begin to lose contact. This is the natural course of life. When we begin to alter this course, we begin to slip back to our old selves. This reminds me of Saul Goodman, who moved to Albuquerque to work in his brother's law firm HHM. Saul's brother gave him a chance to leave his con-man past behind and lead a respectful life working for his firm. While working at HHM, he also completed his law degree and eventually began a private practice. But following an altercation with his brother, as a sign of defiance he moves back to the old town where he slips back into his old habits, with help from his old con friends.
Letting people die their natural death, is a way for us to move forward. To focus on what matters and to move away from what does not. One can only truly have a few great relationships in one lifetime. It makes sense to focus on those that matter in the present. In this regard the ability for social media to resurface people "you might know" regressively impacts this natural process.