Yes, I'm still alive!

If you're here because you've noticed my social media accounts are gone, then let me also say that I'm now more alive than I was just before deactivating them.

If you're checking in because you noticed the monthly posts fell away halfway through 2021, please be assured that I was just working a lot. Somehow, the last five years (or more) left me with a backlog of life admin, which I've been chipping away at since June.

Anyway, here's what's been going on...

Deactivating my social media accounts

Something hasn't felt right for a while. Maybe the big platforms changed (they did) or maybe I changed (I did too), but after reading Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, I deactivated my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Say what you want about Lanier and his book. And indeed, people do say what they want, sometimes based on their own presumptions without having read it, but that's fine. I'm not going to claim that it offers a balanced debate, because it doesn't — the clue is in the title.

I didn't go searching for a book that would help me make sense of the facts. I wanted something that would help me contextualise my simmering desire to shut everything down, despite the obvious benefits and conveniences and addictions.

This book did exactly that. I did exactly what I wanted to do. And it felt SO good.

Re-kindling my love for RSS

In lieu of behaviour-tracked, algorithm-driven social media feeds, I've re-kindled my love for RSS. It's such a nice way to consume news and stuff people post, and I'm glad it's still very much alive and thriving. Once upon a time, I used Google Reader and Feedly, but I wanted to look for a good quality paid solution this time around.

I'm now using Reeder to fetch my news. It's elegant and Apple only, which I'm sorry-not-sorry about. Windows users actually have shedloads of RSS reader software options, and Reeder was the only fantastic Mac/iOS option I could find (the others were just okay or so-so).

For content I can't consume on the spot, I've set up a good old-fashioned Notes file. Reeder to Notes is a very straightforward workflow — just hit the Share button and send it to the app. Something else that's cool — now that I don't have social media feeds to endlessly scroll, I actually have time to read the stuff I save for later 😅

Reading a lot

Reading became my go-to after deactivating. Whenever the "open social app" urge arose, I consciously made myself open my ebook reader instead. After awhile, one habit replaced another, and now I look forward to picking up something where I left it.

In the past six weeks, I've read six books. Seven if you count the yet-to-be-published novel manuscript I test-read for a friend. They've been a mix of novels, novellas and self-help literature. I'm also getting through my trove of "saved for later" articles from, oh, the last three years. It's a slow grind, but a satisfying one.

Choosing my clouds

Sometime last year, I started getting fidgety thinking about how much data certain companies have about me. It's not that I have anything juicy to hide or that I'm super paranoid about a dystopian future (when you think about it, we already live in a dystopia). But I started wondering what kind of future I'm contributing to through the choices I make.

Yes, even digital choices. All the kerfuffle about crypto made me realise there's a real-world environmental cost to storing and processing my data. Even though I'm barely a drop in the ocean on my own, it's within my control to not be such a "digital hoarder", which I was slowly becoming thanks to years of relying and adapting to certain free services with large quotas. Speaking of which, I also wondered about the ethics of companies who I allow to use me as their product. So, you know... lots to think about.

Over the Christmas break, I switched my email and cloud storage to different providers. It was a ball-ache, as I'd definitely become a hoarder, and I still have a lot of stuff to go through and curate. But deciding what to let go of gave me a sense of empowerment not too unlike the feeling of a deep konmari.

Writing so much

And finally, since last April, I have written:

• Two short stories
• Four books (of varying length)
• Lots of blog posts (sorry, cbf counting)
• Ads, promos and ephemeral stuff like that
• Letters, cards and postcards

What else?

• Poles is coming along great. I am at the penultimate course, which I'll need to repeat because there were a few things I just couldn't do. All the while, I'm hoping they'll get enough student numbers to run the final course.
• I'm triple-vaxed yet still rather nervous about the omicron and border business going on around us. When it comes down to it, I can deal with the uncertainty over rules and stuff that science folks are still studying. What really upsets me is not knowing if I'm inadvertently making a situation worse just by going about my day.