When I think about the internet and how it has distorted the reality of day to day life, first I think about social media. Nothing matters unless it can be documented, or liked. Every few hours, a gigantic wave of rage erupts on Twitter, all aimed at someone who crossed an invisible line with a thoughtless comment, or maybe an R. Kelly type figure who serves as a scapegoat for all the seething self-hatred that can never be examined or depleted, since it regenerates with every moment of inaction toward Facebook for selling your personal data and reminding you what you posted last year.
Next I think of all the time it has robbed from me, time I could spend doing anything offline, like clean the house or engage with a person face to face, not to mention generate my own thoughts. In the last two days, I have learned about Swedish preschools, rehab statistics, Japanese phonemes, Tucker Carlson’s misogyny, maternal infection and autism, restaurants that accommodate fat people, and the challenges faced by Uniqlo. This is just a small fraction of what I’ve consumed while sitting anxiously at my computer, wondering how I can find out everything about everything before it’s too late.
Do you do this? Maybe you don’t have the time, or if you do, you use it more constructively. Me, I don’t know how to discern what’s useful or important from garbage. I’m trying to resist the temptation to click on the worst crime stories, with some encouraging results. I did read about the little girl stuffed in a suitcase, and I read the comments on the mother’s fb page, calling her a piece of shit, etc. I already know not to click on the secrets of productive people or the truth about diets. That’s just instinctive knowledge. I’m not an idiot, after all. I’m just a person who has forgotten how to be present in my own life.
With all my desperate hunting and pecking online, I would have missed something noteworthy if it hadn’t been forwarded to me: the harrowing writing of Patricia Lockwood, who describes her own descent into internet lunacy, and it is terrifying. I don’t want to end up too immersed in online culture to find my way out. I’m not sure if there’s an antidote to the damage it’s done to my attention span and short-term memory.
Maybe blogging isn’t really writing or communicating. I’m not sure. I need to think it over.
Thoughts, anyone?
“With all my desperate hunting and pecking online, I would have missed something noteworthy if it hadn’t been forwarded to me:”
Right again Sister Wolf!
https://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/duff_nonsense/2019/03/theyre-just-a-bunch-cupcakes.html#comments
I’ve been trying to determine exactly what choice or choices I made that resulted in this dumpster fire version of my life. But that’s dumb. Better to put out the fire and see if I can improve on this dumpster I’ve built for/of myself.
Plant some milkweed to help the Monarch butterflies that are reportedly on the verge of extinction, maybe hang up a mason bee house (@ $12 here in flyover country) and see if that provides any comfort. Stop looking at denim. And stop reading that ex-wife’s masturbatory overwrought nonsense.
JK – Thank you for the tip!!!!!
Romeo – But…. the denim and the ex both give me a Spark of Joy! The only online tortures that also bring joy!
You always write everything in my mind.
Seriously the truth you drop is the food I Need in my life. I’m biracial, 42 and emotionally exhausted. Love you and wish I had you as a teen , but at least I have you to learn from now. Much Love!
Learning to avoid certain topics to maintain my closely-guarded sanity. Re: blogging. Yours is both writing and communicating—without a doubt. You have held my interest for years—and I do have SOME discernment left. XO
i have a secret longing for a solar flare that will take out the internet, take us back a bit. it’s all such a mess, everything existing all at once in some horrid soup of leftover and perpetually recycled, last day of the week mixed up food trash. tho, i might be having a cynical day and my mood of late has been horrid. as an ‘artist’, or so i’ve been called by others, i have this perpetual debate in my head these days that keeps me from creating: what the fuck can we possibly need…? the world has too much everything and, somehow, not enough time for things that matter. we need to change it…
Don’t give up blogging. You are gifted. You are a brilliant under-achiever. If I could articulate like you, why would I bother to follow you? I’m a slob…and slobs like me appreciate….I’ve been drinking
What Miranda said.
We need these insights to keep us sane. The “Time” thing though…having the internet is like trying to hold the biggest to do list (ever) in my head. Way too much of a good thing?
Keep writing! You’re interacting, using your intelligence and real. I too look endlessly at inane stories, people, the ten best and worst. Ridiculous. We are bombarded. I don’t care if I’m behind on the latest news, but I’m always checking things out. I try to not look at my computer most of the day. Watching tv I will flip around. It’s the new normal
At a phase of “waiting” in my life which gives me way too much time to peruse the combination of Pandora’s box and miracle of communication that is the internet. I too have been sucked into the rabbit hole and wasted days endlessly consuming useless information and buying way too much useless shit. Depressed, anxious and guilty and filled with self-loathing with mounds of dirty laundry and dust bunnies blowing like tumbleweed around my house. Then one day it stopped raining and I decided to set a timer remembering that the engineers of Silicon Valley who are way smarter then me set up this system to be addictive and as a vehicle to spend money on useless items….;
What a relief. Unlike alcohol ,my craving reduces the less time on spend on it!I read your brilliant blog and maybe three others as well as the New York Times and The New Yorker and I am done. Much happier without all the useless speculation and bullshit and spending less as well. You are a rare bird and a brilliant writer…….A book would be an ideal vehicle . Please take care of yourself as your vulnerability and truth are an inspiration of what it means to be truly human.