Plodding Onwards

You know the one where you realise you have barely posted once a week for the last month? Back in the mists of time I somehow managed to write almost every day - sometimes more often than that. I’ll have to go look, and figure out what on earth I wrote about.

I will admit to filtering everything through the lens of “does anybody really need to know any of this?” filter these days.

There was a time when I would try to keep with friends too - asking after them - sharing moments of each other’s days with each other. That seems to be on the wane too.

I wonder if everybody is just fed up with the whole “over-sharing” thing on the internet? What started as blogging - written diary entries - back in the early 2000s rapidly morphed into “the social internet”, and the recording of every thought, idea, and moment. I remember it all - I was there.

Suddenly it wasn’t enough that we were having a good day - we had to take a picture of the sun coming up, a picture of our coffee, and a picture of a fabricated life in a bullet journal expressly decorated to show off things we thought others wanted to see us planning to do (note: I never did this - the last bullet journal I used is filled with work meetings).

Don’t even get me started about the Facebook families who only ever post from whatever extravagant “we can piss higher” holiday they’re on.

Commodore announced a dumbed down phone this week - similar to the Nokia 3310 I bought a few years ago. It’s tempting - to get rid of the endless connection to everything all the time - but I fear I’ve already left Plato’s cave. I can’t go back. The rest of the world is already outside.

And yet here I am - posting a few words to a public platform. They will inevitably be ignored, because exhaling isn’t enough any more - but I’ll be damned if that’s going to stop me. In a world where an artificially intelligent author can churn out a thousand wonderfully written words in a few seconds, it makes you wonder where our place is in the “new world” - or if we even have a place.

Perhaps that’s why I’m eyeing Youtube, and the community of people that follow my escapades in a different light recently. Maybe I can see the end of my career coming - much like the advance of the Langoliers across Stephen’s Kings recent past in “Four Past Midnight” - and am looking for my off ramp.

I can also see retirement in the far distance. Not a million miles away any more. A few more years. Maybe more - maybe less.

One thing’s for certain - I need to start running again. I really need to. More as an escape, than anything. A few minutes of my own each morning - before the rest of the day stomps all over whatever I had planned.