The Radicality of Unplugging

No one has ever accused me of being a maverick. Well, except for that business of quitting my job post-middle age, buying a farmstead and commencing to learn how to grow food.  But that exception granted, my life has otherwise been notable for its predictability - reliability, I hope, and integrity; a willingness to help, I pray, and a quiet pursuit of excellence.  I’ve been a team player, serving on more boards and committees and task-forces than was good for me, but was, I hope, helpful to those organizations.  I’ve been agreeable, congenial, a bridge-builder if I’ve contributed anything at all, and a thought provoker.  I have at least sought to encourage purposefulness and principled intentionality.  I value cruise control in my car, but decry it in every other aspect of life.  I’ve rarely been a contrarian; never been a radical flame-thrower, and as my co-workers often lamented, only reluctantly become confrontational.  In recent years, studying the enneagram, I’ve learned that I’m a nine - one of those “peacemakers” who just wants everyone to be happy and play nice.

I play nice.  Even if I don’t much care for you or the moment.  If that makes me dishonest, at least I’m a congenial fake.

Recently, however, I made the decision to close my Facebook account, and I’m both surprised at and a little embarrassed by how radical that feels.

Let me quickly add that, in the grand scheme of things, it is not very significant at all.  The reciprocal killings in the Middle East?  That is significant.  The corruption and disintegration of American democracy?  That’s a tectonic shift with global implications.  Climate change?  I haven’t the words to characterize the future repercussions.  Tim Diebel leaving Facebook?  No, that doesn’t even ripple the water collected in my clogged sink.

For some reason, however, it feels big; consequential even.  Bold. Why is that?  

It might have something to do with how routinized and reflexive our collective use of Facebook has become.  Posting on Facebook has become almost autonomic - like breathing and blinking.  That’s true, at least, for some.  Ever since I went public with my intention to unplug from Facebook, I’ve been surprised to discover how many of my friends did so long ago - or never jumped into Facebook to begin with.  I’ve been equally moved by the number of respondents confessing that they “wished they could” or “wished they would” take the same action.

Which is simply, albeit anecdotally, to muse that Facebook may not be as ubiquitous as I supposed.

Much has been written about the societal impact of the social media phenomenon.  Social scientists will no doubt be analyzing such questions for years to come.  Has it changed us?  Has it harmed us?  Has it helped, informed, broadened and connected us?  Maybe - to all those questions.

I cannot speak for anyone else, and I have no moral authority from which to advise others about what they should or should not be doing with their time and their social media feeds.

Reflecting on my own experience and decision, however, I can make a few observations  by way of accounting for my own choice.  There is much positive to say about reconnecting with friends and acquaintances, and sharing one another’s ebbs and flows.  In truth, I’ll miss that.  It will be incumbent on me to exercise new  strategies for keeping in touch.  Perhaps we “over share” the miscellaneous flora and fauna of our lives, but there are worse mistakes we could make in our life.

I will not miss, however, the misinformation, the disinformation, and the constant, almost irresistible airing of our worst selves.  This happens most often within the “groups” of which I am a member, where oxygen seems to come from complaining about the bananas at the local grocery store or the temperature of the pizza at the new eatery in town, and the voluble retorts from those who disagree.  I have nothing to add to the sports commentary that regularly fills the feeds.  I don’t really have time for the political harangues that vent and offend but never inform, enrich or persuade.  For some reason on Facebook we feel a kind of permission to be offensive, abusive, insulting and dismissive toward each other in ways not typically true face to face.

The simple fact is that too much of the time, I just don’t care about what pops up in my feed.  Threaded along, to be sure, is inspiration and humor and wisdom and joy, but finding such threads takes persistence and work in the face of Facebook’s algorithmic tyranny and our own vulgar depravity.  And I’ve become convinced that my time can be better spent.  I don’t leave angry or hurt or alienated or frustrated.  I simply leave in search of something more.

Which might suggest that cutting ties to Facebook is a radical act, after all.  Etymologically, the word “radical” is all about going to the root, and Facebook seems to me to be all about the leaves.  There is nothing wrong with leaves or course - especially this time of year.  But in this season of my life, roots seem more compelling - more anchoring and nourishing, and ultimately more connected with the world surrounding them.   

