I posted the other day about my vision getting to the point where it seems everything I look at has a drop shadow and one of my friends tweeted me the following:
This got me to thinking about dreaming in general. I don’t know about others, but I hardly ever remember my dreams nowadays. I assume I dream because I’ve read we all do and, sometimes, I have somewhat of a recollection of having dreamed. I just can’t seem to recall what it was I dreamed about. I think that’s likely a good thing, as I interpret it to mean I’m not terribly troubled.
Which brings me to nightmares. I suspect if I had a nightmare I would remember it. My eight-year-old has them occasionally and she seems to be able to remember them pretty vividly. On the other hand, my 10-year-old has them but refuses to tell me anything about what they are. Drives me crazy! I want to be able to comfort her, but she’s having nothing of it.
I’ve also come to the conclusion not having nightmares is an indication that I’m pretty well grounded and don’t harbor any unreasonable fears about the unknown or . . . even the known. The closest I come to a nightmare is worrying about having enough money to take care of our bills, maintain our current lifestyle, and have enough left over to send my kids to a reasonably decent institution of higher learning. Trouble with those nightmares is they keep me awake, so they aren’t really nightmares I guess.
Speaking of dreams, the last one I recall vividly happened many, many years ago. It was a couple of years after my father died in 1984, shortly before his 60th birthday. One night I dreamt I was on the beach (I had been living a couple of blocks from the ocean in Playa del Rey, CA for some time) and I ran into him. Now my father and I did not get along all that well for most of my adolescence and a substantial portion of my adulthood. However, we had begun to get to know each other better and were growing quite close when he died. Though I missed him terribly, I was happy we had left none of the really difficult issues unresolved before he was gone.
In my dream, I approached him and asked (somewhat incongruously), “Where have you been?” to which he responded . . . actually, I don’t recall what he said. What I do recall is the dream seemed to last an entire day, during which time I was able to share with him how my life was going and enjoy what was a real deep sense of peace and contentment. We joked, relived some old times, and generally just basked in each others’ glow.
I haven’t dreamed about him since, though I do miss him sometimes. I think the quality of that dream allowed me to move on a little more comfortably with my life. I know it left me with a sense of accomplishment that I still feel the residue of, nearly a quarter century later.
So here’s some unsolicited advice. If you have a parent you are a bit estranged from, make an effort to resolve whatever issues remain. Don’t take a chance of having nightmares after they’ve gone and you no longer have the chance to bury the hatchet. That is all.
When he died late in 2009, Russ Ackoff left two unpublished manuscripts. Memories is the first of these – a collection of stories drawn from his life experience, selected by Russ because they stood out in his memory as instances where he learned something. As he says in his Preface, “Life is a series of relationships formed and dissolved”. For Russ, the important principles and qualities around which his work was centred – clear-sightedness, looking at the bigger picture, working backwards towards solutions, radicalism – crossed over into most, if not all, other aspects of his extraordinary life. The stories in Memories focus on the human side of life and, in so doing, they demonstrate how many of the skills and attributes that are fundamental to professional success are found in personal experience.
Systems Savvy 
Why I Love Facebook’s Timeline
How My Friends Can Share With Me
Change is Good
Every time Facebook changes something on their (not sure whether to call it a platform, app, or service) offering, people seem to get all freaked out and complain because they have to learn something new or change the way they were doing things. I understand and appreciate change can be a bit disconcerting, but I’m one of those people who not only accepts change; I actually seek it out. So when Facebook adds or rearranges things I immediately start looking for how I can take advantage of it.
Just so I’m clear, I am not referring to the issues of privacy and information security that arise now and again. That’s an entirely different story and, while I am clearly not as protective as many, I am always concerned about the security of my truly private information and that of my family. Changes in functionality are an entirely different animal and that’s what I’m concerned with here.
Embracing Timeline
When Facebook first introduced Timeline and made it available as a developer version, I was all over it. I was anxious to try it out, primarily because I was building a business that was based in large part on my understand of and familiarity with Facebook. I was anxious to see what they were doing, even though at the time it was not available to fan pages, which is the part of FB my business is involved with. I went through the necessary steps and got myself going. Much like my introduction to Twitter well over four years ago, I really wasn’t sure how I was going to use or benefit from it, but I was sure I wanted to figure it out.
Now that it’s a part of fan pages and I’ve grown increasingly familiar with it, I’ve finally figured out how to use it for myself. Not my fan page, but my personal Timeline. I came into this world about the time personal photography was starting to take off. As a firstborn son, my parents took lots of pictures of me. They also took lots of pictures of family and, over the years, many of them have come into my possession. It wasn’t until Facebook made it possible for posts to be scheduled, i.e. given a Timeline date in the future and held in a queue until that time, when they would then appear, that I made the connection to the past.
Yes, It’s About Me
Up until very recently I have shared some old pictures, but I have dated them on my Timeline on the date I posted them. I have since come to realize I can create somewhat of an autobiography by posting items (pictures, scanned documents, etc.) and dating them appropriately. I can even add in locations and people I was with, provided they are current Facebook friends. This is no small thing for me, as I have two fairly young (11 and 8) children to whom I want to leave a record of my life. Using Timeline to do so seems so much easier than writing a book. It also is far more graphic and, because many of my friends (including those who were present when some of the pictures were taken) can post comments to them, they become even richer and more engaging. Furthermore, as evidenced by the picture above, my friends can share pictures they have, which become part of my Timeline as well.
Interestingly, this picture was posted last November and I only just tried to change the date to the year and approximate month in which it was taken. I wasn’t able to do it, but I requested my friend who posted it to make the change and he did. Actually, he told me he didn’t know how to do it (people my age seldom do), but he had someone take care of it. I also realized there was a friend in the pic who has since become a Facebook friend as well and I was able to tag him. He chimed in within less than a day.
I could never recreate my past in this way by myself. First of all, I don’t know any other tool that provides the combination of functionality that Facebook does. Surely there’s nothing that would allow me to slowly record a retrospective with input from many people who were there at the time or who experienced similar episodes and milestones. I believe I have a lot more to learn about doing this, but I’m enjoying discovering new ways in which to create the virtual experience I want to leave for my kids. Maybe it won’t work the way I am envisioning. Maybe my kids won’t care when it comes down to it. I don’t much care at this point. It’s a great learning experience and – so far – it’s a lot of fun because I almost always get feedback from others when I do post something. After all, it may be dated long ago on my Timeline, but it’s something new and it shows up in my friends’ news feed when I post it.
Anybody out there have stories about their use of timeline, or have you discovered a bit of functionality you really like that you think others might want to know about . . . or that I might want to know about? Please be so kind as to share. Thanks.
If you care to share:
3 Comments | tags: Autobiography, children, Comments, Facebook, Friends, memories, photos, Posts, Profile, sharing, Timeline | posted in Personal, Social Media