Live and in Person

I’m making progress!

I had declared that I would be deleting Facebook posts and stripping down my “friends” list, and so I am. I don’t want to deactivate the whole thing yet without going through the archives, as it were, and I for sure don’t need to download 11 years of links to blog posts. So I’m going through it, deleting 95% and keeping that 5%, which is mostly photos that I don’t have elsewhere and a few random thoughts I posted there but not here that are marginally worth keeping.

I’m up to (or back to) 2015! Only a few more years to go. As I recall, I only really starting using Facebook after Mike died, mostly as a more personal way of updating folks in a smaller circle as to how we were doing.

So that’s good. Tackling Instagram, if I get to that point, won’t be that bad since most of those photos are those I already have stored in some way. Twitter? I’ve been following the lead of some other folks on Twitter for some time, and not ever keeping a big backlog of tweets up – not that I do much on Twitter, again, except for posting links here and giving a digital thumbs-up to other folks.

The question many of us face in making decisions about our digital presence is all about letting go. It seems to be about three things, maybe four if you’re into how-do-you-say “content creation.”

• I have so much material on there – text and photos – it’s such a big job to retrieve it and it’s such a convenient way to store it.
• I like the connections I’ve made!
• Traditional news sources, including those online, are untrustworthy and annoying. This is how I get my news now.
• And, if you’re a “Content creator” – I need to maintain a presence, I need to get the word out about my work…

All legitimate concerns. I’ll just briefly share where I’ve come to with all of that.

First – the material. As I said before, I haven’t relied on social media as a primary repository for either text or photos. I don’t host long discussion threads on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter that are worth saving, I don’t generally participate in many, either. Photos? I have them digitally stored and I actually really print most of them out…eventually.

Connections: Important! Two of my favorite people – Ann Engelhart and Dorian Speed – are people I met only because of the Internet (although not social media – Ann reached out to me because of my blog, and Back In the Day, Dorian was a fellow Catholic Blogger in the South With an Interest in Education.) My life would be far less interesting without them!

On another level, somewhat lower than actual friendship – there are loads of folks I’ve “met” online and kept up with through their social media whom I appreciate, admire and would certainly enjoy knowing in real life. I’m glad I know them.

But – and here’s the hard part to say – if the Internet didn’t exist…..I would know other, interesting people, too. It’s a big world. I live on one street and have a set of neighbors whom I know to varying degrees, like and find interesting. If I lived two streets over, I wouldn’t know these people. I’d know other people, and I’d probably feel the same about my neighbors over there.

It might be hard and a little sad to move away from that crew you’ve been following and interacting with for a while – even years – I mean, I’ve followed the lives of couples who were engaged when I first “knew” them and now they have teen children!

But again – I’ve lived in several places as an adult. I’ve had pretty good friends in all of those places – and at this point, I only keep up with and sometimes see one of them.

I’ve often told my daughter, who was the first of my kids to really grow up in a digital world, even though she didn’t have her own phone until she was maybe a senior? Maybe the summer after? I don’t remember – this digital world is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because you can keep up with folks more easily – and it’s a curse because….you can keep up with folks more easily.

There is value in stability and there is value in acknowledging the value and the good, and letting go and moving on.

I moved a lot when I was young. Let’s see – Born in Bloomington, then a year in DC, then to Lubbock for a few years, then a year in Arlington/DC, then DeKalb, then Lawrence, the Knoxville – settling there at 13. I made friends along the way, wrote for years to one of them I made in Lawrence, then finally lost touch.

It’s okay. It’s okay to be able to stop worrying about all those various ties you’ve made over decades of life. Some you absolutely don’t want to let go of, if at all possible, but sometimes those ties prove toxic and destructive – which was the point of my conversation with my daughter – and I’m telling you, wouldn’t it be a blessing to move away from a situation – and not have it haunting you on social media, to not be tempted to check in…just this one time…to not have to fend of friend requests from people who hurt you, to not even have the capability of revisiting that pain again and again?

