Friends, let me tell you. I have found the answer. The answer is simple: Disconnect. Detach. Cut the cord. Then you will find freedom. Suddenly you will have all the time in the world to make five-cheese macaroni, run a ¼ marathon, reconnect with that girl you met at Nick and Eddie … whatever it is you want to do in the depths of your soul. You could even see your WOW gameplay improve.

How did I earn this wisdom? Like every other prophet before me, I made a sacrifice. Yes, I gave up Facebook. It was hard, but I knew I had to do it. I was starting to spend hours looking at baby birthday party albums by people I don’t even remember from high school. I was arguing about politics in Iran with someone whose middle name, apparently, is MacDouggie. Clearly, for me, it was no longer “a place for friends.” No. It had become a place for “striking out on chat.”

I needed to clear my head and figure out who my real friends were, who I was. Facebook had made me all socially isolated or something, my only ability to express my emotions, which, I assure you, are deep, suddenly turned into three characters: ; – ).

First, I went through my friend list and “unfriended” everyone who I can’t remember physically touching, skin to skin. Let me tell you, there was a lot of extraneous baggage in that friend list. My network was big. It was hefty. And boy did it feel good to do that. Once I had reduced my friend list by 100, I had the euphoric sensation similar to an orgasm brought on by a circus mermaid. Oh yeah.

But that wasn’t enough. It was kind of like going to the desert and living off of cactus. You can’t go back to Burger King after that, can you? No. You want a leaner, more real kind of cactus.  So I quit Facebook. After leaving a long, philosophical note explaining why I had made my choice and bidding my “friends” adieu, I canceled my account.

What did I do in that week? Well, first I observed some ants. Have you ever looked at ants? They are like a mini society. There’s lots of deep stuff there. Did I tell you I was living alone in a cabin in the woods? I did that too. I recorded an album and gave it a French moniker. And finally, I got arrested for civil disobedience.

It was only in the middle of the night, in the cold clamour of a jail cell, listening to men butt sex one another, that I realized I had to go back. I had hit rock bottom. I had seen who I was, as an entity, not who I was as a facebook.com/___me___. DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE? But what I realized was that the people, my real friends, needed me on their Facebook. They needed to click through my album, to live chat television with me, and to post links to funny pictures of cats on my wall.

So I went back, more noble, and a little bit more wise. But let me tell you, that week, the week I quit Facebook, was the best week of my life.