I’ve just finished scrolling my Facebook news feed for this morning and here – for the most part – is a summary of the subjects I saw:
* Lost animals,
* Found animals,
* Cute animals,
* Stranded and/or rescued animals,
* Music and musicians that I follow,
* Bucket list travel sites and photos of beautiful Scotland,
* Food (either recipes or photos of somebody's breakfast/lunch/dinner),
* WVU, FSU and Fairmont Senior sports,
* Wordle results,
* White House press releases,
* Something illegal that a Republican did,
* Something stupid that Marge Greene said, and
* A few other odds and ends posted by people who are still my friends.
Apparently, for a variety of reasons, I have blocked, unfriended or snoozed everything else that used to show up here every day. Mostly, I have decided there is enough anxiety and aggravation in my life without inviting more to squeeze in from the interwebs. It isn’t that I don’t have TIME for social media, because as a retired Covid recluse I’ve got nothing BUT time, but instead that my interest in social media seems to be waning.
So it made me stop and think: I have a whole stack of books I haven’t read, including four that I got for Christmas, one more that I pre-ordered for April and several Kurt Vonnegut novels I'm trying to catch up with. It seems that reading these books (and then buying more) would be a more prudent use of my time than arguing with some under-educated pseudo-Christian nut bag about whether you can impeach Joe Biden just because you don’t like his face.
Sadly, I haven’t written anything in weeks. This is my first shieldWALL essay since last September, and there are some short stories banging around in my head, asking to be let out.
I also subscribe to several video streaming services, and there are countless movies, TV shows and documentaries that I haven’t seen and dozens more I wouldn’t mind seeing again. And maybe then again.
I already deactivated my Twitter account shortly after new owner Elon Musk reopened his blue bird platform to liars, Nazis, conspiracy theorists, election deniers, anti-semites, fake news bots, propagandists, Russian trolls and Donald J. Trump. It has been more than two months since I had a Twitter account and I haven’t missed it for a single day. Now I’m wondering if I can do without Facebook, too.
In reality, I doubt that I will exit this forum altogether. I still want to see those cute puppies and sports stories and cool photos of historic Edinburgh and the Scottish highlands and, of course, I want to keep up with the activities of my small number of friends. My point is, I think there’s room for literary diversity in my life, so I’m going to give it a try. Reading and writing seem like good starting points, and if I try real hard, I can find a multitude of things to do instead of spending my days helping Mark Zuckerberg live his best life.
After all, he isn’t doing anything to help me with mine.
