The world feels like it’s exploding.
If you are like me, you are constantly fighting with yourself between staying informed even at the risk of marinating your brain in Sensationalist Hate Broth of social media, and burying yourself in tiny comforts and ignorance until it goes away.
I have my own opinions of Israel vs. Hamas, and since October 10th I have felt the need to share them as loud as possible. Maybe, just maybe, at the cost of my peace of mind and sanity I could get people to stop being pissy and angry and screaming past each other so that maybe- MAYBE- we could all make sure the violence, madness, and death stops.
Wasn’t gonna happen. There’s room for every voice and opinion on the internet, but social media in particular isn’t built for connection or communication. It’s built for engagement- for keeping us doomscrolling and “interacting” and staring at ads and being on the platform for as long as possible.
Things that make sense don’t help that. Patience, compassion, complexity, and nuance don’t jive with that goal. Anger, rage, hate, pain, and self-righteousness do. After marinating in that hellbroth for way too long on a false hope, I made the call to back off for my own sake. I post for this blog, I answer messages, and (every now and then) I watch funny videos. That’s it.
There’s ways to bring happiness and reason to the world, but screaming on social media sure as shit isn’t one of them. By backing off, you get the brainspace and emotional bandwidth to find them on your own.
The Black Hat Baker 