Posted in Culture, tagged Facebook, quiet living, self-care, social media, timeboxing on 27 May 2021| 7 Comments »
Occasionally, the tyranny of social and news media becomes too much for me to handle.
About ten days ago, I reached my limit, full up to here with the naïveté of the left, the mendacity of the right, the fear-mongering of the media, and the narcissistic selfishness of humanity in general.
I needed a break. From damned near everything. (more…)
Posted in Culture, tagged introvert, self-care, social media on 06 Feb 2020| 6 Comments »
It’s been a bad week.
It started off with having to endure some seriously obnoxious behavior, after which I got dog-piled by a medical issue†, which in turn required a visit to the doc (I really dislike going to see the doc), during which visit I got a flu shot (two birds, one stone, and all that), which naturally made me feel kinda punk the next day, all of which eroded my (admittedly paltry) reserves of patience, which naturally made even the smallest annoyance loom large in my damaged psyche. And that doesn’t even take into account the constant firehose of bad news from the political world.
Upshot: I’m pretty much done with people for a while. (more…)
Posted in Culture, tagged Facebook, friends list, quiet living, social media, unfriend on 17 Jan 2019| Leave a Comment »
It’s pruning season, again. No, not for my roses or my fruit trees (that’s February); it’s the season to prune my Facebook friends list.
During the year, my list accretes new names—distant relations who pop up after an auntie mentioned a connection, or a friend of a friend who saw a comment I made or who remembers my name from school days—and some of them work out fine. Usually, though . . . not.
Thus, with each new year, along with cleaning out old utility bills from my filing cabinet, I now also review my friends list with an eye toward clearing out the dead wood. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged creative writing, social media, unplugging, writerly habits on 24 Nov 2015| 4 Comments »
Update on my Social Media Detox:
I’ve done a “cleanse” like this before, and as always, I’m surprised by how much time suddenly appears in my day. But this time I’ve noticed something else.
I am thinking like a writer again.
Seriously. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged fact-free zone, going dark., Paris attacks, social media on 19 Nov 2015| 10 Comments »
Remember what I said about that first type of reaction to the Paris attacks? The xenophobic rants against Muslims specifically and refugees in general? Remember how, in Monday’s post, I said that this kind of reaction had, “for the most part subsided from the social sphere“?
Well, never mind.
Tuesday and Wednesday saw a resurgence, and my social media feeds were filled with these memes of bigotry. I ended up spending all of my social media time either arguing with the posters of those rants or trying to ignore them entirely.
I failed. At both.
Some people are so willing to hate other groups of people, so eager to hate our government and all it does, that it is pointless to argue with them. No amount of factual reportage in support of my position nor any amount of factual refutation of their opposite stance make any difference. I truly was in a “fact-free zone.”
By yesterday, noonish, I felt ill. My guts were churning. My head ached under a sharp vise-like grip. I could feel the blood pounding in my neck, hear it in my ears.
I had a clear case of social media poisoning.
So I shut it down.
I am now “dark” on social media, and now, less than eighteen hours in, I already feel much better.
Instead of spoon-feeding facts to wailing, hate-filled tantrum-throwers, I am learning how to repair fountain pens (Sheaffer vacuum-fill models, specifically), preparing meats for a long cure (bresaola and capicola), working on my bread-making skills (dough: check; baking temps/times: needs work), and getting Pepper back from our new mechanic (he’s a bit of a goofball, but excellent work).
This “social media cleanse” will last through the weekend, at least. At the end of it, I may have to “cleanse” my friends list as well.
I recommend it.
k
Posted in Culture, tagged Daesh, ISIS, islamophobia, paris, Paris attacks, social bullying, social media on 17 Nov 2015| 8 Comments »
Some folks are going to find this post offensive.
I don’t frakking care.
In the days following the attacks on Paris, social media had two major reactions. The first (and fastest) was the predictable xenophobic rants against Islam, Muslims, and refugees. These are the now-standard spoutings of eentsy-minded fear-mongers who don’t like anyone unlike themselves and who use any excuse to close ranks and point their lily-white fingers at “the other.” These racist tirades were met with strong opposition from almost every quarter–in Paris itself, here in America, and online as well–and except for the rabid right-wingnuts, they have for the most part subsided from the social sphere.
The second, slower, and longer-lasting response was a series of “How dare you?” memes directed not at the perpetrators of these unconscionable attacks, but at people expressing their sorrow, sympathy, and solidarity with Paris. “How dare you?” these trolls demanded. “How dare you feel outrage over an attack on Paris when there have been attacks in Beirut and Baghdad, when Burundi officials have killed citizens, when over a hundred people were killed in Kenya?” These social memes are designed for one purpose: to shame us cheeky bastards who dare to express our sadness, grief, anger, or outrage regarding the events in Paris. These holier-than-thou bullies find my outrage offensive simply because I am not outraged enough. My outrage didn’t match their outrage, and I therefore deserved to be put in my place.
My response: Shut the frak up. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Hi Tech, Low Tech, tagged creative writing, internet diet, low-tech living, quiet living, Serenity, simple living, simplicity, social media, unplugging, Writing on 03 Jul 2014| 3 Comments »
One evening, when I was courting my wife-to-be, we were at my place when the phone rang. Since we were talking, I ignored the phone. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Nope. If it was important, they’d call back (I didn’t have an answering machine). This was my relationship with technology in those days. Technology was my servant, not the reverse.
Well, sometime during the last three decades, that has changed, so I’m just now coming off a full week of an “internet fast.”
Overall, I am surprised at how easy it was. I stuck to my “going dark” guidelines so successfully that when I tried to go back online, I found that all my little electronic connectimoids needed to be charged up. The computer, the tablet, even the smartphone had gone almost entirely unused for a whole week.
What did I miss? What didn’t I miss?
Unraveling Time
Desert Wind
Ploughman's Son
Ploughman King
The Year the Cloud Fell
The Spirit of Thunder
Shadow of the Storm
The Cry of the Wind
Beneath a Wounded Sky
Cryptogenesis: A Memoir
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 