The Fall

With a barely noticeable nod to Albert Camus

I’ve been trying my best to distance from world events but even so, there is seepage. I don’t buy into the notion that disengagement from the news (particularly these days) is tantamount to ignorance. Not at all. I see it as a reclaiming of the life I choose to live; I’m setting a big fat boundary against douchebaggery in all its forms. However, as I say, there is seepage and also we are living through unprecedented (in my lifetime) chaos and collapse and, dammit, I can’t punch my way out of this confounding paper bag all by myself. So I’ve enlisted the help of other writers … on Substack.

As you know, a few years ago, I left Substack as a writer. The algorithm, the push for paid subscriptions, the introduction of the Notes feature which is an addictive social media scrolling feed, all led to my exodus. However, there is also brilliant writing, exquisite art, and truly witty repartee to be found there.

After a month and half, I am well and truly addicted to the Notes feed. And I’m just letting that be for now. I am no stranger to addiction. I recognize the signs and am self-aware enough to know that I am currently caught in its web.

I have come to view the people who post on Notes as my addiction enablers - consistently and without pause, they sprinkle tidy little nuggets of content for which my dopamine-deprived (depraved?) brain so desperately yearns. All those delectable bon mots could just as well be lighting my cigarette, pouring me a glass of whiskey, and passing me a rolled up $100 bill. It all amounts to the familiar trap of addiction. And yet I am feeling a warm benevolence toward it all.

I appear to be scrolling my mind into oblivion - hopefully, to the point of complete silence. This is more of an annihilation of self rather than that motivational boredom of youth that compelled one to go/do/play/make/create something. Scrolling boredom is the type of boredom that numbifies.

So, I have a lot of that. But, also, because Substack is a long-form essay writing platform, I’ve been able to connect with others who are experiencing the world as I am these days and who can write about it so, so well. I have found myself hearting and commenting on posts of people I have never and will never meet in real life. But, somehow, and I guess this is another reason why people have online lives, it feels satisfying. They heart me back ❤️.

Turns Out I Am A Hater

One of the things I have always hated about social media is, well, the hate-mongering, the rage bating, the I know you are but what am I? mentality of the comments. I’ve turned my anti-social media stance into an immovable personal value, silently and not so silently judging all of you who partake. It feels good to be right. It feels good to be on the moral and intellectual side of a good vs bad binary.

But, like most things I take a hard line on, I’ve painted myself into a corner of self-righteous isolation. I mean, I have almost zero community in real life (that’s a whole other blog post), the lonely reality of which has eaten away at my self-identity. If I don’t have anyone against whom I can compare my thoughts, beliefs, feelings, motivations, then who the hell am I? What do I stand for and why? What is sustaining me? Do I come to my opinions through honest reflection of the options available or do I just pick one and stick to it, come hell or high water? Do I even exist?

Well, I’ve always thought of myself as curious, interested, open. I won’t go so far as to say I have always liked people as a concept, but I certainly have very much enjoyed individual persons. Truly, it is only when we gang up, form clubs, pay for membership into human sub-groups that we become problematic. Agreed? The word collective comes with all sorts of warm feels but some alpha will eventually push, bully, manipulate their way to the most influential position of said collective and ruin it for the rest of us who just want to be left alone and/or get along nicely.

My early foray into Facebook (fucking eons ago), introduced me to people saying the quiet things out loud. All that mean and hateful stuff that is supposed to stay inside your head had suddenly found an outlet with an insatiable appetite for vitriol. I didn’t last long on that platform or any other - tried Instagram and LinkedIn for about a minute. And whilst I chose that option for myself based on experience and felt right about it, the problem was that no one else did. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to me that by existing solely in the real world, I would be a chorus of one. That I would be the last woman standing on actual ground, in an actual reality, where we could, I don’t know, experience the five basic senses we’ve been graced with.

I honestly thought social media was a dumb idea, like Pet Rocks and genital waxing, and that it, too, would die out. Holy fuck was I wrong! Sad, sad, sad. Social media is such an entrenched aspect of our lives now that it isn’t even cool to complain about it anymore. We’ve moved past that. Like previous generations might have worried about how the radio would change lives and not for the better or like when reading was introduced to the masses and all hell broke loose. No one complains about those things anymore; they’ve just become a way of our life. Well, except maybe for reading given that (irony alert!), social media has killed our brain cells, and our ability to read and comprehend much of anything outside of a tweet has radically diminished. What is old is new again.

So, aaaaaanyway.

Here’s where I’m at. I am chronically lonely over here in the real world where, since the debacle of Covid, we’ve forgotten or never learned how to be in the presence of other people in an enjoyable way. I’ve been dragging my inner thoughts around like dead weight with no where to unload them. They just go around and around and around and I am so fucking bored with the hamster wheel. So, I decided I would try this online community bullshit that I have been eschewing forever. And, because I am not crazy (yet), I am steering clear of anything that’s not Substack which is only pseudo-social media.

And, here I am day after day, hour after hour, checking in on my peeps in Notes. It didn’t take long for me to feel like I belonged, reading, and hearting, and commenting enthusiastically on well-written posts but never posting anything myself. So, the conversation is pretty one-sided. I am not ready, likely never will be, to participate in the scrolling scroll of soundbites. That would be giving too much of myself away.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em

However, it turns out, I am not beyond rage engagement which means, I think, that I am truly now one of the Substack gang despite my propensity to sit mostly quietly in the corner like a good introvert at the party. Membership dues are paid up. The currency extracted was only a small hunk of my dignity.

Here’s the skinny: Some American knob put forth that countries like Canada, England, and Australia don’t believe in free speech and, with further shocking ignorance, he purported that only America stands for free speech. I mean, I don’t even think I paused before knocking out a response that was, I am proud to say, articulate but also a little, um, angry. Pretty sure the word irony came into it. But, oh my god, tone deaf much my American cousin?

After I clicked the publish button in the comments box (again, without even thinking it through; I just reacted like a well-trained social media keyboard warrior), I muted and blocked him and, for good measure, I did the same for all the other knobs who agreed with him. Just like my five year old self kicking my older brother in the shin and the running the fuck away as fast as I could.

Haha! It felt exhilarating and terrifying. He knows where to find me. I immediately felt unsafe because men can be, you know, when crossed, especially by a woman. Upon reflection I don’t think what I said was even that bad in the grand scheme of online reactionary rage but the whole exchange brought out the angry red devil in me and that scares me. I try really hard to keep her under wraps because, honestly, my anger is so deep, so real, so visceral that were it given any rope at all, it would not only hang me but many, many, many other people.

Where Do I Go From Here?

So, that’s my story. I have loosened up enough, been lonely enough, to invite social media of a king into my life. It’s a balancing act of weeding out the bad and celebrating the good. My value system is still screaming at me to get the hell out outta there but sometimes compromises are required. I need other people, people like me who are trying to negotiate their way through this world. I’ve learned quite a bit and dismissed even more. I’ve been introduced to good people saying important things and I’ve learned that we can exist alongside the vitriol. I have agency over who I open the door to, who gets to take up space on the couch in my thoughts. It feels a little like community.