I’ve often thought, over the past few years, both in regard to the persistence of the digital world and the constant culling I’ve had to do of dead people’s things, of the life of the pioneer setting out west, or the immigrant heading to America, with a bit of envy. To have no choice? To have to pack up your life in a trunk or a wagon and just…go?

Sounds pretty nice.

Of course, actually in that situation, wouldn’t I yearn for what I’d left behind and not been able to take?

Probably.

What’s my point? If we really want to leave social media behind, or lessen its importance in our lives, we have to accept the fact that we’ll be saying goodbye, not just a space, but to people.

It’s okay. There are more people. No, they’re not interchangeable, but remember what I said about neighbors up there.

Yes, there are more people. Even, I might add – your actual, real neighbors.

Third -the news. Yeah, I don’t know what to do about that one. At a loss myself. I gather my news from a variety of sources – blogs, online journals and yes, Twitter, but oddly, never ever Facebook. I suspect that is because I have so little control over what I see on Facebook and it’s so bloody annoying, I just don’t bother – and I have a small, curated list of follows on Twitter that link me to news and analysis from a variety of perspectives, left to right. Twitter is a cesspool, but I have to admit, I find it valuable for that. It would/will be hard for me to leave Twitter just for that reason, and no other.

Fourth – the dilemma of the content creator. Well, I have more to say on that. I’ve spent enough time on this post. I think that will be a good focus for tomorrow.

In sum!

As I have written before, many times – for example, here (related to religious writing) and here (related to Church) – life online is certainly real life, but it also offers deep temptations. Yes, real life connections are made, real-life discussions happen, real-life information is learned and real-life inspiration is found. Where would we be without Humans of New York and what it has inspired?

But – I maintain, even with that, that the great temptation of online life, whether that come in the form of social media, discussion boards, games or even just scrolling – is the temptation to avoid engagement with the concrete, flesh-and-blood life around you. No it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not inevitable. Some balance it all beautifully and fruitfully. And as an introvert, I understand this temptation very, very well. Which is why I’m fixated on it – I know my own temptation, and I know I’m not alone.

It can take any number of forms:

(And note this list, doesn’t even include the worst, most pervasive temptation to disconnect from our actual lives – and you know what that is. Enough said.)

• I know all about people and families living across the country through FB, Instagram, YouTube – follow their milestones, congratulate them, enjoy their family photos…..do I know and interact with the people on my street, in my apartment complex?
• I spend hours following national politics and have deep discussions about a Senate race in another part of the country to which I have no connection – do I know who represents me in my local and state government? Do I know the most pressing issues facing my own community in which I live?
• I’m an expert on the current papacy and keep a scorecard of the accomplishments and views of a number of bishops across the country and the world. Am I involved in my own parish? At all? Do I spend as much time in prayer and the Works of Mercy as I do exploring and fighting about Church news online?

Yes, it is a relief to find a tribe. I know this well. It’s what “gathered” alot of us online two decades ago – Catholics who didn’t feel as if anything goes, but also weren’t going to wear veils to Mass or even fight about it, and also wanted to be informed about the outrages of Church corruption with as little ideological bias as possible – hard to suss that out in your local parish, true. It can be said for any number of interests and slants – to find, I don’t know – other libertarians, progressives if you live in in a red area, conservatives if you’re surrounded by blue, parents who homeschool, traditionally minded families who don’t homeschool and have no interest….or sometimes just someone to talk to.

Of course!

But in the end, I keep coming back to the conclusion that the ease of finding the like-minded and settling one’s life in that world …is a trap.

It’s a trap for a lot of reasons, one of which is that this thing which we believed could unite us actually serves to divide as the places we settle always end up being with the like-minded, in comfortable bubbles, while real unity is found in meeting folks face-to-face every day who are different from you, who think differently, who believe differently and with them, actually building a real world – of neighborhoods and communities and parishes, and yes families with all the discomfort, awkwardness and outright conflict that can bring.

It’s a tool, and a good one. Use it. Just maybe don’t live in it….