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| Illustration by Steve Cutts |
This
year, I resolve to farm a full one hundred rejections, and to help accomplish
this, I plan to spend at least twenty minutes a day writing. Not a whole lot
can be done in twenty minutes, I know. But the reality of the modern writer
means that’s all most of us get. I’ll hopefully be able to return to this blog
at some point, at which time I will share what I’ve discovered about the kind
of writing that can be done in tiny increments. For now you can view the prezi I made for a conference presentation on just this subject.
In
the meantime, my most important New Year’s resolution is to spend a half-hour
or less on social media. This means removing the FB app from my phone, which
would leave only Pinterest and Instagram, which are mostly pictures and
therefore far less a time commitment.
I
will still have a FB profile, and I will check in with certain people whose
photos I want. I’ve really appreciated the ability to connect with family
members who I don’t see nearly enough. Distance keeps me away from so many
people I love I can’t stand it sometimes. I miss my brother and his family, my
dad and stepmom, my childhood friends, my college friends, my grad school
friends, everybody, so goddamned much. Thanks to FB, I’ve been able, in some
small way, to see my nephews grow up, and that means a lot.
But
FB also tends to be an echo chamber full of noise. After this election, that
noise has been characterized by panic and pessimism more than ever before. I
already felt bombarded by advertising and other virtual refuse, which crowded
out everything neat that I once enjoyed, like cool articles from Atlas Obscura and Dangerous Minds and Literary Hub
and The New Yorker. Photos of people
I’ve been missing. News that a friend has a book I can buy. To find any of that
these days, I have to scroll for ages through fake news, DIY crap that no one will
really ever do, stupid videos whose promises always fall short, idiot quizzes
made to scour my profile, ads for shit I don’t need or want. And now I have to
read about Trump. So much Trump. I don’t want to read the headlines about Trump,
but I can’t stop myself.
Maybe
you can relate…don’t you sometimes feel yourself going crazy, but it’s so very
subtle – so gradual that you can’t be sure? But you know if you don’t take
steps at some point, it will all of a sudden be too late? You don’t need to go
far online to find some of the science – or pseudoscience (who knows the
difference anymore) – that links social media with mental health problems. That
points out how a platform meant to connect us actually isolates us from each
other. Who knows if any of it is true…you’ll find plenty of contradiction about
that.
Which
is kind of the point, and since the election I’ve become more aware of a FB
feed as a place where you choose to read and believe exactly what you want to,
made easy by the fact that your friend list tends to be people with similar or
the same world view. I’m also beginning to understand the way in which the Left
is capable of producing nearly as much fear-mongering, post-truth,
anger-exploiting, semi-real news as the Right. Furthermore, we Liberals are
just as vulnerable to believing it, especially now that the shoe is on the
very, very wrong foot.
I’m
not saying that this isn’t a time to be angry and afraid. Undoubtedly, there is
something very disturbing happening right now. I would argue, however, that it
has been happening since Reagan was president. It’s only somewhat accelerated
now, or perhaps just more visible. If we want the trend to change, we do need
to take some sort of action. We need to make our concerns known one way or the
other. But I would argue that social media provides an appropriate outlet or
platform for neither of those things.
Instead
I see my brain being stabbed by tiny needles of anxiety and fear every time I
log on. I see my friends too, digesting little puddles of poison. I feel it
eating us up inside. Sinister little termites of information made to breed and
spread but never go anywhere. I feel their munching even now. Chewing away at
my ability to face even the most mundane aspects of my daily routine. Chewing away
at my joy for living. And chewing away at my time. Time that could be spent
reading and writing poetry, which is what keeps me a human being.
I’m
not done being angry about where our nation is going. But I am done letting
social media design and cultivate that anger. I am done staring at a tiny
screen every time my anxiety makes me fidgety, when I have more than enough
books and litmags sitting in my apartment unread. In short, if it’s not a
picture of Jameson, Halen, Kenison, Owen or Wes, I don’t want to look at it anymore. Unless it's a puppy or kitty.
