Some Questions, to Start

Isn't this just a blog?

I guess. Maybe I should call it that, and maybe I will -- it's just a word, after all, and specificity is something I admire -- but I've always found it an off-putting word. Blog sounds like "blah" to me, it sounds like the noise congealed soup makes when you dump it in the trash, it sounds like stepping in a cowpie. Meanwhile, to my ear, "journal" and "diary" and "notebook" sound like an early morning walk, enjoying the solitude, the day's unspoiled potential, and one's own thoughts -- and perhaps stopping and jotting down a reflection or a sketch. A blog feels like signing up for something and being obligated to do it a certain way, while a notebook is mine, and I can do with it what I like.

Haven't you ever heard of social media? Didn't Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram make blogging obsolete?

Okay, first of all, it's a notebook. Second of all, social media makes me feel crummy about myself. I do use Facebook and Instagram sporadically, and I kind of like Instagram sometimes, but if I exert effort creating a post I usually feel like I've lost a bunch of time, and then I feel drawn to check on how it's doing, respond to comments (promptly, to milk the algorithm), and I frequently find that my day becomes a fragmented, unfocused blur that feels yucky to me; so then I don't post for a while, and I feel negligent for not "building my platform". I get the sense that some people who've successfully built a large following are actually enjoying themselves, but it feels like work to me, and unappetizing work at that.

Maybe that's because in the back of my mind I know that I'm being used as free labor to keep the wheels of the social media machine turning. Let me see if I can explain what I mean. It's like each of us is digging a hole, working hard, feeling good about the progress we're making, and really we're down at the bottom of a massive pit that belongs to a huge corporation, and the heads of the corporation are outside the pit, looking down, and all they see is ant-sized miners excavating their pit for them. (And that little hole you've been working on so diligently? It doesn't belong to you; they can take it away from you in a second. *)

Then there's my chronic smartphone addiction -- and yours, too. I'm in a constant struggle with my phone, and how could I not be, when the entire mission of manufacturers, app developers, and social media companies is to get me to use it more. I hate it that by posting I become unpaid labor in an organization whose overarching goal is to separate you from the minutes and hours of your life as surely as a pickpocket's goal is to separate you from your wallet. We've probably all heard about the muckety-muck at Netflix who said that their biggest competitor wasn't other streaming services, but sleep. Can you imagine having such a cavalier attitude toward the well-being of other human beings? But we could easily adapt that to the subject of social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram's major competitors aren't each other, they're your kids, your husband or wife, your work, your community.

Aren't you worried no one will care that you have a blog?

It is a blog, isn't it. Fine.

Am I worried? Nope. If someone does come by it will mean they sought me out, not that I was just a piece of content in their scroll. I like that. I don't want to be content. The creators I grew up admiring made art; I'm dismayed when I see artists degrading themselves by referring to their self-expression as content -- like a low-paid worker referring to themselves as "a human resource".

As I may have mentioned, I have mixed feelings about social media. For example, when my daughter was born I was careful not to post about it; it just made me feel queasy to imagine one of the most marvelous and consequential moments of my life being weighed by an algorithm and plopped into somebody's social media feed where, at the same moment that I was gazing in wonder at the new life in my arms, somebody might click "like", before scrolling on (in all probability to "like", likewise, a post about someone going to bed early or making chili or something). 

And yet, I do want people to know about me, to buy my books, to hire me. Sometimes I want to tell the world about something really good I read, or a cool word I learned -- and I'll do that here. Maybe I'll share stuff I'm working on. Maybe we'll chat in the comments, and maybe it will feel less yucky; more like stopping by for a visit and drinking apple cider at a table under a tree, while we chat, rather than  shouting to be heard in a manky disco. 

Today is going to be a great day.
---
Footnote:
 * I know a woman whose Facebook account was frozen because someone reported one of her photos. She entered into a weird world of automated appeals straight out of Kafka. Her appeal was denied and she lost access to her account, where she'd been "building her platform" for ten years. Throughout the process she never spoke to a human being and never knew what photo triggered the whole ordeal. She's still banned from Facebook.