It's quarter to one in the morning and I can't sleep.  Again.  This menopausal insomnia is crap.  Never had trouble sleeping before unless worried about something specific or sick.  Now for no reason whatsoever sleep doesn't come.  Better to just get up rather than lie there.
 
Have done something quite freeing this morning however.  I have deactivated my facebook account.  Got on it as everyone was on it and talking about it but I don't use it.  The reason I don't use it is because it's so public.  It's all minor chitchat about nothing much in particular, illustrated with photos highlighted with a so many (pick a number) *like* this.  Makes no sense.  I realize it's a great resource or it wouldn't be so popular but it's akin to trying to talk to friends in a noisy restaurant.  Can't hear anything properly as everyone's talking at once and don't have any in depth conversations because well, I don't know why except that the forum just doesn't suit it. 

Strange, almost felt guilty for getting off it, like a slap in the face to all my facebook 'friends' but they aren't really friends, most of them.  Those that are friends email occasionally which is more like sitting down and having a chat rather than all this useless noise that passes for conversation.  I'm probably being a bit harsh but that's how I perceive it.  It came in handy during the floods as a way to broadcast information quickly but other than that it isn't for me.  Suppose I can rejoin if I want to at some future point but don't think I will.

What I have done is start a My Space account.  This account will be for photos of my artwork only - some place I can direct people to if I want to show them what I've done.  Didn't feel like doing that on FB nor do I particuarly want to do it here.  This place is just a place to have a chat with myself when I'm in the mood and nothing more.  It's not for other people to read (which is patently obvious as I haven't any followers).

There's a part of me that wants followers.  I want to be popular, to have everyone like me, to be the center of the universe.  After 55 years I still haven't outgrown that desire but at least sometimes it is less of a desire than others.

Sometimes I wonder if there's something wrong with me; that I am perfectly content not to have friends.  (Yes, yes, I have friends but they are casual not intimate friends). Studies show that people with friends and those who are involved with the community live longer and healthier lives than those that don't.  Oh dear, I'm wrong again.   I don't really have a best friend except for Richard.  I don't work at getting and keeping friends.  I like people and I enjoy them in small doses but truthfully?  I'd just rather be left alone.  There has to be a place in the world for loners too.  There have to be those that muddle along on their own, rather like that echidna we saw yesterday afternoon.  He'd crossed the road and collided with an obstacle; the eroded bank of the hill, at least 20 feet high, that the road cut through.  He climbed one furrow, lost his footing and rolled back to the bottom.  He tried again and made it.  We watched in case he changed his mind and came back across the road.  He didn't care.  He had something he was going to do and it took all his attention.  Whether he had an audience or not was immaterial.

Sometimes that's the way I feel about my life.  I'm here doing my thing.  It's not a glamorous or popular thing.  It's not very interesting to anyone but me but it is my thing and I like doing it.  And it's kind of a solo thing.  I'm not particularly keen on sharing it nor, selfish as this sounds, am I particularly keen on getting involved with others.  I know the metaphysical aspects of life; that we are all connected, what affects one affects everything, the butterfly wing in Porta Vallarta affecting typhoons in Hong Kong but still it's all so tiresome keeping up with the bzzzzzzz of a facebook or the gossip in our small neighbourhood.  If that's the glue that keeps body and soul together to a healthy old age then count me out.  It's so avid.  Eyes gleaming, lips moist, that superior satisfaction of being able to discuss so and so who has been/is less perfect than I (at this particular point in time).  It's tedious.   I'm of the opinion that most people, with the exception of the really cruel bastards who torture and kill for the pleasure of it, are doing the best they can with what they've got to work with.  What they've got to work with is their upbringing, their spirituality, innate or overt, their intelligence and their openness to life and learning.  If they appear to be as dull as ditch water or stuck in some rut of brutish low intelligence and insensitivity well, they probably can't help it - like telling someone who's colourblind that he's a sinner because he can't tell the difference between red and green.