Animism and Facebook

I have a belief, probably born out of a friends hurried explanation of animism related to archaeology, that early humans took on attributes from things in their environments that were important to them. It seemed so obvious that a vulnerable human would want to be the strong Lion, the lofty eagle.

They valued these things so much that they worshipped them, giving rise to early religions and here we are, living in a harmonious world where we have evolved religion to reflect the glorious wealth of knowledge that the human race holds. Yeah right. I digress.

We did not only worship these things but took on the attributes they displayed. People became as courageous as Lions and as slippery as fishes, in fact a good part of our success has been to gather a tool kit of character traits and use them to our advantage.

The other day I was surfing the web, or was I. Actually I was sitting tapping away on a vaio in South London, but having the human ability to shape shift gives me the ability to make this a noble pursuit – if indeed that is what surfing conjured up to the Californian early adopters of the internet.

So, after ‘surfing’ my way on to facebook I was asked to give a present to someone. It was only after clicking on the aforesaid gift that I found that I was to be charged to give a tiny graphic of a monkey to the person of my choice. It wasn’t a monkey and I didn’t surf here to get the damned thing. I tapped on my vaio to have the chance to send someone a bunch of binary that looks like a graphic that looks like a representation of a monkey.

Which would make them happy apparently.

Having thought about it I guess I might be happy to get a binary monkey. I mean if facebook is (amongst other things) about reminding us that we have friends, then a binary monkey is a reminder that one of them thinks I am important enough to spend a few dollars on. I’d prefer an Aston Martin but heck, nobody got me one of those recently so I’ll stick with the binary monkey.

And what about the fish tanks! Someone offered me a fish tank yesterday. I spent three years teaching scuba diving in South Easy Asia so this seemed like a poor reminder of my underwater realm. I also baulked at ticking the box that said I must let the powers that be ‘Know who I am and access my information‘. I said no and was presented with a ‘Granting access to information is required to add applications. If you are not willing to grant access to your information, do not add this application.’.

No choice about that one then.

I had some conspiracy buff tell me the other day that facebook is financed by the CIA. Well I don’t mind particularly because I wasn’t thinking of buying it myself, but I won’t have anyone snooping into my fish tank useage.

I did however add the ‘places I have been’ application because of vanity. They can’t snoop on my fish tank but tracing my movements is OK. I do understand that I have paradoxes in my life.

It’s the birthday of an ex girlfriend on Sunday. She lives in Paris and I have no time to send her a present.

Now where is that monkey…