Reinventing yourself is one of life's privileges - and many people take
advantage of it. There are some people who keep popping up as different
people: one, who was at school and university with me, has metamorphosed
from a hippy to a punk and then to a hooray henry all before he was twenty
four. Since then he has been an oil driller and an architect. That was up
until ten years ago since when I have lost touch - but I would put money on
some new incarnation
If Facebook had been around during his serpentine career would he have been
able to pull it off? Would he have left too big a footprint behind him to
be able to make the changes in friends and contacts that such a career
would demand? While I find the intrusion of Google and Facebook vaguely
creepy, my children don't. Nor do they see the dangers of a very public
record of modern lives making a later reinvention at least much more
difficult.
But then they don't think about this sort of thing very much. When you're
eighteen, thirty seems an eon away and someone of fifty only vaguely
different from someone of eighty. They may live to regret Facebook - but
it's too much fun to worry about now.
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