Excursions

For quite some time now, I have disabled the replies from my Micro.blog timeline. I liked the quietness initially, but the silence is tiring now. I want to discover new conversations and people again – so I’m enabling replies in the timeline again. I love this control!

Yesterday, I intentionally wrote a post on simple writing in a lot straight forward manner than I usually do. A dull manner, I would say. It didn’t matter as it served its purpose for me.

I keep my writing simple while conveying my thoughts. It is the most effective way that I know. I learnt this from all the people I enjoy reading online. But Derek Sivers has been the most significant influence.

There was a time when I liked to ornament my writing with unnecessary words. A lot of context. Too many adjectives. Metaphors.

I don’t do that anymore as it is unwarranted for my kind of #writing. I don’t want to pen the most beautiful piece of prose. Or be creative with the use and selection of words. I write to convey my ideas and that needs just clarity. Manu says this while sharing why he feels he is not a writer.

What matters here is not the writing, is the communication. Is the exchange of ideas, and the sharing of experiences.

I relate to this thought. As long as what I want to say is unambiguous, and is understood without trouble by the reader, my goal behind why I write is met. The length of the post or my vernacular does not matter.

I want my writing to sound as I do while I speak. And I don’t articulate. I talk.

Threads reminded me of why I eventually fell off the Twitter timeline. It’s the same people talking about the same stuff they always do. The early adopters, the famous bloggers, and podcasters. The social media celebrities. They have a bubble of their own. They talk amongst themselves as you listen. You are not part of any community – you are watching a show.

Then there are the posts that are written mainly to go viral. The memes. The questions. The jokes. And the jokers. The social media diarrhoea.

These threads (pun unintended) garner the most engagement, which makes the algorithmic timeline bubble them to the top. Now, these are all I see. And I don’t enjoy either of them.

The diversity of both the posts and the people is also why I love the timeline on Micro.blog. It’s never the same people or the same type of posts that crowd the place. And if they do, I know how to correct that.

I am on Threads. Talking about Threads. Might manually cross post as I usually do on Mastadon.

Threads is closest to Twitter and that’s exactly why it may work. Twitter left a big hole and this (without any shame of copying) fits that perfectly.

Also, Meta understands you can’t launch a social network available for iOS only and expect it to grow. Welcome to see Android app on launch.

Recently, I have seen many people get nostalgic about Google Reader. The argument is that if Google Reader hadn’t died, the internet wouldn’t have been in the dire state it is today. As if the demise of Google Reader caused the rise of proprietary timelines of Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately, it was the other way around.

Plus, Google Reader was a flawed, terribly designed, niche product only used by a handful of tech-savvy people. I say this even though I was a big fan of the product. It could never have survived in the form it was in.

Sure, web browsing does feel horrible today, as Tim Sweeney of Epic tweeted.

The internet feels increasingly broken. News sites are paywalled or account walled, Reddit is nag walled, Google search spams ads and SEO to the point of uselessness, and now Twitter is account walled.

I agree with all of it. But I don’t think Google Reader could have addressed any of it. RSS, for sure, cannot. It’s just a standard to simplify consumption. The problem lies at the source.

What if I pressed reset on all that I have published till date? Get rid of all of it. Archive it, maybe. And start afresh. What if I do it every year? Or every month?

I have forgotten how to write.

I am frustrated with my recent tendency to choose the easy option whenever an opportunity arrives. Watch rather than read. Read rather than write. Get tired doing both. And then sleep. I am doing this way too often these days. I have made this my routine. I am aware this behaviour isn’t good. But I still do this.

Passively scroll through the news. Or YouTube shorts. And when I feel bad about my choice, I skim through my RSS feeds. Or newsletters. I attempt to fool my mind that I am reading the good stuff, following a good routine. I very well know that I am fooling no one. Especially not my mind. It continues to feel shit.

There was a time when I would take steps to correct the habits of bad choices. Move away from my smartphone. Uninstall apps. Or disable notifications. Track. Measure. Force me towards, or give me more opportunities to make better choices.

What pains me is I have stopped doing any of that, either. Every wasted day ends with a promise that I will start following a good routine from tomorrow. For that matter, routine of some sort, as I lack any at this point.

Weeks have gone by, but that tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I am afraid it never will if I don’t take measures promptly. Being aware is useless if I don’t act.