Hello internet. I'm blogging instead of posting to social media. I'm at my in laws place, which usually includes finding ways to pass the time that I can do while moving (my 4 year old likes to scurry around touching everything breakable in a new house) and which aren't so mindless I leave this place a zombie after scrolling Instagram for days.
So I caught up on my newsletters, and found this quote and article worth sharing:
“Everyone is losing their minds online because the combination of mass fame and mass surveillance increasingly channels our most basic impulses—toward loving and being loved, caring for and being cared for, getting the people we know to laugh at our jokes—into the project of impressing strangers, a project that cannot, by definition, sate our desires but feels close enough to real human connection that we cannot but pursue it in ever more compulsive ways”
Quoted by Laura Olin and referencing this article by the new Yorker (which is a worth while read, especially if you're sitting on a bathroom floor in a house that isn't yours while your kid rambles and splashes.)
I don't like social media. I just don't. I've tried to reckon with it for a long time as a professional artist but it makes me unhappy to use it. And the other day I pinned this on my introversion or my lack of bravery, my fear of sharing too much, and I blamed myself. But my husband put it well in a moment of him comforting me. He said that social media is wonderful for those who can use it as a day job while they work toward their dream. But rarely do people want to be a social media star or Patreon artist. There's usually a larger goal. A book, a story, a series, something. And I'm lucky enough not to need this day job. And I shouldn't feel bad for not wanting to. And that's true. A lot of what I do takes a lot of time, and isn't sharable.
Anyway. The newsletter reading seems to be echoing this feeling. I like reading newsletters, I recommend it. I would like to write another one soon.