December 2022
The Christmas Tree is up. The house is lit with lights and decorations. Thanksgiving has passed, the fridge leftovers are gone, and my desk is covered in Greeting Cards that need to be written and mailed out.
December is upon us, soon we will be celebrating the Birth of Christ.
This week I’ve found myself becoming progressively disgusted with online outrage, endless cultural war idiocies, and the ridiculous state of discourse. When we as a culture de-evolve to the level of our discourse being dominated by the distasteful parading of a mentally ill individual in some sort of manic episode for outrage mongering it means we have degenerated much farther than I could believe. The whole thing, the discourse, the comments, the enabling, disgusts me, and I have no desire to dirty myself by engaging with this sort of filth.
I’m over it.
We can do better. Places like Twitter are, even at their best, addictive and spiritually draining. But, good can come out of discourse. Good conversation. Friendship. The sharing of great art, good books, and new ideas. Yet, the protection of anonymity mixed with the digital separation opens us to the danger of online psychopathic behavior that is spiritually draining and dangerously addictive.
Just this week I permanently blocked an individual on Twitter who seems incapable of interacting in a mode that isn’t insulting, rude, demeaning, and obscene. I know the man behind the screen is a decent man, but through the digital medium of Twitter, he behaves like the lowest form of crude savage. Most of all I find myself becoming wrathful and uncharitable in response.
So this December, going into the next year, I’m going to continue to minimize social media and stick to sharing things I love, commenting only occasionally, and focusing my efforts on long-form writing here on Substack and in my journals.
Life is too short so spend it mired in muck, even if it’s digital muck.
Hey, we'll miss you over on Twitter, whichever ones of us value critical thinking, insightful cultural commentary, and well-delivered snark. Using Twitter is like panning for gold, so it can take up a lot of one's time to get the good stuff. I hope you might find a better strategy to keep using it...otherwise, trebuie să citesc ce scrie aici, eu cred.
My experience with Twitter is very different. I just ignore the stupidity and toxicity and don’t let it bug me. Yes, the app can an addictive time-suck if you let it, and the performative aspect wears thin, but I just don’t pay attention to it. In general, I get way more value from the platform than I do angst or other negative annoy you on it is a good first step. You actually are in control.