Missing me!

I returned to FB after a hiatus of 8 long years.

You may ask why did I leave in the first place. That would be a good question. I hope I have a convincing answer; at least, I hope my answer convinces me!

It was a period in my life that was quite bleak. Things weren’t going the way I wanted them to; not that they are doing so now. Whatever little control I had over my life was slipping away all too easily. My job as a Business Development Manager was not developing at all. I was passing thru a challenging mid-life crisis. And the domestic front was rife with unpleasantness.

I had just been on a fortnight long business trip to the Isle of Wight, UK. Thereafter a short stay in London had completed my travel. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing mundane either. I got to see a lot of places, went sightseeing and made new acquaintances. All in all, I had a lot of ‘masala’ for my FB account which as expected gathered many eyeballs.

And then… the ‘Hack’ happened. Frivolous posts started appearing on my FB page, inappropriate photos were being uploaded, unscrupulous comments were being written, irrelevant links were being shared – and none of this was being done by me! Someone had apparently hacked my FB account!

How could this happen? Had I unknowingly allowed access to my account? Did the bad guy look over my shoulder when I was typing in my password? Was there a setting that was wrongly selected? Wasn’t the security software doing its job? Did I overlook a privacy issue in my enthusiasm to post? I didn’t know. All I knew was that the semblance of control which I thought I had over my life was shorn of its veneer, my self-esteem mocked, my pride hurt. Life, had taken a wrong turn.

Well, I had to stop this. So, I changed my privacy settings, restricted access to my pages and photos. (I even bought a paid version of the Anti-virus software for my computer). Nothing worked of course. Then I consulted all my IT friends – the ones who seem to know more about computers and software. They offered their best solutions (sic) – of course none worked.

I was at the mercy of some hacker who had stolen my digital identity. My life as the world knew it was being scripted by an unknown author. My peaceful virtual world was shattered. The other ‘me’ was no longer me.

Finally, I took the matter to the Police Cyber Crime Division. At that time, they were still a nascent department working out of the Police Commissioner’s office. They listened to my grievance patiently, jotted down the details, asked pertinent questions and lent an official shoulder for me to cry. One would think that I had made the right choice by approaching them and that my problem would be resolved. But that wasn’t to be. They managed to convince me that getting details from the FB servers outside the country would be next to impossible especially since the matter had nothing to do with national security nor the person involved was a celebrity. In short, I was told to let it go.

I did let it go.

Not the hacking part but my FB presence. I sent a caution to all my contacts that the posts on my account were not mine. Then with my tail between my legs I retreated and stayed away from social networking.

If you now tell me that it was a stupid move on my part then I couldn’t agree with you more. Looking back, I think I may have overreacted by shying away from networking. Since then, hindsight and several other reasons have prompted my return to FB.

So there begins my story.

Over the past two years humanity has been humbled like never before and that too by a microscopic organism – a virus. The Covid pandemic has brought us distraughtly close to death. Now more than ever are we wanting to reconnect with our near and dear ones. Now more than ever are we becoming social animals that we were always meant to be – bringing with it all other social postils such as ‘no man being an island’, etc. with it.

So, I am back.

All my friends sent me ‘Likes’ upon my return – which made me feel good. And now I want to post, in fact my fingers are itching to post – a trivial message, a photo of a dog or hills or similarly boring stuff, some feel-good video, a much-forwarded funny article. Ladies and Gentlemen, the virtual me is raring to go. I want to scroll down years of updates and read about who has been doing what with whom, how the world survived without my inputs, etc. I am being engulfed by overwhelming attack of FOMO.

Then there is this friend who upon my return quietly remarked “Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much.”

Have you ever pricked a balloon and seen it deflating? That would aptly describe my state. What? What do you mean by saying that I didn’t miss anything? Did the world stop moving when I was away? Did everybody pack up and go to networking wilderness? Don’t you know that my job keeps me away at sea for months and I have no way to know what’s happening in the world? Don’t mess with me by saying that I missed nothing. What do you mean by saying I didn’t miss anything?

The inner ‘me’ however was more interested in knowing if I was missed. Did anyone miss me? Anyone? Hello?

The celebrated author Robin Sharma wrote a book titled ‘Who will cry when you die?’. Some excerpts from the book –

“We live in an age when we have forgotten what life is all about. We can easily put a person on the Moon, but we have trouble walking across the street to meet a new neighbor”.

“We have e-mail, fax machines and digital phones so that we can stay connected and yet we live in a time where human beings have never been less connected”.

“We have lost touch with our humanity”.

“We have lost touch with our purpose”.

“We have lost sight of the things that matter the most”.

My friend is right. In the end I guess it doesn’t matter at all. There were other ways to connect with people. And if you have been away then it’s okay. Life goes on.

“What about the hacked account?”, you may ask.

Dang! you had to bring it up.

I guess I’ll have to deal with it. Here’s a thought though – as I haven’t been active on FB for all these years, maybe, just maybe, the hack may not happen again. But you know what, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if it happens again.