The Quiet Life

 One week free from social media and I have settled into a winter cocoon. I miss sharing pictures and quotes from my current favorite teachers, channels, authors or long dead sages. I miss the interaction and the attention. I don’t miss the hours that are lost down rabbit holes and my ego’s clinging to who saw what and how many likes I have. I wake up and read Rumi, I take pictures of our new tree and enjoy the organization of our “school room” before the chaos of boyhood lays waste to my tidy order.

While my inner critic notices how rusty my long form writing is and how sloppy my punctuation, I realize this blog is just a series of first drafts, a place to form my thoughts outside the form of short posts and opinions on social media, catering to a 15 second attention span. Towards the end of my time on Instagram, I became increasingly frustrated by the algorithm bubble. “Opinion porn” as Mitch Horowitz calls much of what we consume, in his article titled “Reject Comfort Media.”

“Beware of this pattern,” he says. “The repeat-intake of opinioneering stifles original thought even as you believe you are receiving more and more insight. (Hint: insight doesn’t arrive in quantity.)” 

Lately, I have been listening to Russel Brand interview Candace Owens, as well as reading Graham Hancock’s Fingerprint of the Gods. I listened to the controversial Canadian professor Jordan Peterson discuss the dangers of post modern, neoliberal collectivism while also devouring “Bringers of the Dawn” a channeling of the 9th dimensional Plaedian collective (as one does). 

My head is often swimming in conflicting opinions and ideas and I love it. I seek out opposing views and let them marinate within me, acknowledging the nuance that exists within every human being. I seek intelligent discourse and refinement. “Participate in the culture, not the commentary.” says Horowitz. That has stuck with me.

Perhaps I’ll join Instagram again, after I give my limbic system and dopamine receptors time to recover. Perhaps not. It’s quiet these days and in the stillness I’m rediscovering who I am outside of the confines of memes and selfies. Can’t quite call it analog, but I am enjoying writing letters. We’ll see how it goes.