Tag: writing

It’s not you. It’s me…

Ok – it’s a lot you. I mean it is glaringly you.

But it’s still me.

I have an unhealthy relationship with social media. I know – Shocker!!

I don’t even doom scroll. The closest I get to that is what I call “hate-scrolling”. This when I go through my feed looking for what my friends are saying and block anything that isn’t them. I block ads, meme generating accounts, pages and even random people that pop up. I’d block groups, too, but apparently that’s not possible.

Social media is filling a gap I left in my anti-social life when I cut the cable and switched to streaming (more on back tracking there later). When I still had cable, I was a channel surfer. I spend hours just wasting time and not actually watching anything. Hoping something would catch my interest. There is a lyric from Pink Floyds the wall – “I’ve thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from.” Last I checked it was upwards of a thousand channels and at least half of that shit is just infuriating.

I am not sure how much my attention deficit plays into this, but it’s a distraction technique. Distraction from loneliness, boredom, sadness, pain… All of those, I guess. Random flickering images to keep the thoughts at bay.

The lure of social media was the myth of engagement. There was engagement in early chat rooms. There was engagement in bulletin board systems I’ve been on. Social media has engagement, but it is not what I’d hoped it would and not even as good as it used to be. As we become more the product the level of engagement is hitting rock bottom. A convenient way to keep up with my friends spread around the country has become wading through the mire of advertisements to catch a glimmer of worthwhile content.

With the older pre-social media systems, I actually made friends. Talking online lead to deciding to have a face to face. Sometimes good – sometimes bad. But there were actual connections being made. Even if some were quickly severed.

Social media has also gotten in the way of my being creative. Be it writing, cooking, or even just reading a book. Hate scrolling has taken over a lot of that time.

I know this is not a cut and dry issue and social media isn’t the big-bad-evil… Well, it is big and bad and evil, but anyway. There is a lot to blame with my psyche on the issue and social media just found a good notch to fit into with that. It aids in my bad habits of not wanting to engage in small talk with new people. Online is easy to get to the point of topic without seeming as socially awkward.

Anyway, I have some things to work out regarding my relationship with social media. So, it’s not you, it’s me.

But, it’s still definitely you.

I Used to Like Writing

Writing used to be one of my favorite hobbies. I was kind of good at it, too. Like, college creative writing class good, but good. I didn’t completely suck.

A friend of mine used to write together even. I remember once we went to a diner to eat breakfast, write, read, eat lunch, and write some more. We told the waitress up front what our plan was and that we were going to tip for the time, nor just thye meal(s). She was intrigued. She checked in on us often and kept our coffee filled. It wasn’t a busy day and we didn’t need to give up the table – which we told her to let us know if we needed to.

Then there was the age of LiveJournal. That was a very active time for me and the keyboard. I posted a lot on there, some of it a tad too personal. That may have also been the start of my being turned off to writing. The guy I was dating at the time was abusive and started his own LiveJournal, mostly to attack me and make me feel lesser. I shared stuff about me; he shared stuff about us and me and never in a good light.

After that was over, I tried to “DO” something with it – blogging, food writing, what have you. It never went anywhere, and it all sucked. It most likely never went anywhere because it all sucked. I then started to believe that I sucked. That I had nothing to say. That no one cared about what little I did have to say.

It’s very likely that that last bit is true. Maybe the first bit is true also. But that middle bit is very not true. I do have something to say. I have a lot to say. I have too much to say. No time like now to start saying it I guess.

It took me two weeks to even start writing this piece. A lot of avoidance and fear preceded sitting down and typing. It feels KINDA good to be typing this, but there is still mostly fear and insecurity. I’m surprised I’m not used to those feelings by now – but is anyone ever?

So, I used to like writing. Now I’m afraid of it. Time to start the practice, work past the fear, and get my words out there in some form. Even if I’m the only one who cares.