Caution: Thar be unhinged rants. I promise next post will have more to do with books or headboards or lagers.
You may have noticed that you don't exist.
Well, that's probably not true. Thanks, Descartes. But the number of people who are reading this has surely dropped dramatically because my Facebook went the way of the triceratops, Blockbuster, and the season of autumn, and that was more or less the only avenue by which I got the blog out.
Frankly, I didn't like it. I may have thought I liked it, in some senses. I may have seen things that made me laugh, felt the fuzzies that the baby pictures should bring, and the misted eyes that come with HoNY posts, and awe and wonder at all the scenery porn from accounts like Nat Geo and the like.
Of course, I saw things that I didn't like. In satisfied disbelief, we bombard one another with details of the child-president's latest bullshit, or the injustices institutionalized by the dusty lichs in the Capitol building, and that's to say nothing of the garden-variety, anonymous misery peddled by news outlets, vying for the most exciting atrocity that will generate the highest traffic to their site.
And there I would be, at least once a day ("at most once a day" I told myself, an edict of self-restraint and custodianship that lasted four solid days), posting some outrage with a pithy caption of judgment and derision, spurring my outrage toward you in the indignant hope that...
That what?
I still don't know. That I would spur you into some action that I was unwilling to take? That I would strike up some life-changing epiphany in a previously stubborn mind, and the truth would strike their new perception like lightning on the Chrysler Building? Just what the hell are we doing when we launch our perceptions around to an audience held captive by their need to feel engaged?
That engagement, I think, has always drawn me back into the fold. Because I do come back, or have the last three times. Twice I deactivated it, and once I just didn't log on for a month or so. Full deletion is tempting, but the clever bastards integrated Messenger into the fold and I've met a lot of people in a lot of places with whom Messenger is my only means of communication.
We are, after all, social creatures, and engagement in the tribe is hardwired into our DNA. Participation in the group meant physical survival. Now, though, that group has grown like a psychosocial tumor, and it's riding at our hips all day and charging by our beds all night. What's more, everyone's wearing very lovely masks. Some of us project our greatest hits--showing only our hottest photos, framing each day as a triumphant step in the pursuit towards higher status and broader wealth. Some of us showcase our trials and tribulations, framing ourselves as tragically/comically aware protagonists at the center of a tailored maelstrom of Heller-esque nonsense--the whole world is crazy, and we're just weathering it in our own perfectly human way.
I'm not down with this behavior. It infuriates me because I embody it when I'm on social media. And I pay equal service to both sides, too. I feel pride when my timeline is a crisp representation of who I want to be--the pictures depicting an exciting life of travel and activity, the posts a catalog of a rising star in dynamic and esoteric disciplines. And yet the canny observations and detached snark streaks through, presenting what I like to think is a sharp jab at the pageantry of civilization.
It's all self-aggrandizing, though. We just do it to feed the ego, or else we wouldn't give a crap how many people liked it. And we're all doing it on there. And we scroll and scroll and scroll, looking for something to amaze and inspire and commiserate and resonate. I think I'm done with that for a while. There are other ways to find wonder than reaching the bottom of Facebook.
And the notion that a blog is the ultimate expression of self-aggrandizement has crossed my mind. In fact, the notion that writing is inherently an act of self-aggrandizement plagues me night and day. It makes my fingers trip over my thumbs, and may have a lot to do with why I get paid to thump chests instead of keys.
My defense is that you have to click a few extra things to read the blog. I'm not exactly shoving this down your throat.
Unless you subscribed by email. In which case, open up wide. But that's on you.
Reading: Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
Listening to: Tek Basina by Taksim Trio
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