Adaptation makes you shiny

Historically, I've thought of myself as someone who has a hard time with change. When I moved to a new house (less than half a mile away from my old one!) in 9th grade, it took more than a year for me to unpack all the boxes.

I hold on to sentimental keepsakes . . . a piece of bark that found its way into my shoe on the night of a first kiss, a mardigras mask from a party, a clay ear that I sculpted for a Vietnam play that was meant to have been cut from the head of a Vietnamese soldier by a sociopathic boy. Yeah, I still have that.

To some degree my novel is about the fear of change.

Last year, a friend told me he was impressed with how resilient I am. I listened. I sort of took it to heart. It made me feel good that he thought so. But, still, I thought, I'm more afraid of change than I'd like to be. I don't adapt as quickly as I should.

Then Facebook changed its layout.

Turns out that compared to most of my friends, I am highly adaptable. Weirdly, freakishly adaptable. Unflappable. Unphased. Inhuman, almost, in my lack of caring about the minutiae of how this totally awesome, FREE service looks.

I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if everyone who protested the FB layout change protested something more important, if everyone who voted thumbs up or down on the new layout sent one letter to a public official instead, if everybody who took the time to compose a whiny status update took a walk in the sun for twenty minutes first.

Come on people, I love you dearly, but man up.