First of all, I'm glad you had a chance to take some proper time off! I couldn't agree more how valuable unstructured time is in our busy lives! I think most millennials have a love/ hate relationship with the net, don't we? It's been a feature of our entire adult lives, and most of us have made connections and built communities online that we never would in person. My main gripe with the internet these days is the proliferation of dangerous views online. For example, I've been involved with stand up comedy in Adelaide since 2006. In the last two years I have seen the most horrific misogyny I've ever seen. Why is that, when we're all supposed to be moving in a more progressive direction? Answer: The internet. These young comics see the attention garnered by truly vitriolic views and they emulate it. It's more complex than that, but I'd need my own blog for that! I was really taken by what you said about us aging out of the internet! As long as urban dictionary doesn't die, otherwise I'll never stay in the loop!!
oof. The rise of misogyny online, especially around the comedy scene, is something I've not quite been able to figure out. Is it new, or is it just uncovering what has always been there, or something else entirely? Not sure... !
Great post and loved the podcast recommendation - a really good meditation on what it means to rest, beyond just idleness and towards rejuvenating your energy.
as someone who was born in the 2000s and was only allowed to get on the internet ata ge 15 (a year before the pandemic) i honestly haven't had aby problems with social media apart from doomscrolling inhibiting my productivity levels and irksome trolls that grate me despite using the block button liberally. I've made a lot of friends and lost a lot of friends through my time during the last 3 years but i have mostly been in fandom spaces so it's been easier to find people with similar interests. I've also been lucky to find people from my country with the same politics and morality. One thing I'm struggling with recently is information overload. It's probably because I'm not very well informed but i do get swayed by information easily. It's also made me obsess over archiving my life and leaving a digital & physical imprint of my existence, which is starting to get draining i would like to live without the need to prove my existence to myself. Sorry, this is got a little rambly, i love love love reading your work and I'm making my way through your books as well ! (it was quite hard to find a copy in southern india lol) thank you for sharing your insights and also for instilling hope in me at times where i (and the world) have needed it.
Oh, never apologise for a long comment, they are my favs!
I hear you - the internet information overload can be *a lot*, and frankly, even as someone who has been online for over 20 years now, I still sometimes feel it. I think it's about figuring out for ourselves what we want from it and then working to set that up, if that makes sense. Like, if you want to leave a digital footprint... if you figure out why, maybe you can figure out what that looks like, and you can design something that works for you specifically, rather than just spending your energy doing something you might not actually want to do... if that makes sense. Some slightly unsolicited advice there... :) Thanks so much for your kind words and hope you're enjoying the books! Feel free to email in the future if you'd like to purchase any of them from me directly, as I can post to you :)
First of all, I'm glad you had a chance to take some proper time off! I couldn't agree more how valuable unstructured time is in our busy lives! I think most millennials have a love/ hate relationship with the net, don't we? It's been a feature of our entire adult lives, and most of us have made connections and built communities online that we never would in person. My main gripe with the internet these days is the proliferation of dangerous views online. For example, I've been involved with stand up comedy in Adelaide since 2006. In the last two years I have seen the most horrific misogyny I've ever seen. Why is that, when we're all supposed to be moving in a more progressive direction? Answer: The internet. These young comics see the attention garnered by truly vitriolic views and they emulate it. It's more complex than that, but I'd need my own blog for that! I was really taken by what you said about us aging out of the internet! As long as urban dictionary doesn't die, otherwise I'll never stay in the loop!!
oof. The rise of misogyny online, especially around the comedy scene, is something I've not quite been able to figure out. Is it new, or is it just uncovering what has always been there, or something else entirely? Not sure... !
Great post and loved the podcast recommendation - a really good meditation on what it means to rest, beyond just idleness and towards rejuvenating your energy.
Glad to hear it! It’s a useful intervention, I found 💙
as someone who was born in the 2000s and was only allowed to get on the internet ata ge 15 (a year before the pandemic) i honestly haven't had aby problems with social media apart from doomscrolling inhibiting my productivity levels and irksome trolls that grate me despite using the block button liberally. I've made a lot of friends and lost a lot of friends through my time during the last 3 years but i have mostly been in fandom spaces so it's been easier to find people with similar interests. I've also been lucky to find people from my country with the same politics and morality. One thing I'm struggling with recently is information overload. It's probably because I'm not very well informed but i do get swayed by information easily. It's also made me obsess over archiving my life and leaving a digital & physical imprint of my existence, which is starting to get draining i would like to live without the need to prove my existence to myself. Sorry, this is got a little rambly, i love love love reading your work and I'm making my way through your books as well ! (it was quite hard to find a copy in southern india lol) thank you for sharing your insights and also for instilling hope in me at times where i (and the world) have needed it.
Oh, never apologise for a long comment, they are my favs!
I hear you - the internet information overload can be *a lot*, and frankly, even as someone who has been online for over 20 years now, I still sometimes feel it. I think it's about figuring out for ourselves what we want from it and then working to set that up, if that makes sense. Like, if you want to leave a digital footprint... if you figure out why, maybe you can figure out what that looks like, and you can design something that works for you specifically, rather than just spending your energy doing something you might not actually want to do... if that makes sense. Some slightly unsolicited advice there... :) Thanks so much for your kind words and hope you're enjoying the books! Feel free to email in the future if you'd like to purchase any of them from me directly, as I can post to you :)