The All Important Topic

I wonder if past generations were as obsessed with themselves as we are. I have to assume that they were, but maybe that's because I don't want to feel narcissistic. I can't help to thing about the Modest Mouse song 'Paper Thin Walls'. I know that many who know that song will think that really the song is about our fascination with other people and the lack of privacy that we now have. And as true as that may be, I think that the fact still remains we will never get tired with the one topic that always floats around our heads... ourselves. And it could quite possible be true that our voyeuristic nature also stems from that one fact.

It is safe to assume that the majority of our generation has a Facebook, and it's also safe to assume that a large portion of that population also have a Twitter account. The basis of these technologies are to show our 'friends' what we are up to, and what we are thinking in that instance. We also use them to see what other people are up to. But for every clever and deep thought I think of, I seem to think it's much too clever or much too deep to let it not be heard by all my 'friends' and all my 'followers'. I post and wait patiently for the comments to role in. Usually about two or three people comment, and my self esteem rises, and reassures me that it was in fact a clever or deep thought. Even this blog proves that I am infinitely the most important topic to myself. I can't be the only one who thinks about these things. But at the same time, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's just human nature. Our inability to understand anything else besides what we experience. That's not to say that I don't try, but it's hard to try to understand life through other peoples experiences.

That brings me back to voyeurism. We so desperately want to know and feel everyone else's experiences, and we want to know that feeling immediately. But not so much as to feel empathy when someone tweets, "totally bombed that mid term" or puts up the status, "great night tonight, things got crazy". What we really want is the understanding that we aren't the only ones experiencing these things, that we share all share the same essential need of feeling important. Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter give our generation the platform to instantly explain what we are thinking and share those thoughts with the World. My question is: Is this something that human beings always felt was important, or are these platforms giving us that importance? I'll mull that over while sharing my latest momentous event while everyone else does the same thing. Everyone's a voyeurist, their watching me, watch them, watch me right now.


'Paper Thin Walls' - Modest Mouse