it’s one thing to do something because you love it.
it’s another thing to do something so you can tell other people that you’re doing it (facebook has augmented this urge but it seems like people have always postured for each other in this way).  maybe not JUST to tell people, maybe you love it, too, but if the primary feeling is pride and excitement that people will think you’re this or that sort of person because of what you’re doing… facebook.
and then, there’s doing something so you can tell yourSELF that you do it/have done it (facebook of the mind).
I woke up the other day in my bunk and wasn’t ready to face the world so I thought I would read some.  a friend sent me a book which is a collection of interviews with famous writers from the paris review, d.h. lawrence, robert frost, henry miller, etc.  it’s pretty great I’m just reading them one at a time.  so anyway I started reading this interview with aldous huxley.  it was very interesting for the first few pages and then I did the thing where you read a whole page and realize you haven’t comprehended a word cos your mind is elsewhere.  so I went back and read the page again and then turned it and read the next page without comprehending.  and went back and reread it and then read a third page without comprehending. 
and I was just beginning to go back over the third page when I thought to myself, who am I doin this for?  I’m not a student… I don’t have a paper to write… I don’t even have a dinner party to go to, at which to discuss the aldous huxley interview.  and I realized what I was kind of doing was, I wanted to be able to say to myself, “this morning I read an interview with aldous huxley”.  that I am not a waste of a mind.  that I am inquisitive and good.  isn’t that weird?
facebook of the mind is powerful and insidious.  I honestly can’t tell how much of what I do is motivated by it.  does anyone feel the same?