mmm, the brain fog, yeah. I took September off from Instagram, the last platform I have that can actually be a time suck. I didn't think IG affected me that much, but now that I'm back on, I'm realizing it tends to trigger this weird sort of performance anxiety. I miss old school social media that only lived on your computer and existed for being goofy and cringe with your friends. (RIP my LiveJournal and Twitter, now both forever lost to the void.)
I'm torn over online communities. On the one hand, I feel like I really learned who I was and grew through the different communities I've been part of, and I've truly found some of my best friends in these spaces. (and, ya know, marriage) But it's different from messy embodied community, and definitely not superior. Perhaps online community, at its best, is the kind that supplements and facilitates embodied community? So much to think on.
Side Note: Over the Garden Wall is one of my new favorite spooky season things. We were Wirt and Greg for Halloween. 😁
The first draft of this letter was a bit... shrill, I guess, haha. As I read that draft through I was like - you know, this feels reactive and dismissive of the actual good of online community, which I have absolutely experienced in many iterations - Rabbit Room, Poetry Pub, etc. So in the rewrite I had to do some serious dampening of my initial squall, lol. So much of that rant, though, was about how I interacted with the tool, like my culpability in it (the pride, the fear of being known, etc.) I was mad at the tool for how I used it, which is a bit like being mad at a hammer because it can't paint a wall very well.
I think the next steps for me are related to exploring that, and what investing in my physical community needs to look like. I think it's going to be like working out a whole bunch of new muscle groups...
haha, I get it though. I really do. I frequently have to disappear from online spaces (even the ones I love), and I've muted/unfollowed/unsubscribed when I have to. We have to take care of our brains and our hearts on this wild Internet!
I am still trying to figure out how to shift my social media usage toward creating over consuming. It's a value that I put on my rule of life several years ago, but it's a hard one to actually practice. But yeah, like you said... that's more about how I'm using the tool.
Also, I need proof of Wirt and Greg Yokel. Like, picture proof.
That black dog in the first episode? The pumpkin king? The Beast? Auntie Whispers? Yipes. I watched a few episodes with our kids this Halloween, because I am determined to curate their nightmares. Only high-grade terror for the Wheeler kids!
I will email you photographic proof! 😄 And sheesh, yes. It's the best kind of creepy for adult me, but kid me would've definitely NOPED out in episode 1 hahaha.
Wow, that's a beautiful vision! I got to hear Matt and Julie speak about pilgrimage at the Rabbit Room's Hutchmoot conference last year. It was pretty inspiring! The speed at which we live our lives seems to be a huge factor in building deep community, along with distance and trust. That's a whole other part of this - how our actual built / physical environment is beginning to look and behave like the online environment as well. That's kind of the bigger next step I keep thinking about: what does living deeply in my neighborhood and church actually look like practically. So I've disentangled myself from the machine, sure... now the real work begins.
Right! The felt gap between an online environment dictating our physical environment is becoming harder and wider. I think of movies like Ready Player One or Blade Runner compared to this slow, attentive work here and now. It's like there's glitches in the detox.
And that's so cool you got to go to the Hutchmoot conference!
I have! I was able to go to the Minneapolis one this year. It was wonderful. So fun to meet other fellow writers! (And kind of weird. Its like we know each other but also don't haha). Their NYC conference would be a dream
I've been teaching the book The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher in my composition classes this semester, which really pulls back the curtain on the society wide science-experiment that is social media, and it's really forced me to ponder some of these questions myself. I don't think I'll ever fully disentangle from the machine, but I've definitely had to take some hard looks at my relationship to it and snip some of those tethers.
I'll check out The Chaos Machine! Yeah, I think that's the main thing I've come away from all of this thought process, kind of: how do I put the internet/online communication back in its place as a tool that serves community, not as a community itself.
mmm, the brain fog, yeah. I took September off from Instagram, the last platform I have that can actually be a time suck. I didn't think IG affected me that much, but now that I'm back on, I'm realizing it tends to trigger this weird sort of performance anxiety. I miss old school social media that only lived on your computer and existed for being goofy and cringe with your friends. (RIP my LiveJournal and Twitter, now both forever lost to the void.)
