Haha – zero hits today, as in goose egg! In another life, I’d be saddened by that fact, but in this post-facebook stage of mine, it is veritably liberating. A blog with no readership is simply a diary, and what exactly is wrong with that? Of course it is a rather public diary, that may or may not be discovered later. It is ironic – and I swear I say this without bitterness – that the many eager fans of my facebook statusing have nary an inclination to poke their head in this direction. In fairness, I haven’t exactly been Mr. Prolific in these quarters, so no bad blood.
Honestly, quitting has been far simpler than I imagined it would be. Far happier. Suddenly, the noise is just GONE. The addictive tick of scrolling through the news feed on my iPhone, that sense of just being a cog amidst the noisy workings of a massive, aimless machine, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing? Just evaporated – lifted and gone.
While I thought I might feel loneliness, I feel nothing of the sort. I just graded a stack of musical analyses that in the days of heavy facebook absorption would essentially have been an entire evening’s endeavor. Now I’m popping in for ten or twelve minutes to write this little communique (to future generations, scholars, you could say) and then I’ll get back to piles of paperwork, and if I’m diligent, even some lovely time at the piano. Who had time to pound that wooden thing even last week?
I feel a kind of sanity arising within me, not to make you puke, but really a groundedness. I am squarely planted in the here and now, under my roof, concerned primarily with my own comings and goings and those of the people I love (and like a lot). It’s just rather high-sterical that this feels to me like a novel invention. Like I’ve discovered some new form of living, some way of being absolutely modern.
I am not here to proselytize; but honestly, I suggest you quit too. I really do. You think you can’t, that it’s impossible, that life is just different now. I read somewhere that someone said if you’re not on facebook you’re just invisible. That’s true maybe. But isn’t invisibility the thing we all most desire? I mean – what’s more powerful than Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility, really? And all it takes to conjure one of your own is to deactivate? Too easy! Life isn’t really so different now. You don’t HAVE to be plugged in. You can turn on, tune in, and drop out, or maybe one or two of the above.
Okay – maybe you’ve barfed by now. I apologize. Don’t mean to be self righteous and smug. But right about now, oh dear zero readers, I feel pretty pretty darn happy with me old self. (Not the least of which because I’ve already completely crushed Arghablog productivity for the whole of 2010. Of course…I did that with the LAST post, actually.)
kbye!
