The Cold Sea of Social Media and a Warning to Self

I'm obviously not good at keeping up with a daily blog. Although I think daily blogs are unnecessary unless they truly have inspirational things to say. It also seems that no one has the attention span for deeper personal expressions these days. I know I don't really either. There are several friends I feel I'm neglecting, who's words I otherwise love to read. Perhaps if I spend less time on status update social networks, I'd have more time for deeper, more inspirational and informative stories. Time spent getting to know someone in more depth. I have such a shallow understanding of so many people, and in return I feel that masses of people have a shallow understanding of me. I watch the comments other people leave on other people's words, and notice this. Passions, misunderstandings, inspirations, ideas and flames can arise so easily with these types of conversations, as fire more readily burns on small and thin timbers, and burns out just as fast.

Now if you give me a moment, I could also write a compelling argument FOR those types of social medias - and those are the reasons I stay  - the ability to connect more readily and to recognize the names and faces of the people I interact with, even if that interaction is brief.

Yet I shall go further and say that perhaps all this social networking is a huge distraction to begin with? facebook, blogs, websites, etc. I feel an urge to get back to real life. Instead of filling moments of my day with public self expressing and reading the copious amounts of other personal/public spewings, perhaps I should instead get back into reading and researching my interests for the sheer joy of it. I miss the obsession I felt in college where I collected and studied the lyrics of songs, the names of gods and demons from mythology and folklore, plants and trees and the metaphors associated with nature's creations. Maybe I should limit most of my interaction to in-person face-to-face togetherness. This may generate deeper collaborations and idea generations. There is a spark to these connections that is missing online, where I feel as if we are all drifting in a sea, on unstable pieces of plank and driftwood - we speak to each other as we float by - we wave and smile or curse and nod our heads in mutual miseries, as our bodies get colder and colder from the emptiness below us.

I will look suspiciously at the warm glow of my computer screen, and place obstacles between it and me. I will use it with purpose - to make art, and to write, and to collect my obsessions, and to hold only a brief line of connection to the great wide sea of people.
I will use my personal library more, and engage in the art of marginalia. I will grow my brain with the attention given to delicate orchids - to feed it a strict and timely diet of necessary substances.
*raises fist to the heavens, and points a warning finger at the self*

That is all for now.

(If you'd rather read my journal updates at my blogspot, feel free to watch there.)
lydiaburris.blogspot.com/2014/…