I'm torn over online communities. On the one hand, I feel like I really learned who I was and grew through the different communities I've been part of, and I've truly found some of my best friends in these spaces. (and, ya know, marriage) But it's different from messy embodied community, and definitely not superior. Perhaps online community, at its best, is the kind that supplements and facilitates embodied community? So much to think on.
Side Note: Over the Garden Wall is one of my new favorite spooky season things. We were Wirt and Greg for Halloween. 😁
The first draft of this letter was a bit... shrill, I guess, haha. As I read that draft through I was like - you know, this feels reactive and dismissive of the actual good of online community, which I have absolutely experienced in many iterations - Rabbit Room, Poetry Pub, etc. So in the rewrite I had to do some serious dampening of my initial squall, lol. So much of that rant, though, was about how I interacted with the tool, like my culpability in it (the pride, the fear of being known, etc.) I was mad at the tool for how I used it, which is a bit like being mad at a hammer because it can't paint a wall very well.
I think the next steps for me are related to exploring that, and what investing in my physical community needs to look like. I think it's going to be like working out a whole bunch of new muscle groups...
haha, I get it though. I really do. I frequently have to disappear from online spaces (even the ones I love), and I've muted/unfollowed/unsubscribed when I have to. We have to take care of our brains and our hearts on this wild Internet!
I am still trying to figure out how to shift my social media usage toward creating over consuming. It's a value that I put on my rule of life several years ago, but it's a hard one to actually practice. But yeah, like you said... that's more about how I'm using the tool.
Also, I need proof of Wirt and Greg Yokel. Like, picture proof.
That black dog in the first episode? The pumpkin king? The Beast? Auntie Whispers? Yipes. I watched a few episodes with our kids this Halloween, because I am determined to curate their nightmares. Only high-grade terror for the Wheeler kids!
I will email you photographic proof! 😄 And sheesh, yes. It's the best kind of creepy for adult me, but kid me would've definitely NOPED out in episode 1 hahaha.
Gosh, leave it to WB to put us in our place.
Did you ever see this? https://vimeo.com/200206468
Based on the book Backyard Pilgrim by Matt Canlis.
It's a world where the fog has lifted.
Wow, that's a beautiful vision! I got to hear Matt and Julie speak about pilgrimage at the Rabbit Room's Hutchmoot conference last year. It was pretty inspiring! The speed at which we live our lives seems to be a huge factor in building deep community, along with distance and trust. That's a whole other part of this - how our actual built / physical environment is beginning to look and behave like the online environment as well. That's kind of the bigger next step I keep thinking about: what does living deeply in my neighborhood and church actually look like practically. So I've disentangled myself from the machine, sure... now the real work begins.
Right! The felt gap between an online environment dictating our physical environment is becoming harder and wider. I think of movies like Ready Player One or Blade Runner compared to this slow, attentive work here and now. It's like there's glitches in the detox.
And that's so cool you got to go to the Hutchmoot conference!
It was really great - highly recommend if you get a chance to go. :) Someday I hope to get out to an MBird conference too... Have you ever gone?
I have! I was able to go to the Minneapolis one this year. It was wonderful. So fun to meet other fellow writers! (And kind of weird. Its like we know each other but also don't haha). Their NYC conference would be a dream
I've been teaching the book The Chaos Machine by Max Fisher in my composition classes this semester, which really pulls back the curtain on the society wide science-experiment that is social media, and it's really forced me to ponder some of these questions myself. I don't think I'll ever fully disentangle from the machine, but I've definitely had to take some hard looks at my relationship to it and snip some of those tethers.
I'll check out The Chaos Machine! Yeah, I think that's the main thing I've come away from all of this thought process, kind of: how do I put the internet/online communication back in its place as a tool that serves community, not as a community itself.