Temporal Bandwidth And Social Media

I like how Jaron Lanier isn't demanding everyone leave social media. Instead he wants a group of people to not be on social media in order to have perspective on the effects of Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Lanier convinced me to ditch social media in August of 2018 but I'm unwilling to leave Google, the ecosystem in which I put far too much of my work and trust. Lanier isn't hoping to convert everyone. His thinking is out there for us to take or leave. I like too how Ezra Klein takes some and leaves some. Thoughtful people having discussions too big for social media.

Can anyone tell me the last time something really big and important happened on social media? Don't tell me about the Arab Spring. That was chronicled and perhaps facilitated by social media, but it happened in the real world and has since fizzled. I want big ideas but can't find them on social media. They don't fit the model and I wonder if that isn't part of their design. Think of it this way: if you wanted to keep people penned like sheep, wouldn't you give them a communication tool that keeps their ideas small? I would.

Alan Jacobs, discussing temporal bandwidth shared these two quotes (which could have been written as tweets thus shredding my previous paragraph's idea):

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

— L.P. Hartley

“What force shall represent the future in the present?”

— Hans Jonas

Social media does not account well for the past. Sure, Facebook occasionally surfaces what you posted years ago, but that's not the same as revisiting the past in order to better understand the world. Those resurfaced posts are most likely ways to remind us how great it is using Facebook and get us to share the post again. Jacobs' temporal bandwidth is a feel for the past that is much more than mere remembering. It is about understanding there have been other ways of doing things, other ways of being. It's like when I tell students about life before cell phones and answering machines. I don't do it in an "in my day I walked ten miles to school, uphill both ways" kind of nonsense. I want them to understand that the past was a foreign country and urge them to get a passport and visit to see how things were done there.

Social media does not account well for the future. Tweets and Facebook posts are gone as soon as they're posted. A viral post has the lifetime of a mayfly. Then we are onto the next trending topic. Only the continuously outrageous maintain presence and keep attracting present attention.

Social media is confined to the moment with no care for past or future. That's why the buffoon in the White House is so attracted to it. He has no care for the future, no understanding of the past, and lives only in the moment of his own ego. Social media is perfect for that. It is absolutely in the moment, though I imagine even Zen Buddhists giving me the finger for saying so.

All that said, yesterday I was introduced to the Twitter feed of Capt. Andrew Luck and reminded how creativity shines in any medium. Capt. Andrew Luck is both an NFL quarterback and a Ken Burns Civil War soldier tweeting of coming battles, the misfiring of his sidearm, and, of course, squirrel oil. A friend, his wife, and I were out to dinner last night broken down laughing as she read from his feed. Glorious!

Like Jaron Lanier I've no real interest in converting people beyond my interest in seeing Facebook and Twitter reduced in influence and revealed for their deeper effects on our world. Who would have thought social media would help elect such a terrible president? Well, maybe those people with proper temporal bandwidth could see it. I was too busy scrolling through feeds for news of the moment which all turned out to be couldn't as I scrolled through my feeds wondering what was happening in the moment which turned out to be tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signaling something I didn't have the bandwidth to fully understand.

Haven't Written Anything Today

I have a warped sense about this, but standing at my desk I thought, "I haven't written anything today." Egad.

Actually I filled my usual three Morning Pages, typed my morning email to my wife, wrote three pages in my notebook here at school, and annotated an essay to share with students. I have written this morning but it feels as if I haven't.

Aside from the email and annotations all my writing has been for my eyes only. It's not private, it's just unlikely to interest anyone much. I wrote to think. Most of my writing is for thinking rather than sharing. Even the stuff I share, such as this, begins as just thinking. However started this with expressed intent to take it beyond myself. Morning Pages and notebook writing don't always have that intent behind them though I'm always open to them becoming more.

In schools the idea of writing without the submitting is almost laughable. Without submission, how can students be held accountable? I have them write in a packet and then count pages for a Writing Practice grade. It works for us. Daily writing practice without fear of submission helps us think. Thinking, it turns, is a good way to learn.

I wonder how professional writers do this. I imagine that if I was making money writing I'd still write more to think than to publish. That's okay because I write a lot of pages and enjoy doing it. I can afford not to publish most of my writing because there's so much of it. Every so often in that process I remind myself that I haven't written anything to share and I move in that direction.

