FOMO's Nothing Terrible IRL

Maybe I'm just hearing from people who agree with me, but folks seem to be leaving Twitter in droves and some are even quitting Facebook. Most everyone leaves Twitter for the same reason I left: it's making me so damn mean. And everyone gives the usual excuse for not leaving Facebook: all my friends are there.

I get that, but here's the thing: Twitter and Facebook are cancer. Staying with them promotes that cancer.

I'm being obnoxious. I have friends who remain on Facebook for many reasons. They're good people and aren't too lazy to do the right thing. Leaving bad relationships is difficult and having opted out of Facebook I miss out on things. I didn't know about an acquaintance's cancer, my favorite record store's Christmas social, or a bunch of other things until someone told me. I was behind the times and there are things I miss. Heavens to Murgatroyd!

My FOMO (that's the Fear Of Missing Out, Mom) lasted about three weeks and was then gone. Your mileage may vary.

Another thing about opting out is that I keep working on ways to stay in touch without social media companies. I admit, it's damn inconvenient but friendship should require some effort. Otherwise it's as meaningless as a social media feed.

Let me know when you quit Twitter and Facebook. I won't say I told you so and we'll find ways to stay in touch. We could even go out for coffee IRL. (That's In Real Life, Mom. Speaking of which, let's go out for coffee. I'll drive if you buy. Call me.)

Profit & Service

I used to write reviews for Google, Amazon, and other services, but don't any more.

Writing reviews seemed like doing good and giving myself practice as a writer. I reviewed local shops and services so others would benefit from my experience. I said more than "It's nice. I like it." It felt good to be of service to others, but I've stopped for three reasons:

1. Lords Don't Pay Serfs
My administration claims all work I produce as belonging to them. I copyright my stuff because they only pay for my working not my creative work product. I don't give things away to my employer and I'm not about to give away creative work to Google and Amazon. Indenturing myself to corporate internet platforms is bad business.

2. Serfs Have A Bad Gig
Even if reviews were good work from which I profited, the gig economy is bad for us serfs. People drive their own cars as taxis without unions, benefits, or employee status all for a small sum of money. It's not worth it. I don't even want to ride in those cars. I don't want to write for the profit of these companies. Lords don't pay to set serfs free.

3. Not All Serfs Are People
I wrote reviews to serve others and many reviewers do the same, but I'm sure that many reviews are paid for or written by the companies under review. Leaving reviews to chance is bad business. I bet companies also pay to insure the best reviews are seen more often. It's like Vegas: the companies always win.

It comes down to this: I'm not sure that profit and service are at all compatible.

For-profit colleges have almost all failed. For-profit hospitals are disasters. Privatizing Social Security and other safety nets doesn't work. Business isn't in the business of serving people so much as making profit. That's okay. Business is supposed to be about making money. We just have to stop thinking big business serves us other than to stay in business. Service is a means to their profitable end.

I want some profit and to be of service. I want my service to profit my fellow human beings more than the lords of the internet. Amazon, Google, and the rest can get along without my reviews. I'll find another way to serve others, hone my craft, and earn a reasonable profit. We serfs have to find our own ways, the lords be damned.

After A Break

After a break there's the rust, but the real problem is anxiety. You remember doing these things, but that was then. There's no telling whether you can do them again. Well, of course you'll be able to do them, but it feels impossible. Nothing's working and there really is some rust. Muscle memory has been lost along with muscle. Things feel all wrong. What do you do?

I haven't written for anyone else in two weeks. Life has been busier than usual and I've felt anxious and lost. Writing can balance that busy-ness and anxiety. It can ground ms on the map of my life. I know this but find reasons to avoid the page. Even when I come to the page or screen, I leave them blank and instead turn on the television. That's the story of the past two weeks.

Coming back to the keyboard I have twenty minutes before students arrive for classes. I tell myself to sit, open the editor, sip coffee, and go. I start with something simple: what's happening in my life? Deciding I must create a poem or write a story is too much. A little pressure breaks the rust and gets things moving. Too much pressure and I break down.

The time boundary helps too. I can't compose genius in twenty minutes. All I can do is get a few words down and see how my fingers react to typing once again. It applies gentle pressure — hurry, there are only a few minutes left before I have to do my job.

Mostly it comes down to deciding to do the thing. It's like running or cleaning the house. There's an inertia to overcome and the first step is telling myself, okay, get to it. That telling doesn't always work, that's why the screen and page stayed blank these past two weeks, but the telling is always first even when I don't notice myself saying anything at all.

Why decide to write, though? What good is it? Where does it go and who will read it? It's best I avoid that sort of questioning especially after a break. There are no good answers to who will read and where it goes or what good it might do. My only answer as to why write is this: I need to.

What do you need to do? Write, read, cook, swim, run, dance, take photographs, or something else? Name it and, if you can, say why you need to do it. I could use some help figuring this stuff out.

Fast Food

Seventeen years ago I stopped eating fast food. I had a quarter pounder with cheese, super-size fries and Coke for dinner with my mother-in-law. My wife was in the hospital with our four-day-old daughter. I was tired and in no mood to cook. McDonalds seemed the right choice. We ate at the restaurant that used to be on the university hill near the hospital, visited my wife and baby, and went home to sleep. By eight o'clock I knew something was wrong. By ten I was camped on the bathroom floor.

At about 1:30 on the morning of the 29th I told myself, "I will never eat fast food again." By three or four I was able to shower and sleep a few hours before returning to the hospital where they discharged my wife but kept our daughter one more day. Leaving our daughter was even worse than food poisoning. I was still recovering from that and remembering what I had told myself.

It's no surprise I would swear off fast food when I was on the bathroom floor unable to move six feet away from a toilet. The surprise is that I've never gone back to McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, or Wendy's. Not even for a french fry or Shamrock Shake. I stopped cold and I don't miss it.

I'd like to tell you I'm super-healthy now but I try not to lie here. I'm still twenty pounds overweight, still likely to finish a bag of chips once I open them, still drinking more alcohol than I should, still eating too much sugar. I'm no paragon of virtue. I've just quit fast food for so long I can't imagine eating it again.

Years ago I bought Twinkies, not having had one in years and remembering how I had loved them. I bit into the first one and chewed a couple of times before it registered: this thing is terrible. I swallowed that bite with a question mark on my face and took another. I couldn't remember ever having not finished a Twinkie. My school lunch bag always held knock-off snacks. When I got hold of real Twinkies, I damn well ate them. But the second bite was disgusting too. It wasn't stale or moldy — I doubt Twinkies can grow mold. It simply didn't taste like food. I spit out that second bite and threw the second Twinkie away still wrapped in its package. I've no desire to try again.

After seventeen years, it's the same with fast food. I just don't want it any more.

I need to figure out what day I dropped Facebook. My guess is that seventeen years from now I'll have little taste left for social media. I hope that I'm healthier for it. I really thought I'd shed a few pounds without all those quarter pounders, super size fries, and super size Coca-Cola. Damn.