changes

I. Goodbye Facebook

II. ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 3001

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I. Goodbye Facebook

So I am finally doing it - deleting my Facebook account. Not even Kate DiCamillo can stop me this time.

I just have to stay clean by not logging in ever again for 30 days, as the last of their slimy hoops left for me to jump through.

I drafted a long, awkward letter to my Facebook friends that I intended to post on the platform a few days before going through with the actual deletion. I rarely contact much of anyone, but I realized that Facebook was the only way I have to contact a lot of my relatives or old friends, and so I was a little bit nervous about letting go of that. And more than that, I think I just wanted some theatrics, a last grab for the attention of all those people I randomly “friended” over the years, or less commonly, that “friended” me. I figured, why not go out from social media with a note of rambling self-indulgence? I wondered how many likes it would get. Would anyone respond to it? Will I even have any friends anymore after I delete Facebook?

As I obsessively edited this supposed goodbye letter over a week or so, thinking more on these questions as I did, it only confirmed to me the absolute necessity that I delete my Facebook account, and soon. And when I told Virginia (my wife) of my intent to make this goodbye post, she questioned me as to why exactly I wanted to do that. I didn’t have a good answer, and recognized the performative attention-grabbing nature of what I intended. I went through the final account deletion procedures fifteen minutes after that conversation.

But still, I can make a big pretend scene here, on this obscure website with no liking or commenting functionality, that currently goes nowhere except a syndication to an obscure micro.blog account and from there to an obscure twitter account I repurposed from the past, both of which I might also delete soon, or at least disconnect.

So here is what would have been my “goodbye letter” to my Facebook friends:

Hi friends,

I’m going to be permanently removing myself from Facebook soon. I may be leaving Instagram and some other social networks as well, but I’ll see how this goes and then proceed on others.

If you know me at all, you might have noticed that I’m often not very good with or inclined toward social gatherings, in-person meetups, etc. I’ve learned that most things I’m interested in I actually like to do on my own, or just with my immediate family. I long viewed social media as a way I could attempt to compensate for that and still connect with people in a way that would supposedly bypass my anxiety or awkwardness and would still be positive and genuine, maybe even more positive and genuine than an in-person interaction. I’m no longer sure that this is an achievable or even desirable end, and even if it is, I don’t think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so forth are necessarily the best tools for it. And even if they may still potentially provide positive connections in some cases if used responsibly, for my part I just don’t trust myself with these platforms. I no longer want to have my limited social interactions and family/friend connections be mediated through and manipulated by the tools of these corporations. I am going to choose to believe that any connection worth making or maintaining can occur independent of these platforms, which I have for too long relied on as a poor substitute for the hard work of actually being a friend to anyone.

So I’ll be leaving this up for a few days before I delete my account, to give the algorithm a greater chance to possibly dispense it to your feed, or include it in your email notifications if you have had the fortitude to avoid logging into Facebook for some time. (Sorry if this of all things brought you back into the fray - log back out if you can.) If by chance you’d ever like to contact me in the future, my email address is x@x.x and my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Feel free to email me from your address or text me if you’d like me to have your info and keep in touch somehow. Other things: I do have a weird little website at jdwhiting.com that I may or may not do something more with in the future. (Maybe I’ll make a newsletter sometime? It’s the old-new cool thing to do…) If you have some kind of newsletter, website, or other place outside of a corporate social media silo where I can learn more about you or interact with you I definitely want to know about it - please share.

Good luck to all of you, and thanks for being friends with me here. I fully recognize that many of you were simply being gracious when I, as someone you barely knew from church or work or wherever, asked to be your friend in one of my rare bursts of wanting to be friendly. I’m sorry if I ever filled your feed with anything problematic. Actually, I’ll admit to that being a somewhat disingenuous apology, because in some cases I’d be quite satisfied if you were bothered or perplexed by an opinion or status I shared during my time on Facebook. The thanks and best wishes are completely sincere, though.

Joshua Whiting

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I’ll be honest that it is kind of scary to me let go of these networks, as they do in fact encompass most of the connections and social interactions I have with people beyond my immediate family and current co-workers - and trying to overcome that disconnection was one of the motivations for posting the goodbye letter. But it would be too little, too late, and just another awkward cop-out for not contacting people directly if I wanted to contact them. This isolation is very much by my design and inclination, I guess. I just don’t like interacting with people “synchronously.” It makes me anxious. I’m lazy and fearful about it. If I’m conscious and deliberate about it I often feel fake and sales-ish, like a missionary (as in “Building Relationships of Trust”). I feel awkward and judged, or guess ulterior motives if someone is friendly with me (as in “Building Relationships of Trust”). I like to be able to think through what I’m saying. I like to be able to explore things and think through how to articulate my thoughts, as I am doing right now in writing and revising these words. When I do open my mouth I usually immediately regret it, and when I don’t say anything, for days and years I stew over what I should have said or the perfect thing it occured to me to say later. I’m often not a good listener when I’m involved in a conversation in real time (but I am a good listener when I’m eavesdropping, or when other people are having a conversation in my presence that I don’t even necessarily want to be listening to.) I’m at the mercy of everyone else’s conversational agenda unless I really push for things, and then if I push or interject I feel like a jerk, and the cycle repeats.

