"It’s been quite a year for us. (My wife has) transitioned from Secretary to Vice President of the XXXXX and her practice has been as busy as she can handle. I mixed my seventh season of XXXXXX, two features, several commercials and a documentary. As we write this, I’m 125,000 words into writing my first novel and (my wife) is 39 weeks into growing our first daughter (we’ve narrowed it down to three or four names). We’re extremely thankful for our good friends and good fortune - we wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, from our family to yours. May 2013 be fun, fruitful and fantastic for us all."

That's our christmas letter this year, in 14-point text on the back of a 5x7 card photo I took last year, that I had to ride 2,000 miles on a motorcycle and pay $2500 to take. It's costing us about a dollar for every person we reach out to. When it matters, you focus on the broad strokes.

One issue with Facebook is that some people think every little thing matters, and some people focus on the broad strokes. Another issue is that you are choosing to interact with people that you would never have chosen to interact with before.

I posted this this morning. It contains a great quote: "Facebook fixates the present as always a future past." Photos of trivial events become mementos when viewed twenty years from now; by arranging everything into a "timeline" we automatically associate anything we say or do with historical record. However, most of the snapshots of twenty years ago are only relevant to those in them. Facebook presents an opportunity - and an example to follow - to add to the historical record NOW.

There have been a number of witty jibes over the past thousand years that basically boil down to "Hell is a place where everyone is a novelist." The bottom line is that very few people really have much to say most of the time but with Facebook, we're all stuck at a party making inane conversation with people we barely know about things we barely care about AND WE CAN NEVER LEAVE. And, should we wish to have the court recorder wind the testimony back, we can see what everyone said, as they said it, from now until the end of time.

Everything ever said by everyone who ever mattered to you even a little bit cannot help but be inane and soul-killing... If you let it. I have friends, and I have Facebook friends. I have never once had a substantive discussion with a friend on Facebook, and when I interact with my real friends, I pretend Facebook doesn't exist. To no one's surprise, those whom I interact with the most are those who are on Facebook the least... it's as if we've all individually decided that life is too important. So even if we had something important to say, we wouldn't say it there... posting a life-changing event in amongst the Instagrams of yesterday's breakfast and tomorrow's craft project can't help but diminish what we say, so why say it?

I have, amongst my facebook friends, four felons, two heroin addicts and a convicted murderer. They are not smart people. I enjoy not interacting with them. I also have amongst my facebook friends three of the top screenwriters in Hollywood and a director whose work I find inspiring. I enjoy the opportunity to interact with them when I can. And I have, amongst my facebook friends, several sound supervisors that have hired me for tens of thousands of dollars worth of work. I am thankful for the opportunity to interact with them because getting my name in front of them often earns my daily bread. One thing I do NOT do is pretend they are a homogeneous group, no matter how much Facebook wants to insist they're all my "friends."

Facebook is what you make of it. You will find mouth breathers that shouldn't breed. That does not mean you have to humor them.

Do your college liberal friend a favor - put her on ignore for a while. You'll like her better.