I know it may seem I write a lot about how “evil” the internet and social media are, so I guess today it's time to 'splain some stuff and flesh this idea puppy out a bit.

Now, I do think I need to preface this essay with a couple of things:

When I say “quit” I don't mean completely and totally. I still read authors I admire – via RSS – and all of you here on read.write.as, Google bizarre shit my nerdy mind is dying to know, and veg-out to YouTube almost nightly. I'll go to my grave defending YouTube as the greatest learning tool in the history of mankind. You can learn literally anything there, from physics, to engineering, to restoring old tools, to how to fix a ten-year-old dishwasher! For free! It's crazy.

Also, I didn't quit the internet intentionally, it was quite accidental.

I still remember the day. At “home”, on the couch, thumbs ablaze and eyes aglaze. I was on Instagram, faithfully doling out little red hearts to strangers I didn't really care about all over the world. (And who certainly didn't care about me, let's not fool ourselves.)

I did it because I felt I had to participate. I had an Instagram account for my business and was using it to get my work out into the world. There's something yucky about spewing your stuff all over the digi-space and not taking the time to appreciate others. IMHO, at least.

So I'm doling, and doling, and then I get up to pee and come back and dole some more. I'm coming up with half-assed, shallow, yet flattering comments 'cause, that's whatcha do, and notice I'm getting increasingly irritated and bored.

But, the artists I follow there are positively magnificent! I adore their work. Their feeds are stunning!

What is going on here?

After an hour – or more – of doling and hoping they'd dole back, I snapped.

This sucks! I feel bad!!!

I turn the phone off and chuck it across the couch, down into a cushion. My anxiety level was sky high, something I didn't realize it until the Glowing God was out of my damn face.

Now if you've read some of my other posts you may have gathered that I deal with issues of mental health in a very cautious way. I have for years. And if I've learned anything, I've learned that when you suffer from anxiety, and then encounter something that causes you anxiety, you must remove it from your life or you'll go absolutely mad.

This is just bad. I feel bad. I feel anxious. I don't know why but I don't have time to think about it right now. Do I really need to be here? Do I really need to do this? Do these people really give a crap about my little red hearts and silly little words?

(I talk to myself a lot. It's not crazy as some would have you believe. It helps a lot.)

I've spent thousands of hours of my precious life on this platform. Hours I'll never, ever get back. And what do I have to show for it? Nothing! Actually, NEGATIVE something! Because not only have I lost that time, I feel like shit, too!

I continue talking with the only person in the world who's crazy as I am. Good thing they also live in my head:

Stop. Just stop. Walk away. It doesn't have to be forever. You won't disappear from existence. Chances are they won't even notice you're gone.

I can be quite the prognosticator from time to time. Little did I know I was 100% correct in that moment.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

It went exactly as you'd imagine. At first it was gnawingly uncomfortable. I'd look around and there was no information coming in for me to think about. Nothing to occupy my thoughts. (And when I say “occupy”, I mean it in the military sense.)

And, if I may anthropomorphize a brain for a second: it was fidgety. A toddler forced to sit quietly in a restaurant seat, the squirming and pouting almost impossible to keep down. I should be out playing! It protested. I should be out “consuming” things and double-tapping things! Are you trying to kill me?! Waaaaaaaaaaa!

Miraculously, I did muster the willpower to give it a few days. And then a curious thing happened...

Thoughts.

No, like real thoughts. Like the kind I made all by myself when I was a child and teenager. They emerged from their cave, looked around quizzically, and then took a nice, long stretch, the sleep still in their eyes.

Me: Ohmuhgosh, Thoughts?! I didn't know you were still living here! How's it going?

Thoughts: I mean, were a little out-of-shape but, for the most part, we've been doin' alright.

Me: So glad you're here. I'm soooooo bored right now!

Thoughts: Sorry to hear. But, you know, nothing's changed since you were a kid. Boredom never goes away, it can only be masked. When you were a kid you were bored constantly, remember?

Me: Yeah?

Thoughts: Well, we were there, and you WERE. Don't you remember what you did back then when you were bored? You made stuff. You drew pictures and designed plays and handmade all the costumes. You wrote stories and climbed trees and pretended you were traveling on the Oregon Trail with the other kids. Remember that giant “old people” bike you guys borrowed and made into a stagecoach? And then you pushed each other down the hill because you didn't have horses and the dog wouldn't cooperate?

Remember the paintings and the exploring and the experimentation? Remember making up songs in the attic and performing them for each other even though you didn't know a damn thing about music?

Remember all the beautiful work you used to create? Remember all the awards you won? I think you walked away with, what, seven ribbons in that school art fair? You really did whoop all their asses with that one. Leave some for the other kids, amirite? Ha!

