Having left FB a week or two ago and quickly decided before I could persuade myself to do otherwise to delete my Instagram account, I have been sitting around hoping for a dividend of new attention to the world and those around me.
It has not quite happened like that. I was hoping that restricting myself to only a handful of blogs and only using Twitter as a linking mechanism to the posts I write here would suddenly create a new burst of creativity, at least a poem or two, or an idea for a book, but no.
All there is is the fuzzy, wracked, radio out of tune intereference of my thoughts. The shafts of light that there have been seem to arrive in vague promptings for posts to write in this LentBlog series. Memories of friends. Meditations on lines (never whole poems) by half-forgotten poets.
It turns out that sitting in a room with just yourself for company is not the holiday (how could I have imagined that?) that I had dreamed of. If anything, I am more alive, now, to my prejudices and hostilities and unkindnesses than I was previously. The price I have paid for weakening my connectivity is a deepening understanding of my inner baggage. Who would have thought it? I wouldn’t. It almost makes me homesick for all of those cat videos. Somehow life there was easier.
Anthony Wilson 
I gave up all social media while camping for a week and ended up grumpy and depressed!
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Come back ( only if you want to )- how i miss seeing your posts on FB – they brightened my day – as i know they did for many others – oh my goodness i feel I’m applying peer pressure but really don’t want to- sending love and hope to see you very soon xx Alex
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Thank you so much Alex. Feeling much lighter without it. So probably not. Very much appreciate your support nevertheless. xxx A
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Are you able to go out of your room? First day of Spring. I can see it through the window. Maybe I’ll get through the door.
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It is a time of desert experience , sitting on the sands of experience and drawing your shawl closer because of the winds blowing.
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There is only one solution Anthony…
Out and About
When I went out on my walk in the bush this morning, an odd and beautiful thing happened. Aside
from flushing three partridge, I had an intimate encounter with a black-capped chickadee. I was standing on my trail, straining to see which tree a ruffed grouse had headed for, when I heard a close fluttering by my ear. Then a gorgeous chickadee alighted on a willow branch about eight inches from my face, and for about
five seconds we looked at each other with something approaching amazement, I thought, and then it flew away. God, it was beautiful, the colours of its plumage, it’s black eyes like shining bits of coal. I’ve seen myriads of these little birds, but nothing like that before, and I felt so grateful to it for sharing the moment.
It was the bond we felt, I think, of two living beings sharing a trail on a day in spring. Maybe some birds are as intrigued by humans as we are of them.
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I’d see it as evidence of procrastination. A few days back in your zone and you’ll find your zone again. That root from your bellybutton to the ground. It exits. I found it!!
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Interesting topic. I think most of us these days are hooked on various devices and apps, and it becomes so embedded in our day to day activities that we don’t realise how intertwined we are.
So when we stop, there’s a void of some kind, that we hope will immediately fill with something more beneficial and wholesome and inspiring.
But I think, depending on how hooked we were, it takes time for us to find a new equilibrium, and to seek out those new ways to fill the space. Or not.
Maybe the key is just being able to sit by ourselves without instantly reaching for the next fix. The more we practice, the easier it becomes.
I don’t really do social media (No FB, Twitter, Facebook) and most of my online communication is through my own blog and a small collection of blogs I follow. I haven’t cared about social media for years – in fact I never really got that deeply into it at all.
My weakness tends to be eBay – if I’m lacking inspiration or the energy to create something I find myself scanning through hundreds of cameras I don’t need and often can’t afford, then too often buying one.
PS/ I really like the photo in this post.
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A senses of connection is vital. ‘No man is an island.’
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Well, it’s nice to get out of connectivity and drop every social media for awhile…For me it works and I feel peace of mind but I can’t stay away from it longer because I used social media for business purposes
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Withdrawal from addiction is often painful, but failure to do so even more harmful. It takes about 30 days to shed a habit or build a better one. Might you find a new way to connect with others by reaching out through service? I admire your commitment to being better.
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I feel your pain. Perhaps in response to your challenge to go offline, and in addition to the pressure from my therapist I stopped listening to podcasts when I walk to work and try to pay attention to what’s in my mind and surroundings. Which means I’m much more aware of things and not just getting through the days. Granted I feel “flooded” by too much information (and I’m not on Facebook, Twitter or instagram) so my stopping my podcast habit has left my mind to wander. I need to change my job. To stop reading crap news articles. To start those projects I have sitting around and maybe finish one or two.
I’m a social worker. I know better I think. At a training on mindfulness today I was reminded how loving kindness meditation is the most healing for burnout or compassion fatigue. I talk with clients about doing it and I know I need to be the example. I will one day I think. I guess that’s now.
I don’t follow many blogs but in a former life I once imagined myself a budding poet and your blog really touches me, this queer white Jewish-Unitarian Universalist social worker mom in America the land of bigotry and hate.
So all that to say thanks and I think you’re on the right path. With love. Melanie
>
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Dear Melanie, thank you so much for your generous and heartfelt comment. I really appreciate it. I think my problem is also podcasts. I made a NY resolution to listen to less random stuff on the radio just because it was there. So I filled it with various podcasts, persuading myself that keeping up to date (e.g. with the madness that is Brexit) was a good use of my time. I think your comment has persuaded me otherwise, to unsubscribe from them. I’m off to do that right now. Thank you again for your generosity, Anthony
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Enjoy the quiet. Out of it will come much good.
🙂
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The fresh air is blowing through your window. Perhaps you could spend more time outdoors?
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