Guess I should finally try out a post here on micro.blog. I’ve been blogging more lately, old school style, and realized I missed it. Not yet sure how I’ll use this site, but willing to give it a go.

Last year, I felt like I’d forgotten how to write. Last month, I realized that wasn’t the case. Still, I had lost momentum. I let other things take up my time and attention. In that process, I thought about writing, but never actually got around to it. Here and there, I would write a reply or comment on what someone else had written, but that helped to clarify their ideas, not my own.

I’m nowhere near where I want to be now, but I can tell I’m moving in the right direction. Writing here has helped me rediscover something I thought I’d lost. This simple act of writing has helped me realize I can take small steps and work toward a number of things I want to accomplish.

I’ve long had the vision to see what I was going for. Now I see how I can take steps, just a few at a time, to work toward getting there.

In addition to what I’ve been calling nanoattention, there’s another problem with our current state of social media has gotten us: let’s call it the squirrel.

When you look again at that list I wrote the other day, which was just ten items long, it’s striking to realize that that’s ten different things, by ten different sources. With typical perusal, that might take 20-30 seconds to scroll through. I’m a light user by social media standards, so if we err on the side of 30 seconds, and say I spend 10 minutes on the site, that’s 200 different snippets of text, advertisements, photos, and maybe videos (if I watch said videos, that would of course slow the rate of consumption).

The sheer volume of information is hard enough to fathom, but then when you try to sustain your own attention to something after being intentionally distracted every few seconds, it’s a wonder it takes so long to regain focus.

It’s becoming more apparent that social media is a perpetual jump cut through life.

Today, I taught my last Zumba class. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, and then planning, for the last couple of months.

It was great to see many wonderful people who have made it a lot of fun to teach over the years. I saw today just how much teaching a one-hour class, seemingly such a small thing, has brightened people’s lives. It’s a wonderful feeling, and one I’ll miss.

It still doesn’t feel easy, but it does feel right. And when I do teach once in a while, be it to sub or to join in a Zumbathon, it’ll be more special as a result.

Onward and upward.

A quick perusal of my facebook feed yields the following:

• meme posted by a friend
• picture posted by a friend
• advertisement for a movie
• family pictures posted by a friend
• status update by a friend
• post from a group that was commented on by two friends
• status update by a friend
• status update by a friend
• post that was commented on in a group by a friend
• sponsored post about a credit card, with a list of friends who ‘liked’ that page

Social media thrives on attention. Based on the ten items above (a relatively random sample, taken by scrolling all the way down a few pages), showed 20% sponsored content, 20% content not relating to anything I was seeking out, and 30% status updates (random thoughts from friends), 10% meme, 20% pictures. It can only be assumed that the attention goals of the ads to get views/attention/likes and generate sales. For photos, perhaps get comments and interaction. Status updates, the goal might be to have a brief conversation. The group conversations’ goal is to drive more conversation.

I’ve been pondering lately if any of the above is actually meaningful to me. Sure, I’m connected to people, many of them who are people I enjoy knowing. But are my friendships strengthened? Am I learning something new, be it about life or anything else?

I feel like I say all the time that I want to get together with friends and catch up and have coffee, but more often than not, I just see them online. This is as true for long-distance friends as it is for those who are local. Social media has made me feel a lot less social. Why catch up when I’ve seen what you want to catch up about?

Is the constant sharing, the quick bytes of information, even leaving us with less room to think critically and reflect more on our own lives? The sheer volume being posted to facebook alone is staggering. When we’re so busy posting every little thing, we’re no doubt missing the big picture.

A casual conversation in the workplace today reminded me of the need for filters. A small tale of gossip took the focus away from what needed my attention, and did nothing to help me get done what I needed to get done.

Sometimes, you need to block out the things which get in the way of providing good care, communicating an important message, or maybe completing a report. Things that take away that focus only make it more difficult not only to get back on track, but to so well.

I’m working on building a filter: responding in adequate time when not completing other important tasks, and not letting my attention be taken up with things which build neither rapport nor character.

I’ve noticed a recent sense of urgency in many areas of my life. Today, it was a sense of feeling behind at work, and trying to hurry to get caught up. The reason I’m behind is an external cause (though, to be sure, I’ve undoubtedly been to blame for being behind from time to time, just not in this case at the moment), but it nonetheless is cause for anxiety. I’m not even the most organized, though for certain parts of my work, I need to be. It’s something I’ve been working on, which I think may be part of why it’s giving me such pause.