So I seek out the asynchronous lifestyle. I’d rather just post on Goodreads about what book I’m reading than strike up a conversation and tell someone about it on the spot. If I share a picture from a hike I’ve taken, I really just wanted to share the picture because I thought it was beautiful or interesting; it doesn’t mean I wish someone else had been there with me and hope they’ll want to plan and share an actual hike with me the next weekend. I deliberately went hiking alone, or to the movie alone, or the concert alone, or the professional development alone. I used to just not do those kinds of things when they came with the pressure to do them socially; there are a number of things I didn’t even know I actually liked to do until I had the asocial courage to just try them by myself.

I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I’m testing out the idea that it just is what it is.

The church and god I used to believe in guilted and dutified me into all sorts of social interactions all the time, and I went along with it as best I could because I had faith that my being social was somehow helping people and making the world a better place. I no longer have that faith. Since I’ve let go of that Mormon missionary “God needs me to be friendly and outgoing” feeling, I’ve given myself permission to just be my asocial self and not pretend, and not feel guilty about it. Since trying this I’m actually more at peace with myself than I ever have been before - not to say I’m now entirely at peace with myself, it is just a lot better.

But it also means that pretty much my only friends now are my “friends” on Facebook. And in the last few years even those social media interactions have become few and far between, both on my part, on the part of most of my “friends,” and on the part of the mystical algorithm that mediates between us when we do opt to share anything. It has been so easy to pretend that I am still connected with people, without having to truly put myself out there by making a phone call or sending a specific email or message to someone. And even asynchronous communication is problematic on Facebook, because so much of what one person wants to communicate is not what another person wants to hear, so people can’t be themselves and are even more shy, or else they are even more curatorial and performative with their communications. I’ve leaned on Facebook and yet I resent it and no longer want to be a part of it. And because my connections with nearly everyone I’m friends with on Facebook are in reality tenuous at best, I actually don’t have a lot to lose beyond that false sense of connection.

At work I am starting to recognize there are indeed some disconnection problems due to this nexus of my personal asocial transition, combined with the general social disruption of the pandemic, combined with an acute mid-pandemic-remote-work turnover in my department from several people I’d worked with for years and considered true friends to people I just don’t know all that well, and that don’t know me all that well. I think my work life and the work in general is suffering a bit because of my failure to be more social. So there are maybe valid professional collaboration/networking/“relationship-building” reasons to be more social, both online and in person. But I don’t want to be pushy and I don’t want to be fake, and I honestly don’t know that anyone wants to know what I’m about or receive my input or hear from me any more than they already do. In other words, though I do bear part of it, I don’t think it is entirely my fault or responsibility.

So, I’m going to unashamedly embrace the asynchronous lifestyle, but on my own terms now, not some corporation’s terms. I’m going to post random stuff here, just for myself and whoever may be curious enough to look: in good faith, at times confessional, but hopefully never performative. I’m going to see if I can get the courage to talk to and connect with people more directly and genuinely outside of these bogus platforms. I’m going to seek out where people are sharing their genuine selves. Maybe I’ll try to get some kind of email lists or message groups going with my extended family members, though I’m probably not the right person to advocate for such things, and there’s part of me that wouldn’t be surprised if they already exist and I’m just not part of them because I was deemed an asshole at some point for getting mad about some pyramid scheme or political thing my uncle sent me 15 years ago. I know people who lead full lives and never signed up for Facebook, or never log on to Facebook - my aim is to become such a person.

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II. ASYNCHRONOUSLIFESTYLE 3001

In recent months I’ve been inspired by the work of @afffirmations (Global Self Hypgnosis) on Instagram (though I’ll likely have to let that go if I follow through on deleting Instagram) and under that inspiration I made some of my own self affirmation images. I’ve been sharing them day by day in the notes section of this site, but I’ll re-share them below.

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0001

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0002

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0003

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0004

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0005

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0006

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I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 0007

Standalone post link: I AM ASYNCHRONOUS LIFESTYLE 3000

I’m home sick with a cough/cold that isn’t COVID but seems contagious, but I’m behind on a lot of work, so I’m using what little creative energy I have to take care of a few things at work, rather than compose missives for or update the architecture of nowhereland. Other than that, reading or sleeping.

Standalone post link: ''sickdays''

I was doing so good at posting something every day here in nowhereland but then I got sick and stressed out and distracted, and I fell off.

Starting again for November.

Of course, the reality is that this isn’t syndicating anywhere anymore, and I don’t think anyone is looking (though I turned off the Google Analytics so I wouldn’t even know if they were now), so I could do some retroactive posts of things I meant to post last week…

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Update: I only did a couple of retroactive backdated posts. I’ll be honest about my timing going forward.

