A New Reality

Okay, I guess I am over the cybercrime excitement from the weekend and have settled into a new reality when it comes to using Web 2.0 technology to communicate. I'm not back on Facebook yet, but here I am blogging and my rate of e-mail seems to have remained steady. I haven't even given up on making that one-in-a-million love connection via a dating site--out of all of the social media that I use the dating sites are probably the riskiest, so now that I think about it the hacking incident really didn't change me. We live in a constantly evolving world. As new technologies are introduced we must learn to also evolve and adapt from both the perspective of the new functionality they provide as well as adapt to the need for a different means to stay safe and secure.

Hacked!

Yesterday my Facebook and e-mail accounts were hijacked. Today I am feeling violated and vulnerable. I do not like feeling this way. I've become so dependent on technology and social networking to communicate--now I am feeling isolated and cut off from my world.

It is a bit ironic that I feel safe enough to blog about what I am feeling. Although this is a public venue--since no one responds to my posts it seems like I am talking to myself so for now this remains a 'safe' corner of my cyber world. On a personal note, if anyone out there is reading this I would appreciate hearing from you--right now I am sorely in need of human contact.

My nature is to be open and trusting--this makes me feel the need to be more cautious and put up walls to protect myself. I will have to work hard to make sure that I do not allow this experience to change me. As I write that I realize that it sounds overly dramatic however, I am very serious. There is a great line from Winnie the Pooh: "You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes." I realized that I had spent far too long limiting myself to my corner of the forest--the Internet has served as the perfect tool that allows me to step out and explore the forest. Will I now allow fear to send me running back to my safe den for security or will I be able to learn from this experience then brush it off so I can continue to reach out to others? Only time will tell.

LOST

For almost six years now I have faithfully followed the ABC TV series Lost--it is absolutely the BEST show on television. The fun of it has been the constant questions upon questions fans are left with at the end of each episode--yet what we DO figure out is so mentally stimulating that we keep coming back for more. Now in this, the final season, we are finally getting some answers. With only 7 episodes left, until last night, I've had my doubts of whether or not all of the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place and wondered if the writers had enough time to pull all of the loose threads together. No longer do I doubt...in a single hour last night we learn that the island is something akin to Pandora's box and has been holding back evil from flooding into the world with no restraint. We've seen the battle between good vs. evil played out in various characters and story lines over the years, but never before has this foundational element of the series been so clearly defined. It was a very satisfying night of television.