Remember the daydreaming? The feelings? The calm?

Me: Oh my gosh, I DO remember!

Thoughts: All these things happened because you were bored. When you're not bored, these things go away. No hard feelings, or anything. They're just not needed anymore. Make sense?

It did.

All these years I've been brutalizing myself for “losing my creativity and talent”. Of not being an artist anymore. Of turning into a dull, run-of-the-mill, internet person in a gray mental jumpsuit. Of agonizing over the possibility that I might have to learn to navigate Corporate America, 'cause I can't make a living in the creative field anymore. Of blaming my loss of creativity on “becoming an adult”. It happens, right?

Consuming is easy. Creating is hard.

But the good news is boredom is even harder. It's such a terrible state for the human mind that we'll do anything to avoid it. Even put our heads down and make art.

Need proof? This blog post exists because I wasn't browsing Instagram this morning.

#technology #humanity #creativity

New here? Depending on where you came in you might be a little confused. Isn't this supposed to be a travel blog, bro?

I guess? But...um...nope. Maybe sorta? Man, I don't know if this is a travel blog or not, so the answer is: it is whatever you think it is. Welcome to a new (old) paradigm, my sweets.

Nah, I'm just playin'. This is only a “travel blog” insofar as the human writing these words travels a lot. Confused? I don't blame you a bit.

< Begin semi-crazy-cat-lady rant about how things were so much better “back in the day”. >

Back in My Day (AKA You Spoiled Little Shits!)

First, a quick time out: I swear I'm sane, just trying to 'splain some stuff I've been thinking about a lot lately. So, pull up your big boy/girl pants, check your attention span with the nice man in the three-piece-suit, and read on if you wanna get woke, my fellow kids.

I got online for real around 2003. Yeah, I was already a 23-year-old-fart when you OG nerds out there already knew what was up for years with your IRCs and your Prodigys and your whatever-other-crazy-shits you used to reach out on the Information Superhighways. Sorry...The World Wide Webs's.

Granted, I wasn't around for your quickdraws and saloons, but I caught up just about the time y'all's first mayor was elected. In other words, around 2003 is when the internet began making sense to me; when it finally became relevant to my life.

It was a place of exploration. A little dangerous. A little magical. A little WTF?! Anyone remember ratemypoo.com? Jesus, we laughed for hours at that site. How neat! (Well, I laughed until it was time to turn my head so I could throw up a little in my mouth without my friends seeing and making fun of me.)

Wait, wait. Hold on just a second...I can't make this important observation with poop jokes. Lemme try something different...gonna go talk to myself, real quick. Be right back.

So, this is a letter to “the kids today”, right? Hmmmmm. Think, smiley, think! How do we get them “woke”. I know! Kids love fairy tales, right? Let's try it!

A Whole New World

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a magical place called the Insterstellar Internets World Wide Webs [IIWWW]. Everybody loved visiting the IIWWW, for it was a limitless land full of explorers, adventurers, thinkers...and, yes, granted, kooks, poop-posters, crybabies, and trolls.

When smiley first visited the IIWWW, she traveled from village to village and was kindly invited into the Villagers' homes for tea and conversation. They'd talk for hours. When it was time for her to leave, she kept in touch with the villagers through their writings, sometimes for years to come. She followed their lives, slowly learning about their hopes, fears, and desires. Smiley felt like she knew some of the villagers better than she knew her own friends, even though they weren't together in the same kingdom anymore.

The Villagers' lives weren't particularly interesting, but since there was a long history between them and smiley, she looked forward to checking in and finding out how they were doing. It didn't matter if they had stories that were a little on the boring side sometimes...she considered them friends.

One fine day a band of Nobles began riding into the little Villages in every kingdom on Earth.

We will help get your stories to the entire World!!! said they. Since the Villagers loved the human connection and long time friends their writings produced, they were more than happy to listen to what the Nobles had in mind.

The Nobles proclaimed, not only will we distribute your writings to the entire World, we will ensure you receive correspondence from your Readers on how they feel about you. Imagine all the attention you'll get!

The Villagers perked up.

Who doesn't love attention? they thought. And since there's so very many people out in the world, imagine all the attention our stories will get! We won't know what to do with it all!

So the Villagers signed up to give their stories to the Nobles, and the Nobles faithfully kept their word to spread the stories far and wide, to as many people as possible throughout the world.

But, after a while, a curious thing happened: the Villagers noticed that the Readers reading their stories seemed a little rushed. And who could blame them? There were so many stories to get to. So many stories, in fact, that the Readers had a hard time figuring out which ones were lovely and interesting, which ones taught lessons and resonated with them, and which were not. The poor Readers just couldn't keep up!

