Trimming the Fat: Streamlining my Social Media Presence
Lieutenant Reginald Endicott “Reg” Barclay III is a recurring fictional character from both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. He is socially awkward, hilariously uncomfortable in his own skin, and is initially the butt of cruel jokes among his peers. He often retreats to the comfort of his imagination, which manifests itself in acute holodeck addiction (which lands him in hot water on more than one occasion). On the upside, he also frequently mines his own imaginative thought experiments, using innovative, unconventional solutions to resolve complex problems.
Lt. “Broccoli”. (Image source: Google)
Lieutenant Barclay has his own Wikipedia entry if you want to learn more about him. I can’t imagine why you would want to. Just know that I hated this character intensely. I don’t anymore, but in the moment, he felt like a cruel slap in the face that I took personally.
I hated Barclay because he reminded me of myself.
This isn’t news for anyone close to me, or who has tried to become close to me, but I am an introvert who also frequently suffers from debilitating social anxiety and depression. Oh, I can function in goal-oriented social functions like work (where the goal is solving technical problems to get PC users back to work) or team sports (where the goal is to come together to defeat opponents), but the moment the focus switches to happy-hours, wine parties, or just hanging out, I struggle greatly and must rely on a series of complex coping mechanisms to get by.
Or I just flake-out and bail, or I spaz-out and make a jackass of myself before flaking-out and bailing.
Like Barclay, I have a rich, active imagination, but as a young adult, I slowly came to realize that living inside my own head wasn’t enough. Even a social weirdo like me craves social connection of some type. Social media filled that void handily.
I first discovered social media several years after its commercially embryotic phase in something called Yahoo! Chat. I tried it for about ten minutes, and was hooked instantly (Say what? Instead of focusing on improving the tragedy which was my life, I could escape to the internet and make fun of celebrities, kings, and sinners who dare to live in the real world? What a concept!) Before I knew it, I had lost count of how many chatrooms and message boards I frequented.
It wasn’t all escapism though. Occasionally, if I found a fellow chat-head compelling enough, I would sack-up and attend a real-live meet-n-greet to see if their reality matched their online persona (which, much like my own online duality, was almost never the case). Once, I was digging this female chatter and our chemistry was intense. We agreed to meet at the birthday party of a mutually-acquainted chatter to see where things might lead. We didn’t hit it off in person, but she introduced me to her friend, and four years later, her friend and I were married. By transitive property, I owe my twelve-year marriage to social media.
As social media evolved, I came along for the ride. GeoCities, Open Diary, LiveJournal, Friendster, OkayPlayer Freestyle Forum, MySpace, Google+ for some reason… and then onward to my current dopamine connection go-to’s; Facebook (my primary social surrogate – more on this later), Blogger, WordPress (well hello there!), Tumblr (where I do most of my fanboying), and two Twitter accounts (one for my back-of-the-bus mocking of all things pop-culture, and one for my poetry, which, I guess means that if I ever become famous, I’ll have to mock myself? Not sure how that would work.)
But something has changed within the past two or three years. Interacting on Facebook use to leave me with an improved outlook, but recently, I’ve found myself angrier, sadder, and even more depressed after perusing my newsfeed. Obviously, my country’s uglier aspects and the rise of toxic nationalism, leading us to this vile new administration manifested itself in Facebook, as did the Fake News Era. We all know of the many ways that Facebook and many other social media outlets have betrayed our trust, and I won’t be getting into any of that.
I decided to take a series of breaks from Facebook to see how I felt. My absence was probably unnoticed, as I continued posting via my Twitter link to Facebook (I call it “face-twat” for short because I exist simultaneously as a high school sophomore and a dirty old man.) My last break was during the month of April as I participated in NaPoWriMo for the tenth consecutive year. In each of my breaks, including the last one, I noticed that I wasn’t as down in the dumps as I normally am.
That’s when I decided that I would permanently deactivate my Facebook account.
I have selected a target date of Labor Day to finally and completely rid myself of this oddity that has oddly become a sad, compulsory element in my life. That gives me time to ensure that I find other ways of keeping in touch with online friends dear to me; friends who make me laugh, who make me think, and who make me want to become a better person – but not necessarily friends who I wish to see every day, as I still lack the social ability to make that a comfortable experience for me.
Also, I suspect that this won’t be the only social media that I give up on. In fact, the only social apps I’m certain that I’ll keep are my WordPress site and my poetic Twitter feed that links to it. All other apps are open to further evaluation.
It may seem trivial to some who read this, and I totally get it, but seeing how Facebook was (and in a way, still is) my social surrogate for the past decade, this is a big deal for me. The fact that it should not be a big deal is one of the main reasons why I must make this change. Lieutenant Barclay was compelled to severely curtail his holodeck usage as it was impacting his ability to exist in the real world. Those peers who initially mocked his oddities made a good faith effort to accept him, and he did the same for both them and himself. It was far from perfect, but Barclay formed lasting friendships.
