I went offline for a while.

I was on an internet roll blogging, chattering on Mastodon and some private Discord groups, and then I dropped off for a few months.

There was a melange of reasons for this, and while it wasn’t burnout or anything dire it was an abrupt shift in attention. I removed Discord, Ivory, and Slack from my phone and my world immediately got quieter.

I liked it.

I felt guilty not keeping up some regularity in my writing or social banter, and started wondering if the guilt was residue from past dopamine addiction or weird self-imposed pressure.

Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing recently gave me the concept of freedom to not post, to not have to build a personal brand that collapses different contexts into a least common demominator with vaguely-commercial overtones. It’s not just cleverly-rebranded laziness, but actively fighting social and capitalistic pressure to be an instrument. That struck a chord.1

A lot happened in those months though, which I’ll now reduce to bullet points:

• I traded my very old sedan in for my first pickup truck, and repeatedly used it for landscaping efforts and getting out into the woods.
• I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription, replaced my Kindle with a Kobo, and started reading more.
• I started talking with a therapist I really like, which has been grounding, challenging, and massively helpful.
• I poured many hours into playing video games before realizing how much it severely limited my ability to be present and process things without false urgency.
• I realized that without a problem to solve I have no idea what I’m doing or what value I actually have, and started working on that.
• I reconnected with people I’ve missed and failed to make time for.
• I finally got Covid.
• I tried a few out-of-comfort-zone work opportunities I was lucky to have.
• I started working more with Laravel again and enjoying it.
• With guidance and encouragement from a friend, I started lifting weights and actually managed to stick with it. I look and feel a little better and have fresh metaphors to chew on.
• I replaced a bunch of metal zipper pulls with paracord and heat shrink tubing like GORUCK uses on all their bags. It’s cheap and extremely satisfying.
• I grew out my hair, got tired of looking like a police sketch, and then started cutting it myself.
• I started attending an improv comedy class after putting it off for a long time, and there’s nothing I’d rather do more right now.

I still don’t wake up with some bold, clear idea of what I’m doing on this planet. I don’t often start the day, to use a phrase we’ve stolen from Futurama, with the will of the warrior.

But I’m getting a little better at being aware of my tendency to dwell on loss, longing, and complexity and balance them with lightness and joy that only comes from getting out of my head, taking risks, and doing things for no reason other than to enjoy them and see what happens.

Footnotes

I didn’t intend the pun, but I’m happy with it. ↩