There is a guy outside ringing a cowbell for some reason.

My cat stood on my chest and meowed super loud to wake me up a few nights ago.

The book I've been reading has been really good.

These are all small, short and normal sentences that crop up in my mind, that I wanna post all the time to social media, specifically tumblr.

I left tumblr about a week ago. And I know it seems like not enough time to really think about my new situation, but I feel as though I'm getting very good (very quickly) at identifying a problem that I clearly have, the moment that I am no longer in a situation where I have to "perform" something within that situation or context (an action, a thought, a conversation, a whatever).

Just like every other time I have cut something out of my life cold turkey, I get urges and cravings to go on tumblr and do what I've always done: Make small little posts with only a few sentences in them so my friends and followers and such could see what I was thinking and...I don't know, react to it, I suppose? The whole cycle of getting approval via likes and reblogs and shit from random strangers because you made a silly post. That thing. You know what I mean.

Tumblr was my only "social media". I do technically have a twitter and bluesky account, but I basically never used them- only for like a week or two when I first made my accounts on those websites. Now that I've left tumblr, I essentially have no "social media" to speak of. This website isn't really social media- it's a very personal yet paradoxically very public creative project that gets attention from others whenever I update my website. Sure, I have a guestbook which allows people to say whatever they like, but that's a very different situation (usually) to people commenting directly on a post you made right in that moment. The most people tend to say is "cool website!" or "your cursors and cursor tutorials are super helpful, thank you!" It's social, sure. But it's not "social media" in the common understanding of the term.

Now that I no longer have social media- it has force me to do something with my eyeballs that isn't looking at tumblr posts. I went out a week ago to the library to borrow some books, and the one I've been reading (Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta) has been incredibly wonderful to read and very informative, and it's been forcing me to open myself up so I can deconstruct my ego and understand everything around me more clearly in a more Indigenous way.

(I used to read fictional fantasy books, and while those were always fun, sometimes it's a bit of a hit or miss thing for me. I think I'm more of a non-fiction reader in terms of how much I actually get out of the text. As much as I love reading fantasy and sci-fi and stuff like that...I seem to do so much better with non-fiction. I also have an easier time just reading long posts about people's experiences with life and articles about politics than I do fanfic, nowadays. Maybe that's just me getting older.)

Reading preference tangent aside- I've been doing things with my eyeballs that aren't social media. Reading physical books has been one thing. Working on my website, a place that isn't social media and therefor requires me to approach it at a completely different angle, has been another thing. And I've been noticing the difference between the words I write on my website as long articles or blog posts, versus the small little things I used to write about on tumblr.

The way my website functions is that making a new blog post has to be done manually. I first go to my computer files, find the folder that has all my html templates that I made for when I need to add a new piece of artwork or a new blog post, and I copy that code. Then, I go to the relevant html file in my neocities dashboard, click edit, and then past the code. Then, I gotta manually write in the date and time, and then copy and paste my thoughts I've pre-written in a text document into the html file, and then save the file. Then, I have to go to my RSS feed file, update that to include a link and a small description of my new post/article/artwork/whatever, and then also update the homepage since I always post what new things have been added there. I sometimes also have to update the "site updates" page as well if it was a massive site-wide change (like making the website mobile friendly, which was a big change I did recently that I believed everyone needed to be informed about).

Imagine doing all that just for the single sentence "the book I've been reading has been really good". It's a fucking nightmare. I'm sure there's an easier way to do all of this, but I really don't care. It's my ritual, and I like it, and I do it even if it's time consuming. I do not find it to be annoying or a drag, it's just what I gotta do if I want to update my webside.

But it is indeed time consuming, so I rarely do it for the little posts that would've been super easy to make on tumblr. It means that if I want to post something on my website, I've got to actually have something longer than a few sentences, so it makes the effort seem worth it, to me. I want the things on my website to have more substance, and it's made me re-wire my brain to stop caring so much about wanting to share the "little" thoughts.

I came across a tumblr post maybe a month or two ago before I left, about how not everything you think about has to be a post on the internet- some things can just remain as "inside thoughts". It was in the context of people admitting to doing racist shit publically and then being surprised when they caught flack for it...when maybe they could've just kept it to themselves and continued working on trying to be anti-racist rather than making it a racialised person's problem to solve. And I do agree with that- you really don't need to be telling everyone you used to say slurs or that you dressed in bastardised traditional clothing as someone who wasn't of that particular culture for halloween once. You could instead keep it to yourself and just learn to improve your own existence and the world around you.

