Letting go, and how and why I’m trying to do so.

I’ve been reading some very interesting things, and having some very deep thoughts this week. It’s all a bit existential but I reckon it’s for the best. The question I’ve been asking myself, every time I read a tweet or check a status update, is ‘Why?’ And if I can’t answer that question, it’s probably not going to enhance my life, and I should just switch off. Because, as Cecil Day-Lewis said, sometimes ‘selfhood begins with a walking away’.

The idea of asking why I’m doing whatever it is I’m doing is one that really resonates with me.  I have a tendency towards compulsiveness, and before I read the introduction to Rheingold’s book Netsmart: how to thrive online I was compulsively checking several feeds, first thing in the morning, and thereafter, every few hours throughout the day, and last thing at night.  I hardly read actual books any more, which is worrying. The way I relate to people and the format of my social affiliations – all of this is out of whack. As Marche describes it, my friendship circles are ‘broader but shallower’ (2012:9). And I realised that checking every single update and knowing all the news first wasn’t making me any happier.  In fact, it was taking away large amounts of time that I could’ve been spending with real human beings who like me. I was out of balance.  I’m still out of balance, but I’m trying to fix that now.  I want to be enriched without drowning in ‘torrents of misinformation, disinformation, advertising, spam, porn, noise and trivia’ (2012:5) although, to be fair, I’ve managed to avoid the porn. I want to be a media connoisseur, sampling and selecting an elegant sufficiency, instead of a glutton consuming everything I come across.  I know that this will involve a little scepticism and a lot of discernment, and that it will take time.  And I agree that these skills should be taught in schools.  I don’t understand why this isn’t the case already: we need to make sure that future generations are enriched by the online world, not anaesthetised.

A lot of what Rheingold said reminded me of Heidegger’s idea of standing reserve: Rheingold’s advice to assess the ‘activity of the moment’ in terms of whether it ‘is really as significant as what is happening in the rest of my life’ makes so much sense (2012:8) because people are more important and worthwhile than feeds, and it’s easy to forget that.  I left my phone completely alone this weekend, went out and met people and had a blast.  And I did not post a single thing about how much fun I was having, because, quite simply, I was having too much fun.  I felt so positive about life. Even South Africa seemed like a nicer place (it certainly has wonderful aspects to it that are easy to miss if all you read is the news, and you don’t get out there and explore). 

Admittedly, talking to people is always more challenging than texting, especially as I have a major case of foot-in-mouth disease, but it’s worth the risk.  You can’t have meaningful and happy relationships without that risk. You need to let people see the real you; not the edited and mediated version of you that you choose to present online.

However, I have enormous belief in the positive power of online collaboration.  Last year, I took part in a massive project to upload electronic copies of everything Charles Dickens ever wrote.  Hundreds of thousands of volunteers pitched in, just for the sake of being part of something awesome.  I’m glad I took the time to do it, and I think this kind of crowd-sourcing is fantastic.

From a more professional point of view, I certainly have fallen into the ‘always available’ trap.  I’ve built a reputation for always getting things done straight away and well before deadline.  I’m fiercely proud of that reputation, but it definitely does create a vicious circle, or ‘cycle of responsiveness’ (Perlow 2012:8): a lot of my editing clients think that giving me a 24- or 48-hour deadline on a job is totally okay.  I actually turned a job down just last week, for the first time, because if I’d accepted it I would have had to work through the weekend.  I’m so glad I told them ‘no’, although it was fiendishly hard to do at the time.  Maybe they’ll be less likely to do it again, and man – I had such a good weekend.  Totally worth it. And it really is the first actual weekend I’ve had this semester.

One last thing: although I’m trying to redress the imbalance between my real and virtual worlds, I don’t want it to sound like I’m not a fan of the electronic realm.  I’ve met some fantastic people there, with whom I share deep and real connections, and my life would have been significantly poorer – and lonelier – had I not done so.