curiouser&curiouser

{some of the original sketches and words that brought alice to life... via the british library}

the other day i had my very first massage.
i had thought that it would be awkward,
or at least that my mind wouldn't be able to focus on anything but a stranger touching me,
but oh, how wrong i was.

it was like opening an entirely different mental world while i was laying there.

i was in the middle of my thoughts
when i glanced to the wall and saw her occupational license.
i started thinking about the girl
and her story
and her life
and my immediate thought was to remember her name and look her up on facebook later.

subsequent thoughts were:
"how sad is that, that i just want to facebook everyone i meet?"
"i wonder what her profile photo is..."
"what is the world coming to that we can just find just about anyone with just two clicks?"
"what if she doesn't have a facebook and i can't know her story?"
"why do i want to know her story?"

facebook gets a bad rap.
the phrase "facebook stalking" is sort of a household kinda thing now.
isn't that just so negative?

i mean, we live in public.
we love to stay connected and share things that make us happy.
we love the freedom to say what we want, post what we want, contribute to something...
which is a very positive way to view it.
i love in the fault in our stars,
when they are in the cab in amsterdam
and the cab driver says,
"some tourists think amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom.
and in freedom, most people find sin."

that stuck with me.


as my mind wandered further,
i started thinking about why i don't like being touched,
which led to thoughts about my childhood,
which made me wonder why i used to love being alone
and now i can't seem to stand it,
to the point where i don't even like running a simple errand by myself.
at this moment, my masseuse cleared her throat and i became acutely aware of her existence.
i found myself wanting to ask her all kinds of questions about her career and the weird things she encounters.

and then i found myself saying,
"ayley, you're creepy... you want to "facebook stalk" everyone, even cashiers and waiters and people your cousin went on a date with one time. how weird are you?"

but is that weird?
if yes, why?

the phrase "curiosity killed the cat" has always been mildly upsetting to me,
as it states that curiosity has deadly consequences
and people ought to just be minding their own business all the time.
but why?
that strikes me as a little archaic.
why can't we all be connected and share the world?
that means
being curious is the wrong thing to be.

well, what's wrong with being curious, huh?
i realize there is a point of oversharing, of too much
and there is a point where curiosity becomes just plain being nosy,
but...
i mean in this day and age, people tell their stories on the internet every day.
people share bits and pieces of what make them up,
things that inspire or or make them laugh or utterly irk them.
people have that freedom. people can share what they have to say.
people also have the freedom and the privilege to view what people have to say.

people have wonderful, interesting, beautiful things to say
and i love hearing it.

and i know that people watchers from the 1950s who sat on benches in central park watching people walk by, wondering, "what is their story?"
would be drooling all over the internet today.

so at what point is that freedom "creepy"?
{i hate that word... unless we are talking about forests, ghosts, and witches}
does it depend on intent? on why you're listening to someone's story?
when are you oversharing? is that a person to person decision?

i realized,
that the reason i love facebook, blogs, twitter, listening to stories, reading, watching tv, movies, people watching...
the reason i don't want to be alone, and the reason i want to share things and see what the reaction is, and the reason i love listening...

is because i am a curious person

who likes to follow things all the way down the rabbit hole
and see what i find,
because i love life. because i love learning. i love seeing what other people are choosing to do with their days. i love seeing what inspires and what irks people. i love seeing what people have to say, even down to the simplest of things...
in the absolutely purest of ways.
it drives me to be a better person. it inspires me and connects me to the world around me,
and i love it
because i love being connected.
it allows me to feel happiness, sadness, wonder, and love
and i love it
because i love love.


i'm exaggerating myself a little here to make a point

as in,
i don't just sit on facebook all day looking at other people's lives...

as well as putting myself out there in stating a quality about myself that i KNOW is easy to criticize
but,
i am curious about the beautiful lives of people in this world. 

if that's wrong,
then i don't want to be right.

thoughts?