Building A Social Network

An essay concerning the interconnectedness of people and society....

Building a Social Network

What does the term ‘Social Networking’ mean in our lives today! What does it stand for or how much of it accounts for our actual social life! I bet the figures would be really flying, but also it is the cause of losing the actual human social network. The technology might have brought us closer to the distant people but at the same time has driven us further from the people at our next seat. So is the case of all the major societies in the world where technology has set its foot. All the so called “social networking” sites are promising to bring people closer to friends and family what who is promising to bring people in our daily lives where they could actually have heartfelt conversations and or a couple of drinks together, instead of just sharing, liking and commenting. How about this- instead of just adding friends in the sites, let us make our own social network for real that is. Going out there and actually exploring the world and getting to know people and hangout with them.

No I know that the third world countries still have this idea, well I can say this with surety because I belong from one such country. They still hangout and still have fun together with friends and family, but this is changing and changing at an alarming rate. It is pretty sad to think about this whole phenomenon. People becoming more aligned toward the façade of the whole “connectivity” thing, which I often don’t understand; and I wonder whether the abundance of them do? What is it! What is actually it, you know being together and making friends and having people in your lives who care about you and love you. The whole matter is sarcastic actually, the idea of people loving one another and expressing it (well at least in my part of the world). I see this skepticism working within people in the case of expression (of love). It is becoming increasingly difficult to make someone trust your words when you tell simple tell them that you love them and they mean a lot in their respective lives. What is wrong with beautiful world and blah blah blah!

Okay lets go a couple of thousand years back, umm you know what lets go even further back around the time when the idea of family and love was still at the mercy of the fancy and the germ. I wonder what those filthy cave dwellers (no disrespect guys) have thought about this subject! I mean did they feel the fear of death and or did they ever give it a thought! What would they do when someone was wounded in some fight was dying in front of them! Did they live out the family like we do today! Well many of you might argue that it was a different time or they belonged to a “hunter and gatherer” society, so of course their social dynamics would be different. But let me as you one simple question, in all honesty do you really think that our societies have changes in any way from then? Yes excluding the obvious superficial charade of civilization.

Now let us get straight to the point, instead of me beating around the bush (pun intended). I want to tell you a story and umm! nothing, just a story. I work as an interpreter with a Organization working in the rural areas of Rajshahi, Bangladesh (which is also my hometown). Now, I have working with this organization for almost 2 years now and mostly with the international donors of this organization. I never went out of the four walls before, because I mostly worked in meetings and seminars. This time it was a little different though. This time I get to work with these two young students who have come to Bangladesh for doing their internship. My job description said that I had to be their eyes and ears and be with them 24 hours of the day (felt kinda  sucky). But then came the fun bits and pieces. We started going to different places in the villages and meeting different people. Taking interviews of people and getting to know them closely. It was weird for me at the beginning as the people whom we were meeting are the same people who I had left and would probably would have never come back. But there I was sitting inside their homes, talking to them and socializing with them. I started liking it, I started liking them. They accepted me for who I was, simply stating the fact that I am one of them, they embraced me. It was not something I had expected or anticipated. It was nothing different for them but it was a different world for me and their welcome was not something which I was taking very well. It was difficult for me to understand how can they just simply take someone in just belonging from there. But at the end, I was the one who lost myself in their hospitality. And during this journey to different places and meeting new people I also met old people whom I didn’t remember or had lost the connection to. Now here they were standing in front of me, bringing new identities to my personalities and building new intricate webs of relationship and social layouts.

While working with the interns, we all became very good friends. But I was more close with an intern named Hanna. We became really good friends, sharing and learning everything together. She was in Bangladesh to learn about the agriculture of our country. While working with her, I learnt a lot more things about my own people than ever before. So one day, we were returning from one of the fields, and Hanna tells me, what you have here is like a social network. And you are just increasing the network. It was like building a social network. Well it was true and I realized at that moment what I was doing and what have I accomplished. It was a life changing experience and it would not have been possible without the help of my dear friend Hanna. I thank her for being in Bangladesh at the right time and letting me explore a new horizon relationships and social dynamics.

Among the most important things in our life today, social networking in the most important one. I am not asking you to stop networking but please for sometime at least network with yourself and network with the people around you. What seems to be the world for you! Wait, look again and redefine if you have to. Don’t worry if the others are not doing it. It’s not about their journey, it’s about yours. Live your life and complete your journey. Meet people, talk to them, love them, make love to them, eat heartily and die young. Live life and build your own social network.

To my friend Hanna Gunnarson.

Reviews

[Leroy Sinclair]

I can tell you about a social network, me and my brothers from Norway House are breakin' down barriers from Manitoba to California lookin' for Mr Richard Burnish, it will be on if he does not have my two boxes of beer and bottle of whisky and some wampum as compensation for impersonating me, Leroy Sinclair, it's gonna be flippin on, on like flippin' donkey kong until the break a dawn me and my brothers from Norway House will be all over his backside, cause no one impersonates me, Leroy Sinclair, without sendin' a little wampum or boxes of beer or whisky or somethin' just cause I'm a native from up in Norway House don't mean I'm stupid,

[Asif Iqbal Pias]

i didnt understand anything...

[Leroy Sinclair]

it aint my fault you aint from Norway House