The Wu Wei of Facebook

Andrew Sullivan dug up this quote from a long NYT story on young people and the distractions of electronic social networking and other technological gizmos:

“I know I can read a book, but then I’m up and checking Facebook. Facebook is amazing because it feels like you’re doing something and you’re not doing anything. It’s the absence of doing something, but you feel gratified anyway...”

Students of Taoism will immediately recognize the resonance here with the concept of wu wei - 無 為 - which is sometimes translated as "doing nothing," but might be better rendered as "nothing's own doing."  And that sense of gratification mentioned at the end there - it almost sounds like Daodejing 48 (Lau translation):

In the pursuit of learning one knows more every day;
In the pursuit of the way one does less every day.
One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.

It is always through not meddling that the empire is won.
Should you meddle, then you are not equal to the task of winning the empire.

Is it a kind of gratification we attain when we realize that in doing nothing there is nothing that is undone: 無為而無不為?  Maybe "gratification" is the wrong word, not really in keeping with the spirit of the Daodejing.  In any event, could Facebook be a means of connecting not only with friends, but with Way as well?  I doubt it, but it does seem to be about doing nothing..... and maybe those wayward youth will ultimately win the empire...

Comments

[Carl]

Hmm, I may have a different interpretation of Taoism, but surely the Lao/Chuang approach to Facebook would be like WOPR's approach to nuclear war: "A strange game—The only winning move is not to play."