2021: How it was different

 A little over a year ago, I wrote a post here called 2021: what will be different.

It was more a question than a statement, as the future swirled in a newly revealed chaos before me, and all I knew for certain was that some things were going to change, had to change: old habits and practices were not good enough anymore.

So I thought it would be interesting to revisit that entry, and write down what I actually did differently this past year.

Less social media in my life.

The only social media I’ve ever used was Face.book. And that was time waster enough, that’s for sure. But recently, I have been thinking of its more sinister aspects.

Almost exactly a year ago a close family member was mobbed on Face.book and Google as part of a "cancellation" attempt. It was shocking, vile and ugly, and was the most urgent impetus behind my "things much change" mentality (though plenty of other motivations of a less obvious nature were also present).

I stopped most of my Face.book activity in early January. I deleted the app off my phone, and I have posted almost nothing there for a year. I used to share photos and articles and personal updates regularly, and interact with several people. My activity now is limited to my friend Diana's page, my dance group, and some conversations on Messenger.  I have made an exception for Diana because she and the standards of her page are truly extraordinary, and I find the interactions there stimulating, encouraging and helpful. My dance teacher posts videos of steps we are learning in our private class group, which I enjoy using for practice. 

The Messenger app allows me to private message my contacts, and to see their Face.book pages if I choose. The differences between using Messenger and using the full Facebook app are significant: 1) I have to decide to look at people's pages, which means I think about them and my own motivations before reading their content. 2) No newsfeed (therefore no pushed content, ads, etc.)  3) No notifications 4) Messenger is less convenient and easy to use therefore I have to think more about using it.

I have not therefore completely eliminated my social media use, and I don't plan to close my account at this point. I really don't like deleting my content, so I would have a hard time doing that, even though I have everything backed up. But I feel like I have solved the worst problems social media was causing me and have retained most of the benefits. So I'm happy for now.

I have been reading more books lately. I think I shall be doing more reading this year.

I am super happy to report that yes, I sure did read more books! I was trying to figure out with my husband yesterday which books I have read, and it took a few minutes to remember them all! The count stands at 7 completed (update: now 8). Which is quite a few more books than I read last year, and last year's were all audio books and/or re-reads.

2021 list:

Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (Dr. Jordan Peterson)

Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship made everything about Race, Gender and Identity: and How this Harms Everyone (James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose)

A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life (Heather Heying and Brett Weinstein)

Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (Rod Dreher)

Everywhere Present (Father Stephen Freeman)

Laurus (Eugene Vodalazkin)

Welcome to the Orthodox Church (Frederica Matthews-Green)

The Aviator (Eugene Vodolazkin) I thought this one would be on 2022’s list, but I finished it New Year’s Eve.

Even better, I blogged about some of these books! (Hyperlinked). Writing about what I read is time consuming and challenging intellectually but definitely improves my understanding, recall and ability to discuss the books with other people. It’s something I will try to continue to do as much as I can.

Most of the books I read were non fiction, but Laurus and The Aviator were fiction and the first time in a while I have enjoyed contemporary fiction. 

I would like to spend more time in conversations, with people whose opinions I respect. I would like to write more, not just the impulsive, performative way I engaged with social media.

I feel reasonably successful in this area. There is a trade off perhaps between conversations with many people and conversations with a few, but I felt the need for quality over quantity. And to do that, you need to start by prioritizing quality. How to do that?

 For me, it has meant sacrificing, to some degree, attention from others. I can post something silly on Face.book and get a lot of reaction and response. This blog, by contrast, doesn’t get a ton of hits. I’m not in fact sure anyone reads it if I don’t ask them to (which I’m quite willing to do.)  But when I do get a comment, it’s very thoughtful and I actually learn from it. And maybe one day there will be more interaction here, who knows.

It needs to be said though, that creating community around thoughtful inquiry is difficult. It’s not just me; I see plenty of other people trying to do something similar and not getting a lot of interaction. It’s not a reflection of the quality of their work or their good intentions. It’s just hard to find the attention for everyone, even those who actually deserve it. I am not quite sure what is the solution. I feel like it has something to do with meaning being best pursued in community. There is only so much you can do on your own. But on your own is likely better than a fake community or one that isn’t bringing out the best in you.

Apart from that, I do think expressing my thoughts in long form here makes me a better in person conversationalist. I can better transfer ideas across domains when I spend time considering and writing about them. Instead of having this parallel online life, my time online actually is serving me better. 

