changes

Start of a new month and almost start of a new school year (I don’t go to school or teach but my work still goes by school years) seems like as good a time as any to restart on my blog and social media…

https://www.youtube.com/jVTHFnctLFs

Standalone post link: ''imbackimbackimback''

Could not get enough writing random stuff in my notebook this morning - now I have to type random stuff in my digital notebook this afternoon - and post random stuff on my website this evening.

Also learned tonight that if I put an apostrophe in the first few words of a notes update it messes up the title when it appears - I’ll need to see if there is a way I can fix that in the code, but until then I’ll just avoid apostrophes in the first few words of a notes post. For example, I just changed “couldn’t” to “could not” in this post.

Standalone post link: ''randomstuff''

Going to start posting one new thing (or new-old thing) each day here on my website. I’m finally moving to make this little place my central home on the web, an activity archive, etc.

A daily new thing might be:

• a new or old photograph
• a book or article I’m reading
• music I’m listening to
• a film I watched
• a video game I played
• some random thought or thing I did
• a thing I bought and liked
• a place I went
• a recipe I used
• a page from my notebook
• a notice if I write something or make something that is more than a brief note
• a reposting of an item from one of my old, defunct websites or social media accounts
• whatever else I feel like or think of to share

I always talk big that I am going to start doing this sort of thing, and then I fall off the face of the Internet again. We will see if this time is different - one important change is that I am fully at peace with everything just being over here in my little corner of the Internet. I’m no longer concerned with propagating or syndicating my stuff anywhere else; I’m truly getting over my involvement with most of the silos. This will be my personal archive, available just in case anyone ever happens to look here.

Standalone post link: ''one-new-or-new-old-thing-each-day''

So it looks like I finally have the syndication of short posts set up how I wanted (from my personal Hugo static site to Micro.blog, then to my more obscure Twitter account) at just the time I don’t think I care about doing such things anymore. Oh well.

Standalone post link: ''syndication''

I’ve been slowly making my way through Thoreau’s A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. By “slowly” I mean I still consider it as a book I am currently reading, though I hadn’t read a word of it in several weeks until this morning.


So it is taking me months to get through Thoreau’s week- it started on “Saturday” and I’m in “Sunday” still. But to be fair to myself, I think it took Thoreau years to write through his week.

This all started from reading Desert Solitaire earlier this year, and realizing I loved nature writing but hadn’t read much of it. So, I borrowed this Library of America anthology American Earth from the library, and read the Thoreau selections, and then got sidetracked with the idea that I wanted to read more Thoreau before proceeding with the rest of that anthology. So Walden was the first obvious choice, but as I started investigating Thoreau’s bibliography I found that he had this other book he had published before Walden, the project he finished at Walden, filled with a mix of poetry and prose, about a river journey with his brother. The process and style of this appealed to me, and the narrative idea reminded me of Abbey’s account of his river journey through Glen Canyon, which was one of my favorite parts of Desert Solitaire. So, in my ever expanding reading goals, I decided I needed to read A Week before reading Walden, and then after Walden move on to the essays or directly to selections from Thoreau’s journals, because I am fascinated by journals.

Likewise I’ve made the selection of my reading text convoluted - I started by sourcing via archive.org what I think is a 1st Edition scan from the Boston Public Library, and I was reading that directly on my phone as a PDF. (Sometimes I just really like to read these scans of old editions of books - it makes me feel like I am in a rare book room of a library or have tons of money to own vintage editions myself, but I’m just on my phone.)

Then, wanting references and footnotes, I found that the city library had a Library of America edition and so borrowed that and read a bit from that, so as to figure out who he is quoting, or when he has inserted his own verse into the narrative. But I tend to read more readily on my phone these days, and so this tome fell by the wayside and I need to take it back soon.

Finally, yesterday while looking for something else[^1] I rediscovered Standard Ebooks, and found that they had an edition of A Week, and so I am giving that a go, though it has no footnotes. (They also have what looks to be a nice and, dare I say, thorough collection of Thoreau’s essays; and, of course, Walden.)

I might start contributing to Standard Ebooks at some point, if they will have me and if my desires sync up well enough with their priorities for next texts and their style guidelines. If not, I may just learn and steal their methods to make my own ebooks according to my preferences.

[^1]: De Quincey, via the term “dream fugue” that came into my mind as a possible description for the finale of Summer in the City of Roses, which I finished reading yesterday. But more on that in another post I need to write soon once I have fully processed that book.

Standalone post link: A week, but so far a month

Attending the AASL national conference for the next three days, but I don’t play the edu/librarian twitter game anymore, so I’m only sharing anything about it here on my little site in nowhereland. I just hope to learn some things and probably not even talk to anybody? Not sure why I’m even sharing it here. #nohashtags

Standalone post link: ''AASL21innowhereland''

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