I feel as though the "inside thoughts" thing can apply to more than just that specific context, however.

To me it applies to everything I do and say. There's nothing wrong with doing small talk with my family and friends and just saying little things here and there...but I feel like both myself and everyone esle has been treating social media much like a place to put all our thoughts- good and bad and stupid and silly and weird and awesome and fucked up and outrageous. All of it, even if we really don't need to. Here, it's a lot different- it takes a lot of time to update my website, so it forces me to accept and be okay with an inside thought remaining that way. I feel as though social media forces us to reveal every tiny little thing about us, everything we do and everything we think and every little "sin" and every little "virtuous" thing we do (I don't believe in sin. But that's a convo for another day. I could probably also say the same for virtuosity). We are incentivised to show everything about ourselves because in many circumstances we are rewarded for it: likes, reblogs/reposts, comments, engagement, whatever. In some instances, if you're an influencer or whatever you might even get money for it.

But outside of social media, on my own website...I feel as though I want to be more thoughtful about the things I put on here, and the things that I say. You'll notice that if you compare the blog entries on this website (the Personal Palace) with the posts I've made on my tumblr, there is a stark contrast on just how much more I have to say on my website, how much more introspective it gets, and how much less I joke around. There's also less of an incentive to post something negative about myself on here. I can't do it on a whim when I'm feeling bad because of the amount of effort it takes to add something to the website- it would feel like a ritual of humiliation to write something awfully negative about myself, copy and paste my blog post template, type in the time and date manually, format the html so it shows up on the webpage correctly, then update my home page to be like "hey come look at the blog post I made where I tell everyone I hate myself and want to die." By the time I got to that particular stage of adding that post to my website, I would have already come to my senses and told myself, "Hey man this is not worth it. We are wasting our fucking time on this negative bullshit."

In general, I just feel like I'm changing my behaviours with the way I think, how I chose to air my thoughts out to the world, and whether or not I actually do that at all. And I really think that this is an incredibly positive thing for me. As sad as I've been having left tumblr, it really has been an incredibly positive decision that I've made for myself in the long run. I just feel better about it the longer that I've been away from it.

And the funny thing is? I've had times in my life where I've fully lost access to the internet for like, an entire week (and not had mobile data either because I was a broke ass bitch and couldn't afford a data plan lol). The first few days have always been a massive struggle- wanting to make posts on the internet, not wanting to be left out of any memes going around, wanting to talk to my friends, etc...but after about a week...it's like a wave of bliss has washed over me and I've realised that so much of my stress had been because of the internet. And then when it has come back online...I've thought things like "Aw man...I wish the internet had've been out for way longer!" Because it feels almost like being thrown back into a situation that I truly don't want to be in, but feel as though I'm obligated to be in. For my internet friends, for my followers, for my mutuals, whoever. And that just doesn't sit well with me. It never has. I'm afraid of turning the internet off and never turning it on again- not only because I would stop getting Centrelink payments after a while of not doing any of my bloody Workplace Australia obligations, but because I fear I would love being away from the internet so much that I'd never come back here ever again.

And that would be liberating at first....but then I'd just have to send letters to my friends in the mail like we used to do before the internet, and wait for weeks or even months on end for a reply. I'd have to hope that the local newspaper wasn't biased or leaving anything out when I wanted to learn about news from around the world. I'd have to work in-person, something that my body heavily disgrees with (I'm fragile and everything hurts always). I'd maybe have tv. I would only be able to watch movies that were airing on tv because the theatres is a horrific place to be if you have misophonia. And just so much more shit I wouldn't have access to without the internet. And that sucks. That sucks so bad. Why should I need the internet for so many things? Why should anyone? I feel like it should be entirely optional- like bowling. You don't need to do bowling, but if you do...good for you! But imagine if society was built around bowling and if you didn't do it you wouldn't have access to so much shit and you would in general be seen as a weird person. It would suck shit.

I told myself I would go on only one singular tangent, and then suddenly I've gone completely off the rails. But it was relevant and I hope you understand my meaning. The point is, I both love and hate the internet. I hate it for all the evils it has propagated, for how social media has re-wired our brains when it comes to communication and engaging with other people. But I also love it because...well...my website is awesome. My friends are awesome. Online video games are (sometimes) awesome. The ones I play, at least. Sometimes the interactions with other strangers online have been really cool. Other times it's sucked shit. The internet is a double edged sword, for me, but it has became a more...blunt and weaker sword, by cutting out social media from my internet habits. And I hope to continue chipping away at that sharpness so it doesn't cut me anymore.