Standalone post link: ''felloff''

The last rays of the sun transfigured the water tower, the freeway overpasses, and the tops of the pins on the bowling alley sign, as I sat at my computer in an emptied office. I hadn’t noticed the sky darkening as I tapped away on my keyboard, compulsively shift-tabbing the cursor, re-reading, revising, substituting words, deleting phrases, and reorganizing paragraphs.

I still didn’t notice how late it was when my wife called me up wondering where I was and what I was doing, if I was okay. It was only as I dumbly attempted to explain to her why I was still at work that I recognized my folly. I was deep in creative flow, composing a short essay. I thought it was pretty good, and it was nearly complete.  It had some humor, it had a detailed history of past work on the subject, and it had what I think are some promising ideas for the topic moving forward. Sounds great, right? I haven’t yet disclosed a key detail, which is that it was about to be sent in reply to an email I received with a simple question asked in a single sentence.

My wife recommended I not hit send on that email just then, and I took her advice. It is still in my drafts. It was not all for naught, though. As I closed up the office and drove home from work, I was finally ably to put a name to a needed work productivity goal (and probably professional relationship goal, but I hate thinking about relationships) around what I think must be a rather unique personal challenge - I should not be writing The Great American Email.

Getting lost in composing detailed narratives and obsessively reworking sentences is within my full purview here in nowhereland, but it is usually not all that helpful or productive in an email at work. So, if I recognize that I am starting to write an extensive email, I need to take pause and figure out if it should actually be a phone call, an item for a meeting, a note that I don’t share with anyone yet, a sentence or two summary, or if it really needs to be anything at all. After all, I know people skip or delete my emails, sometimes maybe I can skip or delete things, too. 

I need to recognize that sometimes I just like reading myself writing - case in point, this very website, of which I may well be the only reader. Please don’t try to like, subscribe, or leave a comment, because none of those things are possible here. (Well, I guess “subscribe” is possible, if you are into that ancient protocol, RSS.)

TL;DR here’s that quality productivity self-help life hack you can share with all your business bros and professional contacts on LinkedIn - DON’T WRITE THE GREAT AMERICAN EMAIL.

(That is, unless your work is composing an email newsletter that you hope will get picked up by The Atlantic or make you a Substack millionaire – in that case you should definitely try to write the Great American Email. The school district doesn’t pay me for that sort of work, though.)

Standalone post link: Writing the Great American Email

Yay holidays! Yay traditions! Yay America! Yay humans! We’re the best! We’re smarter than turkeys!

Standalone post link: Yay Thanksgiving!

Quick note about this site (joshuaw.xyz / jdwhiting.com)

This site is in more flux than ever at the moment, as I continue to rethink and evolve in how I want to use not only this site but also interact with others via the internet beyond this site.

I’m in the midst of making significant updates to the organization, flow, and functionality, all towards the end that I can start posting regularly again. I have a detailed list of tasks and ideas, but I’ll spare you.

I hope to make a lot of headway this week, but in the meantime some existing pages/links do not work, or do not work in the way I ultimately want them to work.

Thanks for your patience? (whoever you might be)

Standalone post link: Quick note about this site

Running log of my favorite albums and musical works released in 2022. It will be updated throughout the year, and even after.

Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

Things I’ve posted about this album: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You by Big Thief
Things I’ve posted about this artist: Big Thief

Modern Nature: Island of Noise

Things I’ve posted about this album: Island of Noise by Modern Nature
Things I’ve posted about this artist: Modern Nature

Nilüfer Yanya: PAINLESS

Things I’ve posted about this album: PAINLESS by Nilüfer Yanya
Things I’ve posted about this artist: Nilüfer Yanya

bloopy bloop

Standalone post link: My Favorite Music of 2022

Started playing Gris tonight. Stunning and mysterious game.

There were a couple of points where I wasn’t sure if I was ‘going the right way’ or not, but it was so beautiful that I didn’t really care. So far I’ve ‘brought back’ the color red and I’ve gained the ability to make my dress into a stone block, which is super useful. Will definitely be continuing with this game.

Standalone post link: Playing Gris

Maybe a little too excited that I managed to create a hugo shortcode to do this hide/show toggle function in any post now:

Maybe I should generalize it and share the actual template code here and on GitHub? Never actually done that sort of thing, and yet I’m constantly stealing from others who have…

Standalone post link: Hide Show Excitement

I had in mind a new reading update rule for 2022 - I wasn’t going to post a reading update about any book (neither here nor on Goodreads) until I was at least 10-15% of the way into the book.

But I forgot my rule, and now the books I barely started and haven’t continued to read are hanging over my head, and I hate all you big invisible jerks for holding me silently accountable for every random thing I post here.

Just kidding. I do have a lot of false starts, and I do hate the weird pressure and embarrassment that comes from posting about a book and then not following through, even though people probably aren’t actually paying any attention.

Maybe I should set the line at 20 percent…

Ditto to posting about “favorite” music prematurely. I want to deliberately wait until I have truly listened to something 3-4 times, or purchased a physical copy, because I’m impressionable. I’m doing a bit better on the music front this year, though.

Standalone post link: The 15% rule for Reading Updates