In other areas, I notice urgency as well. Urgency to take to social media and post pictures of what I’ve been up to. Urgency to react to the latest news. Urgency to respond to status updates and tweets.

The news is a perpetual state of urgency. The 24-hour news cycle used to rely on television, but can now reach you in your pocket, anywhere in the world, and is beginning for attention at every turn.

It is a daily challenge for me right now to not feel rushed, but I recognize that when I can keep my cool, I feel better and do better work. I just need to remind myself that I can do this.

My friend Jana, writing about the twists and turns of 2017:

While the general social and political climate was stressful and hard to deal with on a daily basis, music and opportunities for my world were actually…incredible. Things I did not have on my radar at all happened, and opportunities I had only dared dream about came to fruition in “screaming color” as T-Swift would say.

I’ve been thinking about this, too. A few self-discoveries this year startled me, such as rediscovering a niche in my speech pathology work which had been dormant, and realizing I have a knack for combining it with my current caseload. It’s had me asking new questions, trying new things, and discovering new challenges to tackle.

Then there’s this gem:

I envision goal-setting as more like keeping a balloon afloat in the air. You have to kind of boop it along…follow it when it takes a weird turn, stay nimble and flexible while you guide it to where you want to go. Tiny little shifts in direction can send you off to a new direction entirely.

This gets to the heart of what I was thinking about yesterday. I tend to not think much about goals, other than very abstractly. While I don’t see that changing too much, I have realized that having a vision for how I want to live my life is important. I so often consider quality of life for my patients, and consider it less for myself. How I spend my time is how I spend my life, and I want to be able to enjoy it.

At the same time, I’ve appreciated this sort of curve for how I’ve followed the balloon(s) in my life, and in more recent years let myself follow their path. What struck me recently was that one of my balloons had me standing in one place, while the others were starting to float just out of reach.

The epiphany was that I wanted to go chase down those other balloons.

Big ideas have floated in my head for a while. I could do this thing! Or maybe this other thing over here! Or maybe both of them. Or what about this unrelated thing over here?

It’s easy to look at something, or someone you admire, and think “I want that”.

It’s hard to take the first steps to actually going out there to get that. Inevitably, that thing probably doesn’t pan out, and along the way you realize you didn’t even want it that much. But you may have stumbled upon what you do want, and that’s even better.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with possibility, and even easier to never start rather than take that chance.

It’s hard to step back and realize when maybe it’s time to stop one thing, and start something new.

Toward the end of 2017, I realized I needed to stop teaching the Zumba class I’ve taught for over five years. It was a very hard decision to reach, but I knew it was the right thing to do the moment it occurred to me.

It’s the beginning of 2018, and I am looking forward to welcoming new things into my life instead. Professional growth I’ve talked about but not pursued. Friends I’ve talked about visiting but haven’t. Places I want to see but haven’t tried.

Where once there was work and routine, there is now possibility and chance.

It’s strange how much faith we put into the end of one year and the start of another. How the change of one number can be a cause, all by itself, for change.

As we close out one year, we reflect on how long it felt, or how hard it was, or even, if we’re lucky, how good it was. Probably, like most years, it’s a mixed bag.

It seems wise to take time to reflect, think about what worked and what didn’t, and start the new year ready to make a difference and put some good out into the world.

The start of a new year is a chance to cleanse our spirits, dust off our optimism, and make some moves. Let’s do this.

With attention being demanded on a near-constant basis, it’s only natural to want to be noticed too. More and more effort is required to get the same amount of attention. Spend an hour on social media, or spend an hour chatting with a good friend. Which one leads to greater satisfaction? Which one leads to greater exploration of ideas, a good book to read, new perspectives to explore? Which one inspires curiosity to learn more?

I miss the golden age of the hashtag. It was a clever way to share an idea, find common ground, or come up with odd jokes. Somewhere along the way, it started to become a tool for getting people fired.

I miss how the ideas wanted to find connection, rather than simply be noticed.

Seth Godin, writing on the very topic I’ve been mulling over all week:

We’re hooked into something volatile, easily measured and emotional. We overdo our response to news, good or bad, and let it distract us from the long-term job of living a useful life.

