Back At It

The Internet age has shown so many sides of our precarious social nature. We love to interact with people, but we don't love how they share their own feelings or beliefs and they feel the same about us. We have become so easily radicalized by platforms with nefarious algorithms and Bond Villain Billionaire owners. It is unbelievable how quickly this all came to bear, and as I've said before, it all got pretty old pretty fast. At least for me.

I recently deleted Twitter. So much for the public square of the Internet. I left Facebook ages ago when it became a feeding ground for the worst of the best people that I knew. 

I like Reddit but it, too, has its own serious issues. I know that there are other social platforms that work okay, (Instagram seems harmless enough for me, though I'm not a teenage girl) and I have so far successfully avoided TikTok. I watch YouTube videos, but that's where it all seems to end now.

The rapid shortening of the general attention span has made anything more than 280 characters a painful experience for most people. An article, an essay, a thesis or monograph are agony to anyone used to the other formats. We prize brevity, especially as regards anything of import. No wonder children squirm and rage in their classroom seats—once you have tasted the all-consuming sugary high of the Internet, how can you go back to the rigor of pedagogy that didn't even really work before the pandemic? 

During all this, I felt a natural desire to contribute, to weigh in, to be heard. That's what people do: they share their feelings. Then as now, I prided myself in having some (somewhat feral) skill at conveying my ideas. I wanted to share what I wanted to talk about; what I found interesting about music, movies, books, philosophy, family and whatever else came into my head.

For a short but successful time, I wrote a bi-monthly column for the library where I work, which was great practice and a wonderful opportunity. I lasted just shy of five years and in that time I angered and challenged enough people to get my job challenged a few times, I am proud to say. I enjoyed it. It was fun. I grew. I got better. I learned. It was exhilarating.

When the community paper for which I wrote devolved into something all too modern and sadly irrelevant, I and many like me who wrote local content for its readers were essentially canned. For a while I continued to write but with nowhere to submit, it became an act of futility. I tried Medium, but the response was, well, not good. I admit that I like to have people read what I write (as do all writers). 

So, early on, back in the early part of the last decade, I started this blog. I was as different then as the world back then seems now. It has been but a meager decade; the sad cliché is quite right: the more things change... 

I hope to regain some of that urge to write but coupled now with some solid writing experience and a little more grey at the temples, maybe it will be enaging to read. I hope so.

Anyway, in an attempt to have things back (a bit) like they were and to clear my head of all formats and algorithms and Bond Villainy, I would just like to get back to the pure, simple art of writing. It's not cool or perfect or even, probably, very interesting, but I think my sanity probably depends on it.

So, here it is. The spot where I will (for those who want it) put my thoughts on things. I'll write about anything and everything. If you don't like political theory, stick around, I'll ramble on and cover something else.

That's my whole point. I want to get better and in order to do that, I have to stretch and then train these writer's muscles. I'm rusty and stiff in the joints, but I think I can come back to my old swing. Maybe I can even swing for the fences.

It is now (I think) less about attention and more about that good mental exercise, anyway.

Micki, my award-winning author wife, who has always inspired me to try harder and to work smarter when it comes to words, is also always bettering herself. In all the years we have been together, she has always written—in her journals, her monthly newsletter, her stories, her books. She is fierce and unrelenting at her work and she has encouraged me to write and write well. I have floundered, feeling small and unworthy in the reflection of the brightly-colored haze of neon narcissistic micro-blogging on the web. She is a master of words and marketing. I am a lowly amateur, but in order to make a prize-winning breakfast, eggs must be broken. Who better to emulate?

A final note for the Agéd Ancestor who has been so dedicated to both Micki's and my writing. My paternal aunt, the matriarch of that part of my father's side of the family, has been what my wife calls my "spirit animal". She is and has always been a brilliant, fearless, strong-minded example for me for breaking free of the backwards, bucolic ancestry that precedes us. She made it clear that I should submit some of my writing. Daunting as that has been (some of my short fiction has been rejected, I'm proud to say) it helped me find some belief in my work at the keyboard.

Perhaps I will continue with that, but in the meantime, so that she knows that I am also laboring at the wood pile of non-fiction words, these will be for her, too.

Here's to writing and all the mysterious, magical, maniacal ideas that we may yet be honored to work through.

Thanks for reading. Let's ramble.