Reminders Why I Went Somewhere Else...
In some ways, I'm a bit of a music nut. My life feels like it has a soundtrack... or maybe it's just a case of there always being music in the background, when I work; when I write; when I drive; when I garden.
It might have been back in the 1990's I first told someone that "Music is my mind-altering substance of choice." That still holds true.
I'll be the first to admit that what I tend to listen to is a bit esoteric. Don't expect top-40 pop. Don't expect classic album rock. Don't expect generic heavy metal. My genre choices pretty much defy categorization.
But that's not the point I'm trying to make here.
The point is that I often like to share some of the tunes I am listening to. But sharing music is an interesting and often thankless experience. Maybe even a lonely experience.
The vast majority of folks will click on a link to a tune they "remember" or are familiar with, but very few will take a chance on something they've never heard of before.
After a while, I pretty much stopped sharing music on Facebook, perhaps because the pointlessness of it made itself so evident.
The heart of a poppy, in extreme close-up
I stopped, because I experienced pretty much zero interaction with what I shared... and whereas I was often looking at other people's music shares, I just didn't have the interest in following up on some tune that was eternally on the radio, six years ago.
But that's the nature of social! People respond to the "me too" sensations of seeing something known, rather than curiosity at learning about something they've never seen before.
Of course, this wasn't exactly why I largely faded away from Facebook.
That mostly happened in 2016-17... due to the sheer unpleasantness of human nature I saw displayed — in glorious technicolor — during the 2016 US Presidential primaries and election... and the start of the Trump Presidency.
Bunny in our back yard...
Endless fighting and bickering... long time friends feuding and blocking each other in this public arena, simply over their political leanings. 20-year friendships ending over "draining the pond" and "pussy grabbing."
It is not in my nature to think someone an idiot and condemn them, simply because they don't think like I do. I even explained this to many folks I thought were good and reasonable people... and was surprisingly often met with some variation of "You're just one of those wishy-washy liberals who lacks conviction... and the fact that you're not FIGHTING just shows that you REALLY aren't convinced your choice is right!"
I guess traits like "courtesy" and "respect" have become "very 20th century." Or something.
I just don't happen to think that "Verbal Abusiveness" is a sound or desirable debating technique. Clearly, I am not relevant to the majority of the world.
Interlude....
Many moons ago, I found myself in discussion with an "activist" who was enraged about something to do with Exxon-Mobil and was trying to organize boycotts and demonstrations at the company's branded fuel stations.
I asked her what she was hoping to accomplish... the inevitable answer was "change!"
I suggested that change comes when you render something you're opposed to powerless in your life.
Blowing up or protesting what you don't like typically will make a LOT of noise while resulting in relatively LITTLE change. 100s of years ago, when the villagers showed up with pitchforks and torches at the landowners' castle, the landowners mostly just built taller walls.
Blowing up refineries and picketing fuel stations will also create a lot of "noise."
Riding an e-bike and charging it from solar cells... renders the entire product you're protesting against irrelevant, thereby taking the power of what you dislike away... true change comes when a viable alternative becomes more attractive than that we have grown tired and disgruntled with.
For a While...
... I was more active on Facebook. I mostly fooled the algorithms that exist to serve each person up a version of their own personal echo chamber by reading (and "liking") equal amounts from both sides of the story.
We're not supposed to do that, in our 21st century paradigm of polarity. Choose a side and worship it fanatically, while condeming anyone on the other side.
In time, I recognized that people on all sides of the argument were being rude, crude and socially unacceptable in their approaches... while all selling themselves the false narratives that they were the ones taking the moral high ground; the high road.
I realized that BEING right had become more important than working towards a right OUTCOME.
Alas, everybody's shit stinks... and the only way to move beyond it to (A) recognize that it's shit and (B) admit that yes, it does stink. And maybe, if we all get together with our respective manure, we can come up with something that fertilizes the earth... for everyone.
In any case, I went from being a pretty active and "involved" person on Facebook to being mostly a shadow, occasionally sharing a few posts of others... occasionally putting in a small public "plug" for ventures I was involved in.
Change happens when you choose to make something irrelevant...
That's pretty much all I have time for, today. But there will be more to this story, in weeks ahead.
Thanks for reading!
How about YOU? What are your feelings about Facebook? Still using it? What keeps you there, if you are? If you left, were there specific reasons for that? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20200707 16:14 PDT
0075/1303
That all important #posh notification:
twitter: https://twitter.com/Denmarkguy/status/1280642483026669568
"[C]hange comes when you render something you're opposed to powerless in your life."
This is the polar opposite of what so many very opinionated people are saying. Meanwhile, we are here on Hive making an alternative to corporate social media right now. Cryptocurrencies are making a real change in the monetary monopolies of governments. People are choosing to deliberately disregard legislation that they see as an infringement on liberty. This is the way forward.
