What You May Know

 I had a student once who wrote that she liked to "collect people." In the 1990s back then, she meant literally.  I suppose people can comprise a collection.  On Facebook, isn't that exactly what we do? But does a person really have 4000 friends?  Perhaps it should be called Namebook? Aside from a handful of real friends, what most folks seem to have accumulated is a pile of names. Something you can get in the thousands if you circulate petitions.  

Facebook, like Linked-in, has a feature called "People You May Know," wherein a series of profiles appears, not unlike a line-up and you can decide if you know them or would like to.  When I see these profile pictures I often see a montage of people who live and continue to live in the corners of my life.  If we're not connected by now, there might be a reason.  Seldom, if ever, do I contact any of these folks and I doubt if/when I appear on their feed do they contact me.  

What fascinates me most about this feature is how the people I might know occupy very different spaces both geographically and philosophically.  Their politics are often at opposite ends of the spectrum as well as education level and often their taste in music, art, film, and fashion.  That is the intriguing part.  When I look at the array of those I may know, I realize I don't really know many of the people I think I already know.  

Once, during a particularly busy time of my life, I began a Saturday by going to a thoroughbred horse auction.  I was working on a radio documentary about the sub-culture of horse racing.  The auction gave me the opportunity to interview potential owners, trainers, and breeders, not to mention the wonderful sound of a professional auctioneer plying his trade.  I wore cowboy boots that day.  That done, I worked my way over to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to catch some live performances at a blues festival.  Off came the boots and on came some comfortable sandals.  

Somehow this simple change of footwear reminded me about the two very different worlds I was inhabiting that day.  The Facebook gallery of "may knows" does the same thing.  How many different worlds can you find in your own collection of people?