And so I pull the plug on this great social experiment of social media.  To borrow a phrase, "It's been fun, but it hasn't been that much fun."  I wish you well on Facebook if you remain there.  I hope we can stay in touch through other channels. Maybe even face to face.  

Now that would be radical, indeed.

Different is not Deficient

 

I understand the appeal of John Lennon’s anthemic paean to the ultimate campfire:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

What’s not to love about the idea of the world living as one - especially in these days of horrific killing in the Middle East, a seemingly intractable war in Ukraine, and the noxious childcare center that is the U.S. House of Representatives.  No wonder the idea of everyone dissolving their differences and holding beatific hands has such powerful appeal.

But include me in the circle convened by the poet and activist Audre Lorde, in the pictured quotation above, who relocates the root of our troubles away from our differences, themselves, and positions it squarely on the egocentric and bigoted view we have of them.

It’s mystifying to me how, in this day and age, anyone can view their particular country or their political party or their religious practice or their economic system to be “the best.”  It takes me back to Bill Murray's memorable claim in the movie, Meatballs, that the humble Camp North Star offered the best summer camping experience "in this price range".  But this isn't a summer camp, and this isn’t a football league, and we are more than fans sporting our favorite jerseys.  Surely by this point in history every heretofore envisioned option for organizing life and meaning has amply exposed its ugly underbelly.  

We can claim, for example, that the United States of America is the best, but according to what measure do we assert or defend that claim?  Happiness?  No, the U.S. doesn’t even break into the top 10 in that category where Finland tops the list.  Education?  According to some assessments, the U.S. has the best educational system, but Americans are not the most educated.  Those would be the Germans.  Interesting.  Access to health care?  No, we are 23rd, behind #1 Sweden.  Safety?  No, there we rank 129th, a long way behind #1 Iceland.  Standard of living?  No, that’s Sweden, again.

According to U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of the “Best Countries in the World,” again, the U.S. fails to make it into the top 10.  Apparently our #1 position in the list of gun possession - over twice as many guns per capita as #2 Yemen - didn’t count for as much as we might like to think.  

None of which should be construed as suggesting that this isn’t a good place to live, or that “American” is a bad thing to be.  It’s just a hint that we have a lot of work yet to do.  Along with every other country in the world.  

I have spent my life within the orbit of Christianity - it has and continues to shape me and give my life and my living both direction and definition of right and wrong, truth and falsehood.  I’m not one of those who lumps all religions into the same basket with the dismissive aggregation, “They are pretty much all the same.”  No, that’s not the way I see it.  There are big differences.  But does the language of “best” really apply here?  I can articulate how I find meaning within Christianity - how it compels me and claims me - but I suspect that a good Buddhist or Hindu or Jew or Muslim could do the same.  But whatever value our religious traditions certainly have in the world, our religious expression - across the board - is a mixed bag.  We have done much good.  We have caused much pain.  I’m not looking forward to answering for my own flawed expression of the Christian faith, let alone for the church through history.  

Communists and Socialists, I’m willing to say, had some good ideas, but they quickly got off track and doubled down on their flaws.  As, of course, has Capitalism.  These are hardly perfect systems.  Surely we can continue to refine and improve and evolve them into something better.

But would the absence of all religion, the absence of all countries, the absence of political parties, the absence of capital make us better?

I doubt it, which is where I think Lennon’s winsome anthem gets it wrong.   But even if, by chance, he turns out to be right, what I do know is that it would make us blander, duller, and intrinsically, pathologically boring.  I once heard a preacher proclaim that “different is not deficient”.  Indeed.  Would that we could grasp that.  It is our differences that make us interesting, colorful in literal and metaphorical ways, and stimulating.  

Now, if only it were our curiosity and wonder that were stimulated instead of our aggression.  

Imagine that, for a change.

The Warmth Between

It was quiet with their departure.  Four generations had gathered - from 93 years to 10 months - to visit, to feed, to be fed; to reminisce, to imagine; to experience new things, to walk in wonderment through the woods; to simply be in one another’s company.  And then the car was loaded and backed down the driveway, and it was quiet again.  

We straightened a few things, paused for a moment, and then settled in the cool of the waning afternoon by the fire outside; its flames making visible the affective mood.