One of my favorite quotes of the moment — actually nabbed from one of my wife's Facebook groups — is that "Vengeance is not JUSTICE."
Seems to me so many people are doing their own personal sit-and-spin focusing on attacking everything, and if we can just "get rid of" this and that, life will be fine. No, no it will not.
Don't tear down or blow up what you don't like... BUILD a better a alternative. That's part of why I embraced the Steem "experiment" and now continue with Hive... and I'll throw some support behind anyone else trying to create a better alternative. I don't want to fight and tear down things, I want to build things.
I tried to leave FB, I really did. That's when I went to steem. Now I am back on FB and I can tell you that it has gotten much much worse. I get attacked for saying the most benign things, but benign things that don't follow the Dem platform to a T. I have become an enemy of my some of my closest friends! I really need to learn how to keep my mouth shut there. It's a good thing the folks who disagree with me vociferously at present are only armed with signs.
Love love love your photos, especially the poppy.
I have left Facebook for anything meaningful, but I have continued to post photos of my cats and flowers, and news updates on what's flowering in the garden. I don't try to have "serious" conversations with anyone there, however. I still belong to several groups there, and they are very niche and topic oriented, so we stay *"on topic,"I and I guess FB is still OK for that, in some hobbyist sort of way.
I completely avoid politics on Facebook because I don't function well in an environment where someone is unable to appreciate (and work with) the positive aspects of both sides the political spectrum. I guess I'm a bit of a Buddhist at heart, in that I believe that no perspective can be 100% right OR 100% wrong... and I seek out the right parts rather than the wrong parts. That doesn't work well for those who'd rather engage in a verbal brawl than find actual solutions.
Yup. That's exactly what is happening now. Especially lefties. No discussion allowed, just a bunch of hate. Someone posts something hateful, and all their followers do the same underneath. If I try to get in there and say something sensible, not hateful, I get ATTACKED by all of them. So I've stopped doing that, and just post my own informative info. Nice conversations happen, but of course only folks who largely agree with me have anything to say. Dangerous space!!
Some people are just not happy unless they are "in a fight."
I remember the ridiculousless of that many years ago when I started to date someone I thought was a very nice woman... until she quite openly explained that she'd get bored in relationships "unless there was a good fight 2-3 times a week." Struck me an extremely dysfunctional and toxic state of mind... and yet? It's not that rare.
Ah, you old hippy, you!lol.
I think where we are right now 'in the cycle' of things, is a place not suitable for fence sitters. (excluding old hippies of course)
Politics is down stream from culture, and so politics is never really about politics,(as in the party system) it's more about fundamental difference of perspectives and values.
The tipping point has come (for various reasons, but mostly banking and money at the heart of things).
It's about supporters of 'the system' (rightly or wrongly), and those that want a new direction.
Disruption of everything is a necessary (and unpleasant) part of he process..
I'll send you some lentils...lolol.
I guess I'm just "too much of a Buddhist" in some ways... very rarely — if ever — are people or ideas 100% right or 100% wrong. Whenever the insistence that something has to be done according to a certain system, you inevitably end up with some being repressed and ignored, leading to unrest, leading to a new "revolution" and the cycle just goes on and on...
I seem to remember the Swiss were in the early stages of trying to abolish "fractional banking" some years back, in an attempt to return to a "real" monetary system, in which banks can't "create" money simply by making loans. I don't think it got very far, but at least there was enough interest at a national level for a proposed referendum.
Of course, they are a little different, with their direct democracy...
You coma across as too genuine to be a hippy,
(I've yet to meet one who isn't up there own arse and whose favored mode of communication is passive aggressive..).
Only to try and drag people on to here, it generally doesn't work too well.
Trying a slightly different angle for a couple of months — just going to write content FOR certain FB groups, not in any way about or promoting Hive, just published on Hive with a small footnote that since I am no longer active on FB, most of my content can be found here.
GREAT POST!!!
Thank you for publishing it to our community feed!
Compliments of the PHC founder @jaynie...
We have tweeted, upvoted and reblogged it for you.
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This is a profound reality those awaiting change to come are unaware of. Change cannot come to you. You must go to change.
Today this fact alarms me, because I am anticipating having to change in ways I do not find desirable to surmount the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that have been set upon me, as on all of us, this year.
I have been outspoken here, on the blockchain, but not so much in my community. I do small things IRL, socially or professionally (mostly just making things for folks they didn't think they could have), and my experiences have driven me from public affairs to the degree possible.
