Realignment

What a strange time.

One of the things I’ve always considered an important fact about me is that I feel like Social Media and I grew up together. AOL instant messenger in middle school. Livejournal in high school. Facebook in college, and into adulthood. My social life has always been tied to the internet. I’ve been doomscrolling since the early aughts, when you actually had to click ‘Next page’ to load more doom.

And now that’s all broken. I’ve never gotten into instagram; I prefer text over images. Facebook is a wasteland. Reddit is boring and unsatisfying. Tumblr has too much angst. Twitter and its clones are too “shouting into the void”. I used to read more news sites, but now I’m just not interested. Over the past year or so, all my preferred ways to spend time on the internet have become worthless.

This provides an opportunity to re-evaluate how I spend my time and attention. I spent some time this weekend cleaning up my Messages app, so I can see text convos with friends more easily, with less spam clutter. When I reach for Facebook to connect to people I know, and end up just disappointed in the AI dreck, I am training myself to text a friend directly, instead.

Or, do I need to be on my screen at all? What if I played with my dog, or pet a cat, or meditated, or read a book? What are ways that I can spend my time and attention such that they add value to my life, and fill my soul?

I was talking to my sister in Australia the other weekend, and she asked how I was coping with everything happening here. I said I was growing pumpkins about it, and that’s true! Reading the latest news about whatever chaos is happening in our government isn’t helpful; I can’t do anything about it. But I sure as hell can grow some vegetables.