…

It'll be volatile with or without your help. Better to set it aside and get back to the real work of making a difference instead.

Social media thrives on volatility. Quick bytes of information that feed more quick bytes of information. And then on to the next thing.

We can go from horrified, to thrilled, to terrified, to sad, all in the span of seconds. It’s no wonder we’re exhausted. The quick hits of emotion seem to make us want to seek out other hits of emotion. It’s a vicious cycle.

Stepping away, taking a chance to breathe and digest, seems to be the only way to break the cycle. It’s a cycle that desperately needs to be broken.

I’m filled with big ideas. There’s big ideas for what I want to accomplish with my work. Big ideas for where I might like to travel. Big ideas for a project I want to complete.

When it comes to envisioning what this all looks like, I’m a pro. I can visualize myself doing it, seeing it, accomplishing it. What I’m less good at is getting started, and staying started.

Focus is easily lost. The day gets away from me. I lose the thread, and the next day can’t find it, or even remember quite what it looks like. Where was I when I lost sight of it? What does that feel like again?

I wonder if I took just an inch, and built from there, if I could find my way back.

As I drifted away from writing, the longer I waited to try again, the more daunting it felt. I forgot how, I would think to myself. I don’t remember what it was like to write, and I started to become afraid of putting words out there.

I thought a lot about it, about how it might look, and how I might organize it. Overwhelm would creep in. Should I say something about being gone? Should I revise old posts and start fresh? Should I abandon it and move on? Should I organize all those lingering tags?

In the thick of the questions, no writing was done. Thinking about writing isn’t writing. Trying to edit an old blog is like erasing a past that helped you find your way to the present. It’s okay to get lost. It’s okay to let those young writings stay young. And maybe organization only needs to go so far. The enjoyment always came from the writing, so maybe just do that again.

Maybe the words will come back if you start writing them.

In the early days of Tumblr and Twitter, I remember how much fun we had posting a photo and simply adding “Current status.” as the caption. “Here’s what I’m doing right now” was a novel concept, and it was fun to play with that. It was especially fun when we would later have “Tweet-ups” and then post photos with the same caption showing all of us from the Internet converging in one place.

I’m certainly not opposed to this concept, but I realize after a while that the novelty wore off. As social media went in more consuming directions, it became less exciting, and after a time it became less interesting.

Having been back here with slightly more frequency this past week, after stopping in once or twice a year (the beginning and the end, usually) for the past several years, I’ve realized what has been missing. This place right here was never about what I was doing, it was about what I was thinking. A story told was only interesting in light of what I took away from it. Writing was the means by which I was able to make sense of my world.

Quick snippets and snapshots are fine, but it’s the thought behind them, and the conversations surrounding them, that are interesting. You can’t share those in real-time, but if you take the time to think about it and reflect on it later, I’ll be happy to listen.

The more opportunities we have to share, the more fractured we seem to become. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Friend me on facebook. Follow my stories on Snapchat. That’s four accounts. Four silos into which I can put photos, videos, thoughts, out into the world. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

For the sake of convenience, there’s a way to cross-post the same thing to each service. This means if I follow you on more than one of those, I get to see the same thing over and over. That is, if each respective algorithm decides that I should.

I’ve reached a point of saturation where I can’t keep up with it all, and it’s exhausting just thinking about it. I don’t feel more engaged or connected, I don’t feel like my friendships are deeper for it, and I don’t feel more well informed. I just feel tired.

Is this useful to me? Or I am more useful to it?

There’s a saying you’ll find on the Internet about “free” services: if you’re not the customer, you’re the product. That article is over seven years old, and the saying at this point is almost a cliche. But look closely enough, and you’ll realize it’s as accurate today as it was then. It’s commonplace to do a search for something online, then find small ads scattered across the Internet showing you that very thing. Check your email and you’ll find ads suggesting that or similar items, just a click away for purchase. If you like this, you might also like…

A recent episode of one of my favorite podcasts investigates if facebook might even be listening to what you say through the microphone on your phone. Their findings are, to my mind, inconclusive, but there are plenty of privacy issues discussed along the way. Gizmodo has quite a breakdown of some of the ways facebook can track you. A sampling: where you’re going, websites you visit, your financial status, status updates you almost post, your emotional state, and more. And heck, while they may not own your photos, facebook grants themselves permission to use your photos however they like in their terms of service. (This is true of other social networks as well.)

