A decade ago, fed up with my cratering life and career, I deleted my Twitter account, scrubbed my blog's archives and started over again. Today, I'm doing something similar.
I spend too much time on Twitter, reacting to Twitter, and regretting my instant takes on Twitter. So I'm letting my primary account go inactive later this week -- we'll see if that lasts, honestly, I've tried this before -- and starting a new account that will just be a feed from this blog. I'm not going to follow anybody there.
I am trying to slow my roll.
Twitter is bad for you. It is bad for democracy. I've felt this for awhile, yet I've stuck. Because I want to be a part of the conversation. But that's my ego talking, frankly. If I can't give up a little bit of trying to have an audience in order to do my incremental bit to back away from the trends that are consuming us ... well, that kind of makes me selfish, doesn't it?
Even now, I'm not entirely willing to forego the chance to be heard, which is why the new Twitter account. I am not an angel. And I have to figure out a new way to seek out and listen to voices -- including a number of Black and women writers -- that I previously encountered mainly through Twitter.
Again: I may not make this work as well as I like. And compared to the disaster that is befalling our country -- the pandemic, the economy, racial unrest, Trump -- it's an utterly small, insufficient move to try and change how I engage in discourse. Blogging is probably not going to be a thing again. Too bad. But I can only do what I can do. This is how I start.
PS: If you want to talk back to me, leave a comment! I'll talk back! And I'll curate comments so that angry people don't get to make it a cesspool for everyone! Not that I'm expecting a huge audience.
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