Friday, March 23, 2018

My labyrinth.

I use platforms, like FB, to stay in touch with mates near but mostly far. Hence the languages, I'm not trying to look smart. Running machines like FB costs money, so they also allow people with big stores to advertise, fair enough. I don't own a business or sell anything but I would gladly share a message about your starting enterprise within reason because there's nothing wrong with earning your keep. So next to that we all use those media for free and skip the ads we take for granted. That is how most people think this works. Personal data (phone-numbers, home-address) concerning us has been for sale for donkeys'years and I don 't recall I ever gave permission for that. Do I own my personal data? Does the phoneprovider? My doctor? The people I buy stuff from? Every account I have on the web? That FB amongst many others does what is technically possible, and therefore sells data, should be no big surprise to any of us.  Did I ever care enough to act upon it and just bugger off? 
No. I am still here. You are still here. We don't own this place, but we still sail through it. Pushing aside what we don't need, hoping we can reach the next island, untill it's all clogged up by too much crap and we are forced to stop sailing... 
I sit on my raft and can only repeat what I have blurted out before. Please find me in the real world or do not get used to me being on any easy social network. I might fade away. I may not even have chosen to leave places like FB, but I could simply disappear on grounds of not liking enough, not sharing enough, being too aloof and so be drowning in this sea of third party shit, all this noise and all these shiny, new and egoboosting-distractions from strangers we both don't know, without anyone being the wiser...
I'd truly hate to lose my threads with the nice people on this wretched vehicle, to belong to something beyond oneself is a basic need. But I understand that I am already seeing more posts from paying agents than from my friends by now. In any case I learned to live with it. As I learned to live with a lot in this world we all live in. And I somehow yearn for my world to be smaller again.
Social media tends to make me feel very lonely.


And all this time there was this place. My poor old neglected blog. My first dwelling. It's not as flashy as all the newcomers, but it is perfectly capable of doing the job. I can put pictures and music up, customize whatever I want. People can respond to it just as well. I can tell them to f*ck off if they don't behave, and I only have to tell them once. Yes, ok, it's an extra click or two for others, not as conveniently close, and it's quiet here, not as connected to everyone else, and it does not push my rants, or yours, but it's there. It was always there. And I was always here. Like some hermit. Writing. Thinking. Waiting. Lingering. For ages. Why did I stop hiding here?

I gave in to the easy and open waters of likes and pokes, the crowds that were always available to answer back, and all the lovely new and easy toys and buttons, socializing-light, intellectual fastfood... I craved responses, echoes, feedback and it was al out there, lowkey and idiot-proof and so I fell for it.

But here there is silence. If you like that as well... be welcome, leave your two cents and stay...mi casa...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dit kost wat meer tijd dan fb, maar is ook heel veel prettiger, :-), liefs Vivian