John Doe

I went home for the weekend a few weeks ago and found myself with some time to kill and with no desire to get out of bed, so I went through the recommendations of shows that Hulu had selected for me and came across a show called "John Doe." The show is about a man who woke up on an island of the coast of Washington with no recollection of who he was, but he instead had knowledge of everything else there was to know in the world -- names in the phone book, capitals of countries, and every other trivial (and important) fact you could think of. He was very analytical because of this, and helps the police solve many cases. In the most recent episode I watched, John Doe went on a "Most Wanted" show to find out if anyone was missing him or knew anything about his life or where he came from, as well as his name!

John woke up on this island with no network and had to start from scratch, as an adult, which is a very interesting concept. It got me thinking about how our networks start. When we are young, we have arranged playdates with other children that we meet from daycare and preschool and other events planned specially for kids. We don't always keep these friends -- but we learn how to make friends and make connections with people. John Doe is a little socially awkward because he has no connections with anyone, no memory of experience making them, and no basis to connect with people.

People tend to make friends with people like themselves, so we learned, but he doesn't even know what he's like, so he has no real likes or dislikes to base friendships on. He made a list of all the things he liked (hot dogs, fast cars, and so on) because he had no idea and needed to keep track. At the point where I paused the latest episode, he was being shown a video montage of his life up until that point. I can't imagine having amnesia where I couldn't remember my parents, home, friends, likes, dislikes, or anything about my life. John Doe, who we find out now is named Thomas, is gradually building a network from the ground up and his life seems to be getting easier as his number of both strong and weak ties increases, and as he finds about ties from the past. It just goes to show how important networks really are.