Several things can be true at once. In my case, all of the following are 100% accurate:
1. I “chose” to be a writer.
2. I gained some weight in the last few years that I’m working on losing.
3. I practice meditation daily.
and 4. I always have to be doing something.
Besides my baking and wannabe-writing careers, I’m a guy with a lot of little crafts and hobbies on the side. It’s always good to be multifaceted, and the majority of my hobbies veer toward the cozier parts of life. I homebrew, I knit, I play guitar and harmonica (not in any bands, and not especially well- just good enough to please myself and some friends,) I read and enjoy good whiskey.
Over the last year and change, however, you would be forgiven for thinking one of them was “Losing My Shit on the Internet for Hours of the Day.” In my end-of-the-year post, I talked about how 2024 was about “coming back to myself” and relearning who I am. Part of that process is also deciding who I am not, and what I don’t want to be. When you love something enough to make it an important part of your life, you need to treat it like it’s important– and get rid of the stuff you don’t want to be important.
I’m done with having social media be so important to me.
“I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.“
– Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Photo by Craig Adderley on Pexels.com
Disconnected
I’m not interested in having this whole post be a lengthy “bweeeeeh social media bad!” screed. It is a tool that both its creators and users tend to use for destructive means. Misinformation flies and spreads faster than ever before. People’s realities are skewed by what information they are bombarded by. Platforms are created to be as addictive as possible to generate revenue. The fates of people and entire nations hinge on what individual, under-informed, and overworked content moderators choose to let people see, and all of it- ALL OF IT- lets people dehumanize each other with incredible ease.
We are more connected than at any other time in human history- and we are also more lonely than we have ever been. We are lonelier, angrier, more anxious, and more depressed despite the easing or utter elimination of the stressors our ancestors had to deal with. For all the good the internet and social media can do and have done, we were probably not meant to know and have opinions on every horror happening all over the world all the time, and some people probably should never have been allowed to have a global megaphone.
Yesterday, I decided to delete social media apps from my phone. I kept the Meta Business App for the sake of this blog, and because it would essentially let me go “transmit only-” I can make posts to Facebook and Instagram, respond to people who leave comments or send messages, and tag others, but there is no “feed.” I wouldn’t see anything from other people that wasn’t specifically mentioning me or the blog.
Sorry, but it’s a fact that there’s only so much shrieking horror and human foolishness I can wade through for the sake of cat videos, memes, and food porn.
This morning, as I woke up to my cat crawling over me for the fourth time demanding her food and snuggles, I reached for my phone… and immediately wondered why. I was going to have no notifications. There was going to be nothing to see and nothing to do, and for a moment I said to myself “Oh man, now I’ve got to download the apps again and find out…. wait, find out WHAT?” It was a weird feeling of numb release. I didn’t have to know. Me knowing or stressing out about whatever would come through that shrieking little prism would mean positively nothing to whatever was happening.
It would do nothing but hurt me. Now my time was my own again, and I wasn’t ready for it. That moment told me everything I needed to know about my relationship with social media- it was very much an addiction and I needed to quit a while ago.
Who Am I Offline?
There was a study some time ago about the importance of letting yourself be bored once in a while. According to the study, when your brain isn’t being distracted or engaged in tasks, it goes into a type of “screen saver” mode. The lack of external stimuli lets it mull over old ideas and events without having to constantly receive and process new ones, leading to better creativity, problem-solving, and a calmer state of mind.
I‘m a textbook workaholic and over-functioning neurotic– possibly a better term than “high-functioning anxiety.” I always have to have a project, be working on a task, coming up with some new idea… or “engaging” with the world online. Having yanked the social media dopamine drip out of my arm, detoxing is going to look a lot like learning to enjoy being bored.
So I start small. “When did my guitar get that dusty? Better clean that up and check it for mold… may as well tune it too… huh, do I still remember the chords to ‘Redemption Song?'”
“Ugh, this knitting box has seen better days… where did I get all this yarn from? Ooh, that pattern looks nice. Maybe I should go find another few balls to make it.” Careful, not good to let one addiction replace another…
“You know, when was the last time I just sat on the porch with a book and drank some tea? When was the last time I pulled out my hobbit pipe and just enjoyed the air? That’s totally my vibe- why did I stop doing that?“
“Ahh, got the desk clean again. Still a bunch of time in the day, maybe I should finish a blog post and come up with some new merch ideas. Not much going on today, and I have nothing but time. Besides, it’s cold and tea is good…”
“If you’re bored, you’re boring…” the saying goes. I don’t think I’ll mind it so much.
Stay Classy,
P.S. If you want to help me get completely clean of social media, you can subscribe to my blog with your email in the field on the right, free of charge! That way, you won’t have to see when I write a new post on Facebook or Instagram- it’ll just be emailed to you! I won’t use your address for anything else– just so you can read my blog without having to poke through an annoying feed.
To sweeten the deal, everyone who subscribes (again, for FREE!) will get added to the access list for my online Google Doc Recipe book! I’m constantly building and adding to it, and you’ll get all the recipes I love and use along with my notes on how I tweak them to make them better. It’s a win-win- I no longer rely on social media companies to contact my readers, and my readers no longer have to deal with them to see my work AND access to my personal recipe database!
The Black Hat Baker 