Figuring things out

Social media breaks, early installment weirdness, and limerent songs.

I decided to take the social media apps off my phone again because I’ve been feeling drained by the constant stream of bad news and pressure to have something new to share every so often. The news coming out of the United States just makes me cranky. I will still access them through web browsers because there’s less incentive to do the endless scroll, but even that’s usually only done during work hours, and nowhere for as long as I would on my phone; I don’t know if it’s just me, but there’s something about the web versions of those sites that just makes me want to leave more quickly than I would on my phone.

I’m trying to reclaim my free time outside of the office that usually disappears in a fog of exhaustion and doomscrolling. I still instinctively grab my phone far too often for my liking, but I hope a longer break will help curb that urge. When I’m feeling tired, I also don’t really want to socialize, and feel less comfortable with being perceived, and that extends to the online world. I’ve always liked the idea of taking breaks from being in “public” to work on projects, and re-emerging when I feel more up to active participation in the world. Sadly, the realities of capitalism make being a recluse pretty much unfeasible, but I think the whole “always being on view” thing is detrimental to our health and creativity.

It must be a sign that a number of the newsletters I subscribe to have been mentioning the value of taking your time, slowing down, and letting yourself figure things out as you go along. There are naturally going to be times when you don’t really have that luxury, but when it comes to things you do for your own enjoyment, it is pretty good advice. It also makes me wonder to what extent I’ve been expecting some kind of reward for writing or posting online, and if that expectation has been shaping my work. I don’t even know what reward that would be. Engagement? New subscribers? Being witnessed?

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One weird thing I remember is how the first season of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? was rendered out-of-date pretty much immediately thanks to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, though PBS still repeated the full run of shows right up to the premiere of the next season. One episode that prominently featured Leningrad as a location was already outdated by the time the series premiered because the citizens voted to restore the original name of Saint Petersburg (that one ended up getting buried in the last week of new shows).

The other thing I remember about that season was that the earliest recorded episodes still hadn’t finalized a lot of the different elements of the show like the set design or gameplay, but these older episodes (including the two pilots) were sprinkled through the season, particularly toward the end. It’s always fascinated me when a TV show would have a particularly jarring early-produced episode buried later in the season.

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My newest playlist was compiled with a little help from Reddit posters sharing songs that accurately describe the experience of limerence¹. The Spotify list is below, but you can also listen on Amazon, YouTube Music, or pretty much anywhere else.

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1. I wrote a bit about limerence in More fun with my neurodivergent brain.