Neha Tiwari Pvt. Ltd.

Last night, as I sat in my garage for a few moments after arriving from a movie, I felt as if life truly does come full circle. Uncontrollable in nature and with no individual will involved. As the next minute passed, I had an afterthought: or, does life just go back to square one?


It’s a common phrase that there is a fine line between love and hate. I am confident that there is a closer relationship between even more antonyms;good/evil, bloated/hollow, war/peace. For each thing to exist, there has to be a recognition of the antithesis. Some sort of acknowledgment of the bizarro version to the capacity in which you currently live. Many westernized perceptions suggest that the Chinese character/word for crisis contains the symbols for opportunity and danger. Upon research, I’ve learned that this theory has been controversial, but there is an inherent truth;opposites can compliment and even fully encompass each other.

One year ago, almost to the date, I was at the end of my [longest] relationship and my first [real] job. I was alone on a path of untrodden territory and unsure of what my next move should be. I was lucky that things worked out favorably on both fronts; I moved on with my chin up. Best of all, I started this blog, which has been a blessing on so many fronts.

This leads me back to my initial query: have I come full circle, or am I back to square one? Or, is there a third method? Perhaps I’m not cut out to be a circle, or a square…maybe I just want to be a linear line, a ray that’s moving upwards from it’s roots or starting point.

I know in my heart of hearts that everything happens for a reason, but it’s also hard to forget the past. My mother has told me that sometimes we think of the past if we aren’t content with the present. I believe this to be the truth and have faith that all epiphanies are rooted in difficulty, frustration, and doubt. It’s also one of the reasons I love the film Vanilla Sky. The character portrayed by Jason Lee speaks of how the sweet isn’t as sweet without the sour. Going back to eastern philosophy, there is the Taoist Ying to the yang, the Buddhist middle path of moderation, and in Kaballah, The Tree of Life. This is the universal law of duality, a direct strikeout of singularity.

I still feel as if I am not that girl from one year ago, so I haven’t come full circle, or am not back to square one. I’m in love with my life and content with all I have. I know that the next step is to move forward, with pride. My dream has never changed and I want to be in production, writing. I live and breathe the stuff and it is my calling. However, this time it’s going to be different. Going along with my newfound “ray model” I’m going to go forward, and with full force. Just watch me.

This week, I got a very strange messege in my Facebook inbox:

Bad grammar aside, there was a legitimate claim here. Basically, a Delhi-based girl on Orkut, a popular social network in Brazil and India, is using my picture as her very own!

As I have mentioned before, I have a number of friends on dating sites. On Shaadi.com, Jdate, etc. they often watermark the images for authenticity. Although the altered identity may not be such a big deal on a social networking site as a dating site, it’s still an odd feeling to come across yourself in fake form.

Should contemporary social networks start adding more protection from identity grabbers? At some point,Friendster must have thought about this urge to steal photos off of someones profile.

With the added ability to literally “grab” the photos of your friends, Friendster not only enables but somewhat encourages this strange behavior. To their credit, you can see who has “grabbed” your photos and if it’s your creepy ex boyfriend–be worried. I currently have this disabled on my account, and would rather not be part of anyone’s profile album but my own.

Even without built-in snagging abilities, trusty ‘right click+save image as’ works just as well. My albums on Facebook are private, except for my profile pictures which I would not want to make private, even if given the option. However, that is where my photo was lifted from and re-purposed.

More than anything, I just think this whole incident is strange. I mean, why me? Why not Jessica Alba or Aishwarya Rai? It reminds me so much (to a lesser extent) of “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” Plus, she apparently has like 200+ friends, which is funny since I have like one Orkut friend. Trust me, it’s fine–I do not use Orkut unless I have to research something. Anyway, Ms. Chopra, if you are reading this please stop pretending to be me. I am sure you have a great picture of yourself that you can use!

My last blog post was on April 28, 2008. My last pownce was 22 hours ago. I updated my Facebook status message 3 hours ago. And my latest tweet was 1 minute ago.

With all this up-to-the-minute information of what I am doing or how I feel, I have to wonder if personal blogs are becoming a thing of the past.

Using sites like Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and to some extent Myspace/Facebook status messages keeps everyone in the know of how you feel, and what you are doing. Your friends can also respond with comments on your post (as seen on Pownce), or reply via a symbol trigger (@ on Twitter, ! on Pownce). Long-form blogs serve the same purpose, except allow a longer rant, and more in depth self-plugging abilities. So what’s the point of updating your blog when you can literally post the entire thing on Pownce? Is it simply aesthetic or RSS related?

Many of my peers and friends have made careers based on their blogs. Religiously posting their latest discovery or review, videos, etc. they have garnered great visibility with their own dot com. But even those folks seem to be moving towards twittering more, and Wordpressing less.

Like any new form of communication, or technology for that matter, the “old way” starts to diminish as more and more people jump onto the more convenient bandwagon of their choice. I do feel that micro-blogging is at its root more accessible. With services like twhirl, ping.fm,brightkite, twinkle, one can essentially mini-blog from anywhere at anytime, to more than one micro-facet. Services like those mentioned keeps popping up like your backyards’ gophers; there’s a new pile of dirt almost every time you look. The laptop-cafe culture of the late 90s is dying; the time of the smarphone API or dumbphone texting service is now.

Some may say that I am in a bubble, living in the very tech forward San Francisco, working for a new media company at that. On that same token, new ideas and ways of life are given birth here and spread to the rest of the nation like wildfire. The second sure sign of a paradigm shift: A number of people who add or follow me on these micro-blogs are under the age of 20.

Will Typepad, Wordpress, Blogger and the like go the way of the Do Do bird? Have you noticed this trend or are a purveyor of it yourself?