Since there were so many stories for the Readers to get through, not to mention all the time it took to let the Villagers know they liked them, the Readers grew weary and began to lose interest. How much more time could we possibly spend reading, then writing love letters about what we read? We have fields to tend, clothes to mend, and families to nurture.

We can't have this!! exclaimed the Nobles. One day the Villagers' stories will be worth bags and bags of gold, but we're not quite there yet! What to do? What to do?

So the Nobles devised a plan. To keep the Readers reading and the Villagers writing, they would make it easier for them to do so.

Make your writings shorter! the Nobles advised. For the Readers grow weary of your longform tripe.

Make your stories easier to understand in a very brief period of time! The Readers have so very much to get through today and you're making it too hard for them to maintain their reading load.

So the Villagers' did. Their stories were stripped of personal opinion, because they realized context is very important in understanding and relating to someone else's point of view. Context requires time, and time was something the Readers simply didn't have any more to give.

The Villagers' stories became less about how they felt and more about what they saw. After all, who wouldn't be able to understand a description of what was on their breakfast plate? Or how big (and expensive) their new plough horse is! That's something everyone can relate to!

See that? asked the Nobles. You don't need to waste time on writing something from your heart! Just look at all these love letters you're getting!

The Villagers checked their mailboxes, and sure enough, they were positively exploding with love letters about how interesting, great, and meaningful their short writings were to people all over the world.

What shall we do with so many love letters?! they exclaimed. This new way of sharing our writings is positively magical!

So they had a party and everyone felt grand! How fabulous they all felt to be so loved.

But little did the Villagers know that the Nobles had a sneaky little hand in these love letters. Instead of having to assemble paper, ink, and a quill to send a love letter – as well as spend a few minutes writing and sending it off – the Nobles contracted with a Sorceress to create a magic spell that would make these love letters appear, almost out of nowhere, and mail themselves magically with just the press of a button.

They had no choice but to do this. Once the Villagers tasted all this love, the Nobles knew they could never let it stop.

So for years the Villagers pumped out more and more and more stories, which became ever shorter easier to understand. They didn't mind because the love letters kept flowing into their mailboxes. How could they stop when everyone out there loved them so much?

But what the Villagers didn't realize is that everyone in the world was also getting lots and lots of love letters, and that the Readers sending the love letters were also sending them to every other Villager in the world who wrote short, easy-to-understand stories.

It's so easy to send a love letter, the Readers thought, why not just send a bunch of them to everyone and make the world a better place?!

When the Villagers around the world heard of this, they weren't as happy as they used to be.

What makes the love letters we get so special when everyone else gets them too? If the Readers sending these love letters don't even have to think about them, are they really meaningful at all?

The Villagers were a little bummed, but they kept right on writing. Sure, they felt emptier inside but decided that having false love was better than no love at all.

The End.

Moral of the story

Kind of a bummer, right?

I'm pining for the old days when I followed people on the internet, not subjects, or sites, or groups.

I think the first place I began to find people was on Livejournal. I read some of these “journalers” for years, followed along with their lives, and after a while I swear I felt like they were my friends, even though they didn't even know I existed.

When they said inflammatory or “controversial” things, it didn't bother me a whit, because there were years of context around these statements. I knew what struggles, pain, difficulties, and personal experiences they had. These statements made sense because I knew the big picture. I understood what these fellow human beings had witnessed.

Today when I find someone I can read and follow just like I did in the olden days, I hold on for dear life. I feel as though there are precious few left...and that their numbers continue to dwindle.

Let's not forget what a wise man once said “be the change you want to see in the world”. This quote will never go out of style, never be obsolete, never be untrue.

I guess my crazy cat lady conspiracy theorist rant is over. If the takeaway isn't clear, I'm seriously missing the humanity I once experienced on the internet. When it was just me listening and a storyteller telling. They didn't need to hear from me and I didn't need to shower them with compliments...they kept on writing anyway.

It was lovely to hear the sincere words of a person on the other side of the world who didn't seem to mind the absence of likes, comments, and retweets.

Even today it seems I can hardly visit someone's personal blog without being bombarded with ads, tracking scripts, SEO optimation, and Amazon links. You do you, but man, it just feels wrong. I don't want to come back.

Perhaps right here, on write.as, is where the renaissance could occur. Where the real people are. But we'll see. I can already smell the SEO bros, “marketing experts”, and flimsy thinkers on the other side of the drawbridge, their battering rams at the ready. I consider this site sacred, so please just take that shit elsewhere.

It's tough and there is no easy answer...the founder most certainly has to make a living. I'm just being honest and sharing my feelings.

That's what we're all here for, right?

#internet #humanity #thinkingoutloud