I would like to be less agreeable…I don’t want to be a jerk. But….I’ve been standing my ground more and saying “No” instead of always trying to make peace and compromise.  Although I like to avoid conflict I find I learn a lot from it too, and I want to get better at accepting that not everybody will like me and I am a capable and worthwhile person despite that.

Definitely, this is a work in progress. But, I think it is has been a worthwhile thing to keep in mind. It is a fine line because, as we hear over and over, people are “polarized” and it feels like there is a kind of gleefulness in conflict. There is pleasure in pointing out “I am not like you, and you are inferior to me.” I don’t want that kind of conflict. It feels silly and predictable, and ultimately pointless. But if I have done the work to perceive and act out certain patterns in reality, and those patterns move in some opposition to other ones, well, I am striving to be okay with that kind of conflict. I don’t want to go along for the sake of going along.

It’s also important, as I implied in my statement, to continue to try to frame things as a learning experience. Learning keeps us humble. I have been trying to leave behind the attitude that my actions can or should control outcomes in the world. I can act with good intention, but it is hopeless arrogance to think that I somehow command the consequences of that action in the world, like some demigod middle manager.

Voting is a good example of this in action. For whatever reason, there has been a lot of pressure and posturing around voting the past few years. People like to remind everyone that they voted and sometimes (though not always) that they voted for a certain person or party. They say things like voting is one of the most important things you can do. (I disagree completely.) When a particular party wins, there is a celebration among those that voted for them and a (mostly unrealistic) discussion of a new era to be begun: an era of change if it is a (supposedly) progressive party, or of undoing mistakes, if a (supposedly) conservative party. 

It’s like the winners have a moment of amnesia where they forget they are still living beside people who didn’t vote for their party, and they still have to wake up the next day and talk and work with them. Then inevitably, a few weeks or months on, it becomes obvious that the government is not going to be able to do exactly what it promised, or that there is opposition to the plan that is not easy to overcome. Or perhaps the government is not precisely what it promised to be. Then there is a lot of theatrical anger and disappointment. Usually this anger is taken out on the politicians: they become a scapegoat, blamed and punished for being inadequate  or not what they claimed to be.

 This is all so predictable it is laughable, and yet many people still insist on acting as if each election will be different, that they have truly done something special by voting for a certain person or party. I don’t even much care anymore if people act this way, but I absolutely do not like to be pressured to behave in such a fashion myself. I vote, but I will not brag or even talk much about who I vote for because I know it is highly likely I am making a mistake. Furthermore, I do not consider myself responsible for the actions of whom I vote for, good or bad, nor do I hold others responsible for the same (though I would hope they try to learn from mistakes.)

I have said to a few people this year that I would like to find a candidate, of any party, who would say something like this on their platform:

“This is my best understanding of how to serve you. I know my information is incomplete and I am making mistakes and I will make more in the future, but I truly am doing my best and will attempt to explain why I choose such and such policy. I know that I do not perceive everything and therefore I will listen to and collaborate in good faith with people who are different from me. I apologize in advance for everything I will mess up and ask for your patience and forgiveness.”

If such a person exists, he or she would probably have my vote for life. But, well, I’m not holding my breath. (There was ONE candidate in our recent municipal election who used the word “humble” in his platform, so that’s something. He was not elected, of course.)

 I try to remind myself that I am alway potentially wrong or making a mistake. This doesn’t mean I won’t act or even that I torment myself with doubt, because I don’t, for the most part. I just do what makes sense and accept it might be wrong. It’s much easier to do this when I give up that need to control or micromanage reality, interestingly enough.

Anyway, I have written a lot more than I intended about politics and elections and things I don’t even care about that much, but on the topic of conflict, this is an attitude that conflicts with much of the current attitudes around me, and I’m cool with that.

I will sign off now. In a few days perhaps, I will write a sequel entry of what I hope for 2022. 

December (not so) randomness

After a long autumn, the snow has fallen and stayed on  the ground and the mercury is dropping (not that reading the temperature has anything to do with mercury anymore, in my case. I look at my smart phone.)

Today, I was supposed to take part in my stepdance group’s first (small) performance since January of 2020. But I am coming down with my youngest daughter’s cold, so I bowed out. Disappointing, but it was fun to anticipate and to practice for and there will be other opportunities (I hope).

