Social Dilemma

I have spent a lot of time in recent days pondering the impact of it on our lives.  The impact of technology in general, but especially social media.  Truth be told many of us got lost in our social media especially in the last year and a half, because well, we couldn't socialize in real life, safely   But as time has worn on, breaking out of the social media trap has been hard.  And I say trap, because in so many ways, it is as much of a trap as living in the past if you allow it to be.   It's so very easy to lose everything in our present, when we bury ourselves in carefully crafted worlds that people build on here.   It's so easy to get caught up in it and lose sight of what is important.  So in the last few weeks I have been spending less time on social media.   I made commitments to myself to get some things done, and I was finding that hanging out on FB for literally hours at a time, getting lost in the scrolling, gave me an easy excuse to not do things, that honestly scared me a little.  

We tell ourselves that this is how we stay in touch, this is where our friends are and we need to stay connected, while feeling increasingly disconnected at the same time.  As I have spent less time on the platforms, I have learned something very important.  Well, honestly, not anything I didn't already know, but it finally forced me to realize, that while yes, there are some genuine relationships that have formed from association on social media, most people have no idea that I have quietly been living life outside the ether.    I imagine that there are many of us who have experienced this at one point or another, so it's good to remember:

    "People (in real life and on social media) come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime"

 but wait,  there's more.

    "When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person"

I am grateful for the relationships that I have built from FB and IG.   And the quote above is fitting, as modified, because it is true.   Of the thousands of people we meet in social media, only a handful are likely to be with us for a lifetime.   And that's okay, truly, because if you come out of it with even one true, genuine forever friend, then wow, how awesome is that.  More importantly if we have figured out which ones are here for a reason and which for a season, then likely we have  provided one another what was needed.  Whatever the reason, whatever the season, people come into and out of our lives.    At first I was a little sad, as I began pulling away and immediately started losing touch with some people, but now I have to smile and I realize how blessed I am to have met so many of them at all.   Everyone we have met here, or in any other amazing group in which we are members, have impacted us in ways that have shaped us for our present and our future.  Together we have all shared lessons in humility, bravery, love, kindness, fearlessness, compassion, friendship, patience, tolerance; every single one a point of light that has added to our collective glow.  Peace 

Be Yourself, Follow Your Path

This week I have been reading “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig.    The story is about a woman who decides that she wants to die and in the process, she lands in a giant library filled with books.  One of the books is the Book of Regrets.   It’s an overwhelming volume of all the things she regretted doing or not doing.    The Book of Regrets guides her decisions in opening any of the other books which allow her to explore the life she’d be living had she not made that particular choice.  If at any time she is exploring a particular life, she finds its not the right one, it brings her back to the library.   I am just getting to the good parts but in a couple of the lives she explores,  in the few I have read; she makes some interesting observations that I will share via quotes from the book.

‘Bertrand Russell wrote that ‘To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three-parts dead’. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she was just scared of living.’ – Nora Seed in The Midnight Library

This is profound.   Maybe she chose to die and ended up in the library because she was afraid to live the life different choices would have taken her on because she was scared.    I think we all feel this way from time to time.  We are presented with some amazing opportunities but often we choose not to pursue them because they are seriously fucking scary!  But you know, we are dragons, and dragons can burn up that fear with the flame of confidence and strength!  So, come on dragons who is with me?  Do something scary.  I will share with you if you share with all of us.   I embarked on the journey to publish my poetry today, after 14 years.   In part this is because of all of you;  because you have embraced my poetry, and I thank you.  I am no longer afraid of sharing.

In the next life she explored, one of which she continued to pursue swimming, she became an Olympic athlete and retired with tons of records.  She later became a public speaker, and while she was in the life she could have had, (I should note that when she joins the alternate life, she does not have much of the context of that life), she had to give a speech and she was not prepared so she just winged it.   This is part of what she said:

‘If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And do not give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep your stamina. Keep swimming . . .’ Nora Seed – The Midnight Library

Wow isn’t this spot on.  How much of our lives have we spent trying to be something we weren’t because someone else wanted us to be different?  I sure know I did until I didn’t.  One day, when my first marriage was failing, I contacted my maid of honor to tell her I had asked my husband for a divorce and to tell her how hurt because she had not been there in those tumultuous three years, but when she explained that she could not be around me, because I wasn’t me it was like getting hit upside the head with a frying pan.  It all made sense.  I had given up so much of myself away to be what he wanted, that I lost me.   After that I said never again.  Have you had one of those epiphanies?

Alright, one more.  In her next life journey, she was exploring a life that included much solitude.   As she explored that life, she was keenly aware of the value of solitude, how she could be in tune and hear everything the world was trying to tell her.     She recalled:   

‘If one advances confidently,’ Thoreau had written in Walden, ‘in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’ He’d also observed that part of this success was the product of being alone. ‘I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” Nora Seed – the Midnight Library

Clearly sometimes we must have solitude to understand who we are and where we are going.   Make time for yourselves Dragons and find answers in the solitude you cultivate for yourselves.  I find I am most at peace and in tune with who I am than in the quiet of the woods with only the sound of nature around me.   Where do you get your solitude dragons?

This book has been incredibly insightful and thought provoking.  If you like to read, this is an amazing book. I started on Sunday and am halfway through.  I am sure that the remaining discoveries to come will be just as thought provoking.   Don’t you just love a book that or concept that opens your mind to amazing possibilities and stirs the imagination?  One last thought:

“All good things are wild and free.” From Howl, a song by Nora Seed (and quote by Thoreau) in the Midnight Library

Have an amazing day everyone.  Be you, be fierce, be brave, be kind, kick ass, be good, wild and free.

Peace ☮️  Love ❤️ 

Life in Transition - Part 2

The other day I was doing one of my least favorite chores, folding laundry.    This chore was one of my first as a kid.  I disliked it then and I dislike it now, but  we all know the clothes won’t fold themselves, so I dived in.  The particular  pile  that lay before me consisted of sheets and towels.   Towels are easy but sheets, especially fitted ones, are my nemesis.  My usual method is to just kind of roll them into a ball and call it done.   As I grabbed the first one I thought about my mom and how she could make a fitted sheet look exactly like a flat sheet.   Anyone who might look at a stack of my mom’s folded sheets would not be able to identify which were flat and which were fitted.   I was always in awe of this and always frustrated that I could never master this magic of the perfectly folded fitted sheet.   I drifted away in this memory of her and continued my folding.  I don’t know how long I stood there immersed in this memory but  I looked down and in my hands I held a perfectly folded, fitted sheet, just like my mom had always done.  At that moment, I felt her presence for the first time since she passed in January.  It was almost as if her hands had guided my hands on that sheet.  

For those of you reading this now, who’ve lost someone special, what are your magical memories?   When do you most often feel their presence?    When it comes, let it take you to that place and let it comfort you.   The people we love are never truly gone, they are with us all the time, preserved in our memories, and if we are listening, we will feel them, in those magical moments.

“Be still in your memories and let the magic wash over you.”   TLP 2021

  Peace ☮️ Love 💟