Some former employees are speaking out, too, and saying we can’t trust these companies to regulate themselves. With the streams of information, and the constant need to always have new information ready to be consumed, it’s a wonder we can make sense of anything today. We’re shouting into the void, and we’re only making a bigger mess for ourselves as a result. To return again to Reply All, their recent story on conspiracy theories in Mexico strike a frighteningly similar chord to our own US elections both in 2016 and 2017 in how social media played a crucial role in the outcomes.

We can’t seem to tear ourselves away, and the use of automation and the interconnected nature of these networks is amplifying everything to degrees I think we’re only just beginning to realize. The desire to be connected was exploited for profit, and big data (engagement, clicks, and more) is the consequence. Considering how to unplug might be a great start to finding our way back to reason.

As someone who came of age at the same time the Internet was doing the same, I’ve been a fan and a champion of many of the services that cropped up along the way. I’ve been blogging on and off since the early days. I started using facebook when it was just for college students. I was an early adopter of twitter, and used to feel like it made me an even better writer because it imposed a 140-character limit on what I could write.

I marveled at how the Internet helped connect me to people so far away. I’ve made wonderful friends across the world this way, and still love it for that. Lately, the connection I used to feel seems to have dissipated. I see streams of information wherever I turn. Gone is the reverse chronological order of posts, replaced by algorithms which decide what I see next. The chance to make a connection has been replaced by the goal to get the most attention, and I feel more disconnected than ever.

I look for ways to fill my time, dream of writing something that matters to me, and wonder why I struggle. Oh well, maybe if I just look over here, I might feel inspired.

I forget how to think critically and look for small bytes of information to grasp an understanding. The stream moves so quickly that it’s all I can do to keep up, but the faster it moves, the more I want to try. Should I be mad? Should I be sad? If I don’t say something right away, and on every platform, does it mean I have no feeling about this, or am not empathetic enough?

Slow down, I think. Take a step back. Too many things are trying to grab your attention. Too many services want you to use them to say what you need to say. They measure your “engagement” and tell you your statistics, and how to make those statistics grow. Numbers. Meaningless numbers in the place of meaningful connections.

It’s all noise. Noise to steal your attention away from yourself. Away from the people who are important. Away from the things that need you.

Maybe to take it back, you can go back to the place that really started it. Go back to the thing you loved first, before the other things took you away from there. Try it once, then twice. Maybe a third time. See if those dry roots start to show some signs of life.

Look at news nowadays, and you see extremes even in the language used in headlines. Shock value is a time honored attention-grabber. If it bleeds, it leads. Mind the clickbait.

Verbal commentary is now rife with extremes. Someone is blasted or slammed for any number of reasons. There’s an awful lot of shouting going on, with very little listening.

I know I'm not alone in how lost I have felt since a gray November day last year. I'm still reeling, but am on a constant lookout for sparks of light and humanity, for genuine caring and good. Sometimes it comes in places you least expect to see it, but when it jumps out at you, hold on tight and don't let go.

In today's case, this video about a secret of radio, from one of my favorite podcast hosts, Lulu Miller of Invisibilia, was particularly striking. Watch it, but most importantly, listen.

-via Swiss Miss

This time in Minneapolis, Minnesota. July 2016.

I always seem more prone to write at the beginning and end of the year. It's easy to miss the cadence of the internet writer I  used to be. Given the amount of writing I do from day to day, I know I'm a better writer now than I used to be. Much of my writing these days is written for a different purpose, and no matter how used it I become, I still miss writing here.

Some of my writing is in a journal. Some of my writing is for work. The writing I used to do on the internet was very much about self-discovery, and in the process I found a rich group of people from around the world who helped me embrace myself.

The longer you spend away, the harder it is to try to find your way back. I feel I've lost a part of myself, and am hoping to find it again.

It is now almost four months since I left my job. In that time, I have found myself busy with new endeavors, but also enjoying life in a way I had forgotten I could. The change has been a healthy one for me both professionally and personally.

