en·vy
n. pl. en·vies
1. a. A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
b. The object of such feeling: Their new pool made them the envy of their neighbors.
2. Malevolence.
I like to think that I am a nice person. As far as my friends and family are concerned, and even people I don't really know, I usually share their joy when good things come their way, and even when I don't share their joy, I am in a happy medium: basically, it doesn't affect me either way.
In any case, some time ago I wrote a post about how easy it was to spy on people these days. About how sites such as MySpace, Hi5, A Small World, WAYM, Google earth and even blogs give access to people's lives and allow us to assess them, all the while these same people are the ones inadvertedly giving users permission to do so.
Well, I am guilty of all of the things above: I put my life out there for the world to see but I do that in exchange for access to other people's lives. And I look at them and I flat out spy. I don't know what I am looking for though because 99.9% of the time I just wanna' see a different perspective.
It is the other .1% of the time that is dangerous. Again, I don't know what I'm looking for but I want to find SOMETHING. Anything. And the sad thing is that this .1% of my time is spent in particular profiles.
Today I found something. Nothing major, just a couple of pictures. But for the first time in my life I felt jealousy. I asked myself why was that not me in those pictures? Why did they have access to that and I didn't? Why do I not have the right address?
Why? Why? Why?
and suddenly I felt like I wasn't good enough for humanity. Like the things I have mean nothing because it could be better. I don't know what was going on in that picture, which was incidentally the picture of someone I have never met. All I saw was a situation that I wanted to be a part of and I couldn't because I am here. And I was jealous. And I felt envy. And I don't like myself when I feel those things. Not at all. It makes me wanna puke.
So I think I am done spying. I am too good for that and I don't like myself when I feel like I am less, especially for reasons that in the end are stupid.
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1 comment:
I try to avoid spying, even to the point of not using anything that tracks reader info beyond a hit counter. I used one of those "Who links to me" java tools before and found a web site of strangers accusing me of being a stalker because I once left a friendly and bland comment on one of their friend's sites. Info like that I don't need.
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