There’s a wildfire raging in San Diego – if Zack has to evacuate, we’ll know soon.

Reading, relentlessly and quickly and not with much depth, books found around the place: THE GAME. ADVENTURE CAPITALIST. That book about only working 4 hours a day. There’s a style of literature of acquisitions, of experiences – cumulative value – pickups, countries, etc. How much, how many. I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of it lately. People who have traveled all over, or slept with a ridiculous number of people. It’s like friending. Brief connections. Ticking off a list. If visiting another country is no more meaningful than picking up someone in a bar (not that both can’t convey a certain set of meanings) then no wonder there are so many (mis)understandings between people and between countries. It’s like friending. Like social networking sites. If it’s that easy to do, maybe it’s not worth doing. And if your experience of other countries is just going there and flinging around American dollars (there was some quote in the 4hrs/day book about “Things get fun when you earn dollars, spend pesos, and pay your employees in rupees” that horrified me) then you’re not experiencing them. You’re colonizing.

Of course, there is something to be said for just connecting with a variety of people, or countries. Something so much, that people spend over half their day on Facebook. It feels meaningful. And it’s a quantifiable sense of achievement. But real connection comes from more than “friending” other nations, other people. Friendship isn’t a verb – it’s an adverb – it’s how you do the thing you’re doing.

I’m thinking of a woman I met at the Doug Fir in Portland, a blonde post office employee drinking a margarita, who told me she had spent 3 years in the Peace Corps in Nepal. She came back to America, got married, and 3 years later her marriage is over. Now she wants to return. The time in Nepal feels more meaningful to her than her time here. She was able to see her work manifested in helping to build a school. She went there to teach English and realized that doing that was less helpful than building infrastructure. Rotary sent her books for the school.

I’m not hating on Myspace, or Facebook, or on tourist travel. But I do think there are more or less meaningful ways of connecting with people, and with countries – and the most meaningful take more time. I just want the friends that America and Americans are networked to in the superficial sense to be more closely connected.