Striving for Reality
I didn’t announce a “social media fast” or set an out-of-office reply (I meant to do that second part, but I just forgot.) I didn’t want to make it A Thing. I wanted to disengage so completely that it felt like time travel to the 1900s.*
I spent a lot of time in nature and with humans in person. I ate a lot of good food and read books and wrote (on paper) and laughed and slept and allowed myself to recover a little bit.
Y’all, I might have permanently broken something.
What I’m finding, in my two days “back”… is that I just don’t want to. I don’t want to post on IG; I don’t want to get on a zoom meeting; Email notifications make me break out in psychological hives. Even sitting here at my desk writing to you, which I very much want to do, felt wrong on the computer. I wrote it by hand first!
I’m not anti-technology. I used to work for a tech company, which I loved, and my very first job was at an internet café. As a young teenager I fell in love with the idea of the open internet and saw so much possibility in the way people from all over the world could connect and share with one another. I even owned a shirt that said “I'M FROM THE INTERNET” (a little joke about how our parents used to warn us not to meet people “from the internet” IRL.) Many of you reading this are people I met online, and perhaps you’ve had a similar feeling lately. I think I’m realizing that I am grieving what the internet used to mean for me in the face of what it has become. In the hands of the Broligarchy, whose motto is to “move fast and break things,” this beautiful public possibility became a data mine for profit, and users’ attention the commodity.
There was a period in the early 2000s when blogs, newsletters, message boards and instant messaging felt exciting, infused with hope and the feeling that those of us connecting through it were helping to co-create a new world. There was a feeling that everyone was participating in a great experiment together, for collective good.
For the last ten years or so, that feeling has not only disappeared, but the internet and algorithms have become active adversaries of actual information and connection. We have to claw our attention back from apps expertly designed to keep us tethered. We have to know how to navigate even a basic search engine in order to get real information instead of covert advertising or propaganda. We can’t even easily stay in touch with friends we deliberately “follow” because we’re being served sponsored content that buries posts from those we care about.
It's exhausting, and I’m so tired. Are you?
With Everything Going On I find myself turning to things that feel, for lack of a better word, real. Tangible things like my garden and guitar or cooking a meal remind me that I am on Earth. Time with people I can touch and laugh or cry with reminds me that I am present. Even reading a well-researched, peer-reviewed scholarly article or book feels like an act of remembering – Ah, yes, there is actual information out there, driven by a desire to know rather than by greed. Novels and memoirs feel like reminders, too. Someone took the care to do this work and share it so that we can connect. There are real people, still.
I didn’t really mean to totally disengage. My plan was to check-in here and there and try to stay on top of important stuff… but I didn’t really do that. (Apologies to every single person I owed a response to! Oops!) Every time I opened my email or saw social app notifications pop up, I felt my insides recoil. So I listened to that feeling and instead focused on slowness, on presence, on being. And I felt something start to loosen in me.
A kind of defensiveness that had become my default state, a sense that I had to steel myself to encounter The Internet (and by extension, the world) began to thaw. My consciousness has started to feel like my own again. It makes me want to read more, to write more, to make things. It does not make me want to check my DMs.
Now, as I attempt to re-engage without crushing this seedling of centeredness, I’m feeling that grief for the Early Internet acutely. I don’t think it can come back, but I do think there must be new ways to replace it and generate those feelings again. I am holding out hope that there are lovers of technology and possibility who remember how it felt and still strive for the real.
I don’t have an answer. But I do have a dog, a cup of coffee, and a stack of books. It’s a start.
Xo,
J.
*By which I mean the 90s.
P.S. I always forget I’m supposed to use this newsletter to like, tell you about stuff I’m doing. So… This is the part where I tell you there are SHOWS happening! Here are some chances we can get together IRL:
This Saturday, June 7th – I’m playing some music at the Beaver Queen Pageant in Durham!
Also this Saturday (evening), I’m leading a “No-Fear Shakespeare” reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Night School Bar. It’s sold out but the bar is open to the public so if you come out you can still listen and join us for a fun time.
June 27th I’m playing a Pride event at Roadrunner, the new backyard-style cocktail bar from the folks at Queeny’s and Kingfisher. I’m going to sing a few songs with my friend Sarah Bolen and raise money for the Durham LGBTQ Center.
July 6th the band has a show at The Pinhook! Tickets are live now (and cheaper in Advance): https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/54914826/juliana-finch-trio-durham-the-pinhook
July 12th – ATLANTA! I’m coming to town to play at The Third Door in Marietta Square. I loved playing this spot last year and I’m excited to come back.
…More summer shows announced soon!
Kthxiloveyoubye.
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