There is one friend on Facebook, Diana, whom I still regularly interact with. Basically she is the only one. She is an unusually kind, humble, approachable, and intellectual person who holds her page, and herself, to very high standards. It’s like a Socratic classroom (with funny memes).

One of the recent memes was “Mankind wasn’t meant to work in December. We were meant to hide from wolves, drink, and pray our autumn harvest will last us through the Dark Months.”

I couldn’t agree more. I am very grateful for my job, and for the fact I have this opportunity to do something positive in the world. But at the same time, I would like nothing better than to sit on the couch and crochet for the rest of the month, and possibly well into January. Based on observations of the people around me, it’s not just me with these feelings.

I have started crocheting again, almost obsessively, after not having interest in yarn crafts for months….years? My co-teacher started a community knitting / crochet meet up group (almost by accident), and so I became involved. Then I bought a book of Harry Potter crochet patterns with the intent to inspire my eldest daughter. They are rather too complex for an absolute beginner, however, so I decided to make one, then two, from the book before giving it to her for Christmas. And so it goes. Now making deals for bootleg bargain yarn, seeing patterns in my mind…..all of it.

My co-teacher’s success with the meet-up group inspired me to try again to reach out to a church. I had tried previously but not gotten a response to my email. Maybe I used the wrong address, who knows. But since she used Facebook to start her group, I decided impulsively to try using the church’s  FB page. It had not occurred to me to even try FB because I have been avoiding it mostly due to last year’s very negative experiences, discussed elsewhere. But I actually did get a response this time, and at 10pm, two minutes after I messaged (which slightly freaked me out). Apparently social media reaches everywhere.

The message was what I had been looking for, which was “you would be very welcome.” And “please ask if you have any questions!”

Do I have questions about going to a church? I mean…probably. Obviously, yes.  But the only one that really matters right now is: how do I start? And this is the question I haven’t been able to answer in two years, so I keep hesitating, even though at this point there is no going back, either. Maybe it’s cliche, but I’m not totally in control of this process anymore. Something is trying to speak through me, and it’s going to keep trying, I know it is.

But the negotiations (with family) and logistical calculations to actually attend a service in person  haven’t happened. (I did mention it as an intent/wish, so that’s something.) Finally, because the church I contacted does also have an online option, I tried watching parts of a prerecorded service. Again, not really what I want or imagined doing but it’s something to start with. I sort of listened to the words, but it will take a while to get used to the Orthodox chant: it sounds weird to my ear, which expects either spoken word or singing, not some hybrid of the two. But I enjoyed watching the worshippers approaching the icons, crossing themselves, each doing their thing. It looked very relaxed. And then another thought popped into my head, another “answer” to the questions I can’t even fully articulate.

I would like, one day, to be as relaxed and unself-conscious as those people when it comes to Christianity/God/the sacred. I would like it to just be a part of my verbal and non verbal language in that way. That’s what this is really about. Sure, it would be nice to have all sorts of intellectual and metaphysical insights. But I don’t have a ton of expectations there. Mostly, I want my everyday moments and experiences to be part of a system of meaning. I need the language to understand them that way. I mean, I kind of already have the understanding, or the beginnings of it; but I lack the words. And without the words, the language, I can’t take it any further.

Diana, my gifted friend, posted a very profound question the other day: “What should I give myself for Christmas?”

She went on to specify that she didn’t mean things that could be bought, but something like a commitment to adopt a habit that may be a chore day to day, but that would make her happier and more fulfilled in the long run. A permanent change in diet, to read a real book an hour every day, that sort of thing. “If you were going to give yourself such a Christmas present—assuming you regard yourself as someone you love enough to make the commitment to—what would yours be?”

Someone did point out that that it seems to be another way of asking for a New Year’s resolution, but I like this frame so much better. There is a sort of shaming involved in the New Year’s resolution, an implication that you are not currently doing enough. Which may be true, but it misses the love that Diana’s question makes explicit. Personally, I find the winter months (January/February)  so challenging that I have zero motivation to push myself beyond the basics of trying to survive. Don’t even talk to me about resolutions or goals till March or April! But this idea of giving yourself a present….yes. This is a perfect question.

And I immediately knew my answers. One was yes, to try attending a church. To start. The other was to get winter tires. Which is a thing, so not exactly fulfilling the requirements of the question, but I thought of it as giving myself the gift of less stress every day.

So there you have it. Winter. Gifts. Christmas. Still working on the best Christmas gift of all, the one that will keep giving.