An intermezzo of sorts - a harmonic sequence between the joyful  “firsts” of today with an infant’s fresh awakenings, and yet another “first” in our own progression of grief with my dad’s birthday tomorrow.  There are more such firsts to come in a quick progression - this birthday, and Thanksgiving and Christmas - but it’s the birthday that is upon us just now in its poignant immensity.  It’s a poignant juxtaposition, what with the echoing memory of a life well-lived, and the experiential joy of a life just beginning.

In the sunset, then, between these glows - the gratitude and the grief, the anticipation and the memory, the joy and the melancholy, the embers center us.  They are the warmth between.  And in their light, Louise Erdrich’s sensible wisdom offers a satisfying fullness.  

“You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”  (From The Painted Drum)

There are, to be sure, things I have overlooked.  Important things I have missed.  Tasks I have neglected.  There are blossoms I have ignored and sunrises I have taken for granted.  There have been rain-filled puddles I walked around instead of splashed through; rain showers I sought shelter from instead of tilting my face upward, into the falling drops, with mouth open wide. There are stories the details of which I have forgotten or found, in the moment of their telling, uninteresting.  There have been silences I spoke into too quickly.  There have been tender evenings in the midst of which I simply went to bed.  

Apples, in other words, have fallen all around me and I have missed out on their sweetness.  

But in days like today, and in years like these treasured ones, I am grateful for the ones I have tasted.  

Every sweet bite.

Every juicy dribble down the chin of my days.

Despite the cool of the day, it’s warm tonight in the glow of these logs - the glow of these loves,

And I’m full.

Not the Way To Extend A Vacation

After rushing from our E arrival gate to our C departure gate at the Charlotte airport for our connecting flight home, only to discover that our breathtakingly short layover time would be extended by a short delay, we took a deep breath and smiled at the likelihood that our luggage would now actually join us back in Des Moines.  The reason for the delay was that there was as yet no aircraft at our gate.  As the delay deepened into the night, we were assured - repeatedly over the next hour and more, that the plane was on its way from the hanger.  It wasn’t a complete fiction because we eventually did board the tardy aircraft, only to wait for more fuel.  After backing away from the gate we waited yet longer, finally learning that there was still a mechanical problem - one that would eventually topple our flight home into the next morning.  “No problem,” they assured us.  We were presented with 3 fine airport motel options for a brief overnight, along with meal vouchers - never mind that at that hour nothing was open.  

Once delivered by the shuttle, whose dashboard control panel signaled in large letters that "Vehicle Service Overdue", to our selected lodging, piloted by our flatulent but jovial driver, we checked into our assigned room sometime after midnight, deprived of luggage toothbrush, or, well, much of anything but the clothes on our back.  But it was an educational stay.  I don’t think I had ever been in a “smoking preferred” motel, well-stocked with 3 single-serve packages of decaffeinated coffee, and a powerful search light focused on our window throughout the night.  

After a luxuriant and restful moment of sleep, we caught the 4:30 am shuttle back to the airport - an “express” van, as it turned out, driving 75 mph through the posted 15 mph speed limits of the airport driveways.  Dizzy, but nonetheless and gratefully unharmed, we made our way inside, through security, and somehow, after some trial and effort, found our gate which was mis-posted on the airport departure computers.  At least by this time, Starbucks was open with options that included caffeine.  They accepted our vouchers, and with coffee and breakfast sandwiches in hand, settled into the seating area to pass the time through yet another delay. This one, however, did resolve into boarding and actual takeoff.  

And at this point, from the vantage point of 30,000 feet and the dubious assurances of the flight attendant who hasn’t learned that the “S’s” in “Des Moines” are silent, it appears that we are likely to actually make it home.

Which will look mighty good.

Especially the shower.

Even more especially the toothbrush and toothpaste.

Meanwhile, Maine was a restorative joy.  Every, sight, every hike, every bite.  Unfortunately, I won’t be including in those fond memories the leftover crab and lobster meat that spent an extra night unrefrigerated in my suitcase.  Or the olfactory greeting that will almost surely shout a pungent “good morning” when I unzip it.

Ah, American Airlines. I gotta love you…

…especially when there are no other options.  

At least you eventually got us home, safely.  And for that, I’m grateful. 

Where would you like me to send the lobster and crab?  

P.S.  The hero in all this, of course, is our rock star Housesitter who, having already buttoned up our abode and headed home to her family in anticipation of our return, returned to Taproot Garden after midnight to spend a bonus night with two cranky corgis and three coops full of chickens.  Just think:  you make all this possible.  

You are the best!