On the Fourth of July, I and a friend patronized a local pub after hours of watching the decentralized fireworks display our neighbors were putting on down at the beach, and I nearly was unable to be served there because I would not wear a mask. My safe comfort has been challenged by irrational institutional demands today, and not only on this matter. Riots, spindly-armed, strong-kneed cops, maybe RWDS's or Commie Cadres before too long. Forced UBI and economic dependence. The world has changed much between New Year's Day and the Fourth of July.
While I am old now, and the fire in my belly subsides to lambent coals, when I was young that fire burned bright, and in truth I am lucky to have survived my youth.
I am more fortunate yet that my sons have survived, honestly, as there were times when my involvement in public affairs produced credible threats to their lives and safety. This is largely why I rock the boat in person but little and have limited my forthright speech to pseudonymous accounts online.
But that has become a bad habit, no longer justifiable today. My sons are grown men, and competent to handle their affairs should someone seek to compel me by threatening them. My community is hemorrhaging reason around me, and society is being surgically altered by pathological cutters rather than competent medical professionals.
I am going to have to change. The question is how will I undertake to change. Begrudgingly, when forced by blowhards and bullies, or bringing the opportunity to change to them who seek to profit from confrontation? Were I young, the question would not even occur. I took the fight to them.
Today, though, as I gnaw some dozen pills daily to keep my battered heart pumping my sludgy blood in my dotage, it is tempting to leave drawing lines in sand to the young, and to simply step out of range of the impositions of bullies and profiteers. It is the young, after all, that have the most at stake, if only in years, from the unreasonable social impositions that are being pushed.
Innawoods, the stag and hind remain steadfast. The grouse still dance to thrill their maidens this time of year. All is well with the world there, almost unchanging. Few make rules for those living innawoods, other than to make rules against it, and enforcing any rules is impossible until you find someone to force them on.
It is tempting to accept such a retirement from the madding world, rather than to enter the fray again, old, shriveled, and perhaps irrelevant to all concerned.
Then again, perhaps the change necessary can speak profoundly if I do as you suggest. Plandemic and the economic dependence that has sprouted from it can be mitigated without being harangued by barmaids as my exasperated date's cheeks redden if I simply adapt an old motorcycle helmet with a face shield with a bit of modern tech. Tinting, so no one can see in. Filter canisters attached. Some bluetooth gadgetry and cameras. Riot ready. Facial recognition proof. N95 respirator included. USB ports =p. Be super cool to have an exoskeleton too. Maybe I could recharge the batteries at the electric car charging stations, or print up some inflatable solar panels like party balloons.
It would prove a point, and silence the desperate compliers, who, after all, just want to keep their jobs, keep their businesses open, not become dependents. However, I'd need appropriate attire to complete the look properly. Bullet proof vest and battle harness. Stout combat boots, kneepads, and batman utility belt. Scary half gloves with the fingers cut off.
I'm thinking a Hello Kitty theme, with a Darth Vader voice modulator. What do you think?
Thanks!
I really grok the Hello Kitty meets Darth Vader theme; very 22nd century!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I guess I am getting a bit long in the tooth for revolutions, but when I think about it, I come from a long line of "quiet resisters" whose primary efforts for more than a century has never been to blow stuff up or wave banners, but to quietly put sand and pebbles in the gears of the machinery in need of change.
When my aunt in Denmark passed away in the lat 1990's, we had to clean out the basement of her house and found an old printing press and flyers created as part of the Nazi resistance in WWII and I know at least one possibly two downed British fighter pilots lived there as a safe house till they could be smuggled home.
I've always been better at working WITHIN the system to make the system obsolete... and so, we politely said "thank you" for our US government stimulus checks and used the money to buy supplies, high quality topsoil and plants to grow more food and make ourselves LESS dependent on those very same handouts.
At one time, I had aspirations to never become "one of those" old coots who depends on a handful of daily pharmaceuticals and supplements to stay among the living... and yet I eye my little pile every morning with a sigh, but also a bit of gratitude. Meanwhile, the Mrs. and I work very hard at not having to interface with the insanity of the world out there — except in a somewhat peripheral manner — by earning our keep from home in a modest way that generally does not support the insane consumption machine that drives the world.
I wish the younguns well in fighting the good fight...if they even choose to... and whereas I can't help but occasionally wonder what sort of world our grandkids will have when they hit their 60's, it's going to be their world, with its own set of problems I can't even imagine.
Defying categorization... uhm yeah, me too!!
Although on other hand... I turn a bit esoteric also sometimes. :)
That's definitely some interesting stuff you have there! I pretty much run Kraftwerk to Andrés Segovia... and some bits in between:
I remember reading in history of the meetings the founders often had in the alehouses long before the start of the Revolutionary War. Some were fervent Loyalist while others were staunch rebels. Although there were passionate ideals expounded, seemingly they were intelligent enough to hear the other side and try to counter and convince with a more meaningful argument. Of course the ability to unfriend and mute was not yet available LOL