I know why I write thinking pages no one will see. I understand that better than why I publish. Does vanity drive me to create? No one's asking for it. And while I like to think it does some good, no one really needs it. Still, it feels worthwhile.

There was a time when I didn't understand why I wrote just for myself, but I kept going and figured it out. I'll keep going with putting writing out into the world. In time I might understand what's going on. Until then the best idea is to write on.

Stephen King, Elevation

It's one of those books you can read in a day, in a single sitting if you like. At 146 small pages it just goes by like a long short story or a novella, whatever you like to call it. And it's a good Stephen King, especially for someone like me who is too dainty for horror stories and doesn't enjoy gore. Like Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption or The Body, this is just good storytelling, a yarn, something I followed from beginning to end gladly, hungrily.

If Stephen King isn't one of our best writers he is most certainly one of our best storytellers. Writing that down, I have to say that I think King a very good writer and I admire how prolific he is, how successful he has been, and how generous he seems to other writers and people like me who wish to become writers. I bet I would like talking with him. Actually, I'd prefer to just listen to him. Yeah, I should just listen and learn. He'd have plenty to teach me.

Elevation is the story of a man who is losing weight but not getting any smaller. It's a weird tale, almost comic book in nature but maybe more like those great old science fiction movies of the fifties. And here's what King does: he makes it all seem normal and he gets at what it might be like to be that character. Where those old movies couldn't be bothered with character because they were too stuck on their gimmick (a fifty-foot tall woman or a giant blob for instance), King allows the character to make the whole thing feel real.

There were times in the last forty pages when I felt like he was trying too hard and at least once a piece of dialogue landed like bird shit on my head, but these are small things and this was a small book that I imagine came together fast. (As did this review.) Yarns aren't perfect. This isn't trying to be Literature (said with a musty accent). It's a story. A damn good one. And told by someone who is a master of the craft.

Just go read it. You'll have a good time. It's a light tale that won't take long to get through. I feel lighter already.

Persistence & The Long Haul

I am thinking about persistence and the long haul. Because of the new year of course. Big plans, don't you know. Plans so big it will take a year to accomplish them. Which has me thinking I probably won't accomplish them at all.

It's not that I have zero faith in myself. No, I believe. I just don't believe I can persist. You're reading an essay I have to draft in one burst because I know that walking away even for ten minutes means I won't come back.

The record on the turntable just ended, but I'm worried if I stop to change it I'll lose the thread of this thing. Let's see what I can do.

Phew, I made it back.

Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy but I would be thinking about persistence anyway. My persistence (or lack of) isn't in the face of the patriarchy (though I sympathize and try to help). It's about overcoming the habit of giving up when the going gets tough. Were I a cross country runner, coach wouldn't put me in the hurdles for fear of me stopping at the first one then drifting off to read a book.

Projects requiring my persistence include:

• getting a new job
• treating my increasingly demanding bouts with depression
• writing a book I've been thinking and writing about for four years
• buying a Tesla Model 3
• continuing my happy marriage and family
• growing a bigger audience for this blog

I like these projects. They seem good not just for me but for my family and others in the world. Yay. But...

• I'm likely to get rejected for the job to which I recently applied
• depression knows how to defeat my efforts to treat it
• I can't finish a book in one sitting
• I haven't saved the Tesla's down-payment let alone the monthly payments and insurance
• the family has to care for me as much as I care for them
• growing the blog is more challenging without social media

None of these hurdles are so high I can't clear them. It's that I lose the faith as hurdles appears in my path and think maybe I should sit on the couch, turn on a re-run, and eat Doritos. Yeah, that will do it. That's the right decision.

Or maybe I should work on this persistence thing. I kept writing this though I went and changed the record. I came back to this after a quick interruption from my daughter. There's hope for me yet.

I've stuck with my plans through all of two days so far this year. I've even gone out running each of the last six days and felt good doing it. Crazy.

Hurdles are coming but I can probably get over them. In stride. At speed. With room to spare. Even if I hit one, I'll probably be able to keep going and make the next one clean. And if I fall down, I'm told that the possibility exists that I might just get back up and persist in the race.

The gun has sounded and, look at that, I'm off and running.