Midweek Missive: A Very Special One-Time Offer

These virtual spaces will take all of you if you let them, and to what end?

I'm having a moment of feeling jaded about social media in terms of creativity, "content," and that insidious thing that these spaces feeds on… competition and keeping up.

None of these lend themselves to the kind of listening, time, attention, awareness, spirit, or process that really making things tends to require.

None of these offer space for staring out the window, connecting deeply with other humans – or trees, for that matter, or the cadence of our own breath, or the rhythm of our own bodies as we move through the world.

They don't value the quiet epiphanies, the chronic questions, the quirky curiosities, the steady, often unremarkable work of sustaining a practice, no matter what that practice might be.

These qualities of speed and scrolling and digital clutter crowd our minds and erode our patience. They infiltrate our consciousness and lead us to believe we are falling behind, we are falling short, we are missing the moment. Because urgency sells.

Buy now or forever hold your peace.

Act now or lose your place.

This is a Very Special One-Time Offer.

As someone who has been active and visible on social media for a long time now, I don't demonize it. It's a tool. As such, the key is how I use it – and the sometimes steep work of noticing when the tables have turned, when I'm being used *by* it instead.

Course correct. Pause. Reset. These are always available to me, and to you, no matter where you are in your writing or your life or your business development. The moment you start to pay more attention to how many reactions, comments, and shares your posts are getting than to why you're showing up in the first place is a perfect time to check in with yourself. Step away for a while.

These virtual spaces will take all of you if you let them, and to what end?

On the flip side, here we find each other. We love/laugh/learn! We really do. So much beauty, so much fierce realness, so much wondrous everydayness and being shared on these Facebook streets. I cherish that.

I look at the smoky skies outside my office window and sit with the both/and. We are such puny characters in this global play, and also so magnificent and miraculous. I love us.

Please, don't let the internet eat you alive. Come here if it adds something to your day, if you find comfort or courage or sustenance or opportunity or connection here.

But if it leaves you feeling shitty, this is your permission slip to step away. Do something delicious or nothing at all – which may, come to think of it, be one and the same.

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