As I have been making my way through this year, I have found myself letting go of things past and focusing more on what I want in my life now. I have been losing weight, and so have been downsizing my wardrobe, and wanting to downsize the amount of things in my life generally. My wonderful sister-in-law recently pointed me to a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I am now 60 pages in and completely riveted. A portion I read just now resonated with me intensely:

As someone who holds onto things, this a powerful idea. I have come to realize that not only do I hold on to physical things, but I also cling to experiences. I realize now that I harbored the difficulties I experienced in my work life to a greater degree than I had thought, and that there really is something good I took away from that experience. I learned where I worked well and where I didn't, and I learned how to be more honest with myself about what works for me and what doesn't. Learning that has lead me to where I am now, with a more balanced juxtaposition working in two fields I love equally.

It was by no means an ideal way to get here, but I feel all the more grateful to be here now, and to have more confidence in pursuing what makes me happy.

Time has this way of marching steadily by, whether we want it to or not. There's so much I've been wanting to do for the past couple of years, and kept putting it off. "Later," I would tell myself, "I have to focus on something else for now." It took me nearly two years of telling this myself to realize that "later" was simply a means to put off the inevitable. There are some things for which "later" is not an option.

In October, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It felt like such a huge blow, and the concept of "later" for allowing time for things to sink in, or gain some perspective, was simply not there. The loss of control was quite possibly the biggest hurdle to tackle. There was only now. We have to address this now. We have to address this now. We have to address this now.

It's now January, a solid three months since the initial diagnosis. The first round of treatment for my mom ends tomorrow. It hasn't been an easy road, especially the last two weeks (and the next two, we're told), but there's something about having looked forward to this date, and now finally reaching it, that feels good. It's just one thing, but it feels right.

I have spent the past year and a half being heavily stressed at my job. The stress of starting over, doing something new, was enough to keep me trying to keep making things better. Things that were determined to not get better. It took me a year and a half to acknowledge just how stressed I was, and another few months to realize that carrying on like this just wasn't feasible for me anymore. So I put in my notice, a good seven weeks notice, and set to work making changes.

Time, unusual creature of wisdom that it is, graced me with something unexpected. I started to feel lighter. I started to think about new possibility. I started to look forward to the end of January because suddenly I had things I wanted to get done, new ideas I wanted to try. These aren't new things; I've wanted to try them for at least three years now. But this is the first time I've dared to open the door to possibility. And while I've allowed these new ideas to take flight in my mind, the stress of my day-to-day life has slowly been lifting. The fog I was operating in has slowly been lifting, and for the first time I can see the things that left me sad and stressed. When I turn around, I see the things that excite me and invigorate me.

Cancer leaves its mark on you even with the possibility of remission, and so too, it seems, does stress. I hope the year ahead has less of both. One I can't control, but hopefully, the other one I can.

2014 has left me feeling conflicted. 2013 ended on a difficult note, then the new year brought renewed feeling of vigor, only to progressively lead me to feeling off in pretty much every way. In the end, 2014 has earned itself the distinction of being the year I realized that what I thought I wanted in life was actually not what I needed. And life, strange creature that it is, has a way of making such things very apparent if given enough time.

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Of the few goals I allowed for myself this past year, the one I feel I actually succeeded at was starting to travel. Being away always changes me, and I love exploring new places and seeing the world in new ways. I also photographed my way through it all, though it's only really been in the past month or so that I've started to become more disciplined about really working on my photos. The ones accompanying this post were taken in August.

While this year has been frustrating in many ways, it's also been insightful. I had found myself too tired to spend much time on hobbies, and too tired even to work on improving professional skills I had hoped to. The day to day had left me so tired that I had no physical or mental energy for anything more. It turns out that that is a pretty scary place to be.

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Though the year has been a confusing one, It's ending on a new and interesting note. At the end of January, I will be leaving my job of the past three years to try out something new. It's something I've been giving much thought to over the past few months. I have been dreaming of "what if" scenarios nearly all year, and at the beginning of this month, I actually put the question out to the world. I contacted a company about the possibility of pursuing what I had before held only in my head, and they were interested.

All year I have feared this very change. I have worked to the point of exhaustion to avoid the very thing that now fills me with excitement. I was terrified of the very thing that now gives me hope and has sparked a new sense of excitement for a field I love, but had thought I was burning out from. I will miss many things, I am sure, but I am even more excited for new things to come.

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