I can't help but laugh when reminiscing about the days when internet was a sacred luxury. When those fifteen minutes on CompuServe were simply the fifteen greatest moments of my life. A cosmos where I could indulge in an intense game of Tetris, key in hotmail.com, and, wait for it… check my email. After hours of begging, I'd finally be granted fifteen minutes of cutting edge fun on a computer which took up only about three-quarters of the desk. Well, ten-and-a-half minutes of fun to be precise once, of course, I deducted the four-and-a-half minutes it took for the computer to suffer a seizure while emitting nightmarish sounds I could only assume to be aliens invading cyberspace.

Has Facebook become the modern day identity crisis?It's safe to say we've evolved a great deal since then. Our computers are finally cured of the convulsions, we're getting our full fifteen minutes of Tetris and we're carrying live, face-to-face conversations with people all over the globe. What's more is, we can fold the entire world wide web into the back pocket of our jeans. For G‑d's sake!

But we're not impressed. We're not wowed or enchanted. This is life as we know it. We can't imagine the world any other way. No, we won't imagine it any other way. We've been shocked into a syndrome where if it's not nano, it's colossal, and if it's not high speed, it's painstakingly slow. Email is the new letter, text is the new phone call and writing on the wall is the new Hallmark card.

Welcome to the age of Google, the era of YouTube and the reign of Facebook. Welcome to the homes we've built in a galaxy far from street signs and traffic lights, where the real estate is marked by icons and cookies. A world where what you see is what you get, including the additional play by play of every thrilling moment of our days, live footage from our nights and evidence from our action-packed adventures. Leave a message in my inbox, send me a virtual holiday card, graffiti my wall. You're invited to my home any old time you'd like, sans the polite knock. Flip through my photo albums for your entertainment and should you still feel bored, my journal is available for midday reading. It's labeled "Notes" if you'd like to leave your comments on the intimate details of my life.

We seem to wear our persona on our screens, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. So I can't help but wonder: Are we ultimately losing touch with what really makes us click?

As far as Facebook goes, this is the extent of me: I was born in November. I have green eyes and black hair. My hobbies are shopping, dancing, and riding rollercoasters. And I like Oprah.

But is that really me? Could that be all? One picture frozen in time that stares at my 326 friends and begs them to confirm my existence? Am I so truly single-facetted that I can condense all eighteen or so years of my life into two paragraphs titled "About Me"?

In a world where birthday gifts can be copied and pasted, an irritating friend can be deleted with just a swift click of the mouse, and any knowledge of current events comes from a place called "News Feed," I have to question: Has Facebook become the modern day identity crisis?

Just like that, personalities are getting swallowed into the vast, echoing walls of cyberspaceYou see, on Facebook, you and I are virtually the same. We might have similar interests, share the same friends, attend the same parties. We might even have the same pout. We are exactly alike, separated only by the name above our photo. Character and individuality seem to be getting zapped like "pop-ups" and, just like that, personalities are getting swallowed into the vast, echoing walls of cyberspace, never seen again.

Yes, this new era has cut long distances into fractions but, essentially, it has created a distance that can't be reached by planes or webcams. Not a distance between me and you. But a distance between you and you. A distance that can only be eliminated by a search engine significantly more sophisticated than Google – a real, honest soul search.

The search for the real you.

Who are you?? If you click past your name, de-accessorize your application-ridden page, and zoom in beyond your face, who will you find beneath it all? When push comes to shove, when statuses are obsolete, and Facebook is out-trended by, say, Twitter, who will you be then? Who were you before cell phones, through the days of spasmodic computers dancing to the tune of CompuServe, and through fads like AIM, MySpace and the coveted Facebook? Who is the person behind your computer screen? Who is the intrinsic you?

In the end, physicality is transient, emotions are fleeting, and all sign of PC-related bliss vanishes the moment you click the "x" on the right-hand corner of the page. The only thing left when you flick off the monitor and shut down your Windows, is your soul.

But the soul is so abstract, and often tricky to relate to. The terms are foreign, the anatomy unfamiliar, the entire concept is somewhat difficult to stuff into your mind. Perhaps the reason we find so much comfort in Facebook is the simplicity. The ability to classify ourselves within the clean, clear-cut walls. In the blue and white boxes, you are who you say you are. You're figured out. Your soul, in stark contrast, is intangible. Ungraspable and incredibly elusive. You can't see or touch it. You can't chase your soul and lock it in a browser. Suddenly you are indefinable. Suddenly your identifying measurements have escalated from a 4X6 photo to a number much too large to process. And when you turn around, you find Eternity trailing behind your beaten Converses. You are so much, it starts to make your head spin. You literally have the entire world folded into your back pocket.

You don't just have the New York, New York network; you have InfinityAnd that, my friend, you will come to realize, is the upside of possessing a soul. The sky is the limit. No, the entire universe and beyond. Take advantage. Take advantage of the extra features, the timelessness, the fact that it can never get stale like the other has-beens that come and go. Accept G‑d's invitation to attend Eternity. The bouncer checks your ID at the door. "Do you have a soul?" they ask. It's the most exclusive club on West 27th. So exclusive, all the celebrities are clamoring to buy one.

A soul is like a string of zeros. 000,000,000,000. Zeros that are nice to look at and are faintly reminiscent of great wealth but, let's face it, have the value of, well, zero. If you would, however, place a single "1" before them, you would become ridiculously rich.

Your soul allows you to utilize those G‑d-given zeros. By tapping into this newfound energy, you now have the unbelievable capacity to break out of your natural tendencies and the ability to make things you once thought impossible, possible. This is an awesome responsibility, but a sacred luxury.

So go ahead and search your PC. Behold, in a hidden folder, you will find an encrypted file. Decrypt it. Let it unravel in its natural form, uninhibited and in Times New Roman. Let it run wild. Let it let you do things you never thought you could. Go ahead: become the spiritual equivalent of Bill Gates.

But know: Truly getting to know the G‑dly spark that rages inside you hardly takes a nanosecond. It takes a lifetime. Take it one day at a time. Enjoy the journey. Revel in the knowledge. Bathe in the light. Take pictures (be sure to upload them!). And remember, you aren't limited to the one-dimensional picture pasted on your profile page. You are infinitely dimensional. Because you have the dimensions of G‑d coiling within you. You don't just have the New York, New York network; you have Infinity.

And that's more than Tom of MySpace can say.

So hang up your spacesuit. Why float through cyberspace when you can fly through Reality? Shop designer, but don't get fooled by the knockoff version of you in the display window. Never sacrifice eternal worth for provisional validation. And as you type, upload and post, bear in mind: Comments are just comments. Pictures don't have mouths. And you don't get to keep the virtual gifts you get for your birthday. Facebook is never gonna be as good as real life. And really, any place where you can throw a sheep at someone ought not be taken too seriously.

Log out, click back to reality.