I love staying in touch with you, my far-flung network of friends and family. I use this platform to do that. I love seeing the snapshots from your lives, your pets, your children. I love hearing about your spouses and houses and hobbies.I usually fight the urge to engage online about politics.
Sometimes I slip up. When I do engage, it costs me massive amounts of precious time and energy. There is only so much “me” any given day – I want and need to pour myself into my work, my family and friends, or my community.
As I turn the corner into my 40’s, I see that I can still do a lot with my life, and I also see that it is finite. I want to be intentional about how I spend my time.Arguing online, especially in public forums, is exhausting and generally pointless. Even the very best forums are either echo chambers where we all already agree (I’m looking at you, activist atheist community) or else nasty shouting matches where we all play for points from the audience rather than listening and considering and maybe changing our minds.
I’ve gotten to know my local city representative, JT, over the last year or so. He hosts office hours at his home on Friday mornings. We’ve probably sat together for 8 or 10 hours at this point, sometimes with other people joining in, but mostly just the two of us. We mostly agree. Sometimes we don’t. He’s a skilled conversationalist and listener, and has taught me a lot about how he sees the world. I leave those conversations energized and with -more- of “me” to give back.
I’ve had a couple of good conversations over messenger lately – in particular with Robert and Jason. We’ve got very different perspectives – and I value the time that they put into helping me to understand how they see the world, and why.
Please understand what while I care deeply about the world’s continuing slide into madness (which has been going on my entire life, and will continue long after I’m gone) – I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about it on facebook.
Thanks, all. I hope you have a good day.
