In a society so entranced with information consumption, often in the form of photos and quick phrases or status updates, Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) has got to be the newest gem-company of late 2011, early 2012.

The site is a social network of virtual pinboards displaying images of things you like from anywhere on the web that can be organized and shared between friends and strangers. It can be used in a very broad sense, just showing categories of things you enjoy for your home and in recipes, fashion, art, etc. More specifically it can be used to plan events, like weddings or holiday parties. And for the most specific “pinner”, it can be used as an inspirational tool. For example a graphic designer might make 5-10 boards, each with their own category of inspiration for their designs: paper, texture, color, fonts, etc.

This site is great for each person for individual reasons, but I think all of us pinners can agree upon these claims to fame:

1) Their marketing is smart. Just like Gmail, back in the day (ha), Pinterest creates sense of longing to be “one of the club” by not letting anyone join upon the click of a mouse. People either have to be invited to join the site via a friend or from the creators of the site themselves (after a short wait…). There may be some technical reasoning for this that is beyond my IT understanding, possibly to manage site traffic (no clue on that). But I do know that after I put in a request to be a member, I thought about when they’d extend the invite at least 3 times over the consecutive 5-7 day wait. A sense of anticipation is an exciting feeling that is hard to come in the viral realm these days. Hell, I think toasting a piece of bread is tedious—not that I’m proud of that. It is what it is.

2) Everyone can tell an unspoken and unwritten story about themselves. The more I explore peoples’ pinboards on the site, the more I’m intrigued about what I never knew about that person, or conversely, I enjoy seeing traits and facets of the personalities of my friends in photos that are of random people, places, products, what have you. It’s like reading a stranger’s blog, but instead of reading we understand who they are through images—very timely! There’s a sense of mysteriousness as well because these aren’t photos of them personally. They’re photos of their interests. (My mind conjures ideas of future Pinterest virtual resumes…far off?? Only time will tell.) Really though, it’s a way for people to connect on a deep level. I know, I know—it’s photos of seemingly distant “things,” but behind peoples’ images are their lives in the past, present and future. Example board of the past: 80s Styles I Used to Rock. Example board of the present: In my Kitchen. Example board of the future: Places I Have to See… Gifts I’d Love to Receive… the list goes on. 

3) They’ve synced with Facebook and Twitter. ‘Nough said. You can access your entire “friends” network by signing into Pinterest via your respective accounts. Although you may want to turn off the “update my pins automatically” option, since once you start pinning it’s hard to stop and before you know it, everyone hates you because you’re clogging their newsfeeds.

4) Sorry Droid users—this app is Apple only. Just like Instagram (one of the only apps that keeps iPhones cooler than droids in my opinion), Pinterest caters to the Apple crowd. Instagram recently (again) refused to become an Android operable application. Wonder if Pinterest will stay fervently loyal or open up to both sides? Either way, being available only to Apple does raise the iProducts’ bar a little higher; every really cool, unique app does.

5) (Just because I like ending things with odd numbers…) It’s easy. It requires hardly any effort at all, again, timely (hate to say). When you come across something on Amazon for instance that you like, they have a little “Pin It” button that sits right in your bookmarks bar, and you just click that, select the image and pin it to the board you’d like. Simple as that. GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS!!!

Downfalls??

It gives anyone who is trying to accomplish anything else in their day, what I like to call, bi-polar productivity. You either are extremely motivated by it, so much so that you can’t stay on one project you’re so excited to move on to the next, or you just pin all day.This is not technically a downfall because that’s just how the world is now with the evolution of social networks. It’s up to us to manage all the “other” choices of activities we could be doing while working.

They’re still a new site, so some things are not totally streamlined yet. In the app on my iTouch for example, a lot of the pins are repeated, and for some reason I can’t access as many pins on that device as I can on my Macbook.

On the whole though…I think this could be a very powerful, bright company in the future. All I’d like to know is when can I buy stock?

My boards, right here

So often—and if you live in Chicago, more often than not—the first news we hear in the morning is disheartening stories of shootings and street violence: young men shooting each other, an innocent person caught in crossfire, and more and more those innocent victims are young children. Police are assaulted and killed, and in return, they shoot other supposed non-violent bystanders who they thought were assaulting them.

The vicious cycle of violence, in Chicago particularly, seems to be at an all-time high. And it also seems that the youth are getting bolder when outwardly displaying their anger and apathy towards other people and themselves. For example, I talked to a Buddhist who lives in Chicago proper and he explained that on the rougher streets in the city, kids no older than 5-7 years are walking around the neighborhood at 2 a.m. with no adults in sight. Another member who used to be a police officer told stories about entering homes where there were young kids, home alone with absolutely nothing at all in their house—no food, no furniture…literally nothing. These are things I and I think many other people don’t see on a daily basis. It’s easy for me to forget where the roots of violence stem from which perpetuate this cycle when I only hear the stories on the news of the physical violence but don’t see the internal hidden strife in my personal environment.  

Yesterday, sitting in a round-table discussion for about five hours, I was fortunate enough to be apart of an amazing dialogue on the topics of peace relations and Victory Over Violence backed with the ideals of Buddhist humanism. 

One of the most profound Nichiren Buddhist concepts is that of dependent origination which explains that every person, every living being is connected to each other and that we are all connected to our environment. In fact, every person we know, currently in our environments, was actually chosen by us in the remote past (not an easy concept to grasp at first read). 

When we really live based on this concept, it makes it much harder to participate in acts of violence against others. 

In breaking down the meaning of violence, of course we think initially about war, shootings, beatings, etc. But thinking deeper than just physical violence will lead us to examine a root of violence many of us are participating in on a regular basis: passive violence. Arun Gandhi proclaimed, “it is passive violence that fuels the fire of physical violence, which means if we wish to put out the fire of physical violence we have to cut off the fuel supply.“ 

Each of us was asked to answer the question: What forms of passive violence have you used and experienced? Passive violence is not limited to, but includes: criticism, slander, bullying, gossiping, manipulation, judging, closed-mindedness, apathy, racism, sexism, arrogance, negativity, name-calling, sarcasm aimed at others’ expenses, self-doubting, self-loathing, holding grudges, road rage, selfishness, being over-controlling… One person even mentioned silence/ignoring others as a passive form of violence. Another brought up wastefulness. And still further, someone talked about jealousy and comparing ourselves to others as acts against ourselves. Anyone read tabloids or People Magazine?! …me either ;)

We all acknowledged that we take part in a handful of these on a regular basis, but we also shared which of these we had purged from our lives based on doing our “human revolution” through our practices as well. It’s pretty easy for most people not to beat someone up for their laptop considering that’s not an acceptable way to behave, but many of us find it quite easy—even find it hard to stop—participating in the above forms of passive violence on a daily basis.

We as human beings and humanistic thinkers need to examine and change on a deep level some of the things we do so easily to transform society. Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist philosopher, Educator and Peacebuilder, says, “The power to move the times always comes from achieving a transformation right where you are,” (World Tribune, June 10). Buddhism teaches us to take responsibility for every aspect of our lives and surroundings. It also teaches us that no matter what, we can absolutely change our circumstances. 

We each agreed we need to make small changes to see any larger change, which obviously doesn’t manifest over night. Based on Gandhi Sr.’s words, “We have to be the change we wish to see. Unless we change individually, no one is going to change collectively,” we all decided to take the next 30 days to change something we do regularly that contributes to passive violence. 

I’m grateful that I’m even able to make the active choice not to participate in passive violence though. So many others don’t have the choice, and it’s those people who need the change the most.