It is easier to yell at someone about how they are wrong than it is to persuade them that you are right -- AKA Something New

Original Publish Date: 1/7/2021

Hello, friends.

This is a new space for me online. I realized in a moment of clarity this morning that Facebook, which for a long time has been my primary online community, cannot really be that anymore. The range of people I am connected to there is so broad that, while it serves a purpose, I have realized that it's not really "my space" anymore. (See what I did there?)

Actually, I've felt that way for so long that for the past couple of years I've kept a personal digital journal filled with thoughts and reactions specifically not for sharing on social media. (I know, that's call journaling. What's the big deal, right?) Anyway, I realized today that while I don't really like the whole public forum set up of Facebook especially when writing things I feel strongly about, I do value an online community. And Facebook is no longer my first digital community. It's not a space I can go to to share complex ideas without having to laboriously mitigate and monitor the comments section. I don't always want to play mediator. 

I have realized that sometimes I do want to say something authentic without having to frame it nicely for a broad community of my peers, colleges, relatives of varying distance, neighbors, childhood acquaintances, and the handful of actual close friends from my life. It is too broad an audience to write for, and hence, the writing becomes diluted, trimmed down, and ultimately less me. And let's face it, posting on social media isn't really about writing or developing ideas. It is a forum designed for quick interaction, not depth. 

I thought I had solved this problem by deciding to write privately and more authentically for myself. The trouble is, I don't have a digital replacement for the gaping hole of that online community I once enjoyed so much. It's been more of a shell than the satisfaction of quick interactions from my college days. The internet and social media were silly and unruly things then, but then we all got older and self-important, and everyone and their dog got on, and now I have no space. 

Arguably, nobody should ever have bared their souls or told their most appalling secrets on the internet (at least not in any method traceable to oneself) like the March girls and Laurie's secret mailbox. But for better or (often) worse, that's sort of what it felt like hanging out online in those early days. We were all constructing our own walls, designing our own favorites lists, inviting friends, adding silly things like pokes and honesty boxes. (I think at one point I had defenestrated everyone I knew on facebook out of sheer love of the word. But, I digress.)

All this to say, I miss having a community online in which I feel free to share my thoughts, can be silly and fun, and maybe even exchange ideas with friends without it feeling so laborious. And with the realization that FB can no longer be my primary online community, I realized it would be nice to have one. Because it's just no fun to defenestrate oneself.

So, here is an Outgrabe I've made for myself and fellow momewraths. Here is a space with no real names where we can be our authentic selves. Feel free to discuss, or not, or get defenestrated. Whatever.

With love,
Me

Oh, and the title! Well, it's true, isn't it? Here's to less yelling and more persuasion, or at least more sharing of ideas.

Popular posts from this blog

Adulthood

 With the possible exception of the Peter Pans in Austin (and other cities that wish they were as restlessly youthful and strange), everyone does grow up eventually. Or rather, all people who live long enough enter adulthood do. The strangeness of it is something all the Chaim Potoks and Irene Hunt protagonists and Cassie Logans and Ramona Quimbys and Pi Patels and Jo Marches of the world still can't quite get across. They "came of age," but we don't spend too much time reflecting on the strangeness that is realizing you have entered that world of adulthood in which others see you as and expect you to be more responsible, resilient, prepared, and able than you were a few years before by the simple merit of time.  It struck me at some point post-high school, with a considerable shock, that the adult world was populated by people who, like me, won that position of power simply by being alive. And that I had somehow crossed over to the other side, now sitting in the judg...
Read more

Like You're Running Out of Time

 I'm reminded of the line from Hamilton, "How do you write like you're running out of time?" I think about that often when I have a torrent of words pouring out to put somewhere, but I am aware that I am no Alexander Hamilton.  The words that I have to pour out are not policy proposals for a new nation. They are not informed by an elite education. The torrential storms need not be unleashed without purpose, or they are merely "sound and fury" signifying nothing.  I made this space a long time ago on the hunch that at some point I would want somewhere to put those thoughts. And it seemed ideal to do so with some degree of anonymity.  I wrote you a river, a torrent, a stream.  Hopefully the storms brewing will have something worthy of consumption at some point.  But for now, here is a space carved out, and that can be enough.  Things top of mind at the moment: - politics - social contracts and what we owe each other - legal implications of "work place ra...
Read more

Cautionary Tales

Image
1.26.21 Writing on Beautiful Things: A Cautionary Tale  I once wrote a river, a torrent, and song. I wrote it in leather, red bound.  In it was a story, a hope, a fear,  and joys never so truly found. And tossed in the basket, and put on the shelf, and carried about to and fro, the leaves were so battered, and tattered, and frayed,  and once washed, proceeded to go. So when putting into things  things you hope to keep, keep the place of their keeping with care. If you don't, you will find, after some careless times that precious things written  can soon disappear.  A Knife and a Wooden Spoon When considering holding a wooden spoon and a knife in one hand, and scrubbing them with a brush under running water with the other--don't. You are liable to stab yourself in the finger.  
Read more