I’m no fictional character, but I am compelled similarly, for vaguely similar reasons. As always, thanks for putting up with me.
***
The weather-guessers were wrong
about the heat wave.
In fact, there was light precipitation.
Preferring the rain, I am relieved.
I don’t even know why I wrote
“precipitation” instead of “rain”.
I’m no meteorologist.
I guess the unscheduled rainfall
wasn’t up to my lofty standards.
It was a halfhearted rainfall,
followed by an indifferent sunbreak.
Felt more like angel’s spit
than the weeping we’ve earned
for this crapsack existence.
My hemisphere turned
fully into the true glare
of sunlight, and everywhere I turn,
I glare at two shadows
of the Four Noble Truths.
I see only suffering and
man’s indifference to it.
I see children crying in pain,
fear, hunger, and terror;
if they’re lucky, they’ll just receive
the mercy of ignorance
in the form of being ignored,
or perhaps they’ll only languish
as the butt of cruel jokes
they’re mostly ignorant to.
I see indignant adults
viciously targeting them
for exploitation
or other vile indignities.
I see servers and protectors
silencing them permanently
in brass precipitation
because that’s the way
it’s always been and apparently,
that’s the way it needs to be.
The days grow shorter now.
It is the nature of our earth’s tilt
in reference to our position on it
as we continue our
inevitable journey around the sun.
Our share of daylight
will gradually be transferred
to our antipodean brothers and sisters,
in the way it’s always been.
Centerline keeper
Breath my air
Inhale, share
Mutual dreamer
Centerline keeper
Move in close
Feel repose
Outer gate-sweeper, brace you
Centerline keeper
Closer still
Overfill
Tender will-seeker
And you want this?
I know I do
Centerline keeper
Nose to ear
Hush your fear
Uncommitted leaner
Centerline keeper
Concentric girds
Say the words
Sensitive feeler, face you
And do you want this?
I know I do
Limerence
Is it
Limerence?
Is it
Only
Limerence?
Is it
Only
Opening us to
Loss of contact?
Ignorance
Was it
Lonely
Opening to
Mutual attract?
Limerence
Do you want this?
Can we will this?
I can feel the sun
In the curve of your smile
And I want the day to grow longer
And I can see the fun
In the swerve of your style
And all I want to say,
You know, is to conjure
Cupid, Aphrodite, Eros,
Frigga, Hathor, Juno,
Flora, Sabine, Persephone,
And the whole damn team
And the whole damn team
Just to make you say
You share the same space
And feel the same way
Are you inspired by the way
I admire your existence?
Do you require further sway
Towards desire or assistance?
Are we both liars who display
A misfire of consistence?
Renewed, I aspire to today
Rising higher, void of distance
Limerence
Is it
Limerence?
Is it
Only
Limerence?
Is it
Only
Opening us to
Loss of contact?
Is it ignorance?
Was it
Lonely
Opening to
Mutual attract?
Limerence
Do you want this?
Can we will this?
The path beyond the garden
Beyond what I thought I knew
Beyond a life filled with
Dewdrops alive with you
When I relied on a new
Love supplied by you
Beg your pardon
Beg your smile to rise higher still
A spring rain brings a tap
On my windowsill
It brings pain and sappy need
To say the words with a greater will
The season of renewal
Where the flowers grow
And the lovebirds sing
Where my heart didn’t know
What our world would bring
And the sun didn’t show
The clouds gathering
Fate may be cruel
But I’ll face it with a truth
That belies the fear
Can’t replace what a
Youthful heart supplies to steer
Our airspace closed with
A soothing baptized revere
It would be foolish to build a life
On a starry night shared in the throes
Of what we know is obsession
Is it?
And it would be a sin against nature
To win you on surface-level physics,
Playing Loki to discretion
Only
Is it?
When did this spin out of our control
And grow, filling its own chasm?
When did we spin and invent
Our enlightening phantasm?
Lonely
Was it
Formed when we were born
At the event horizon of an orgasm?
When did we spin out of control
And grow into this unwieldly thing?
When did we begin? Was it
The beginning of spring?
***
Written for NaPoWriMo Day 30 prompt:
…write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact. It could be an odd piece of history, an unusual bit of art trivia, or something just plain weird. While I cannot vouch for the actual accuracy of any of the facts presented at the links above (or any other facts you might use as inspiration!), I can tell you that there are definitely some poetic ideas here, just waiting for someone to use them.
The strange and fascinating fact I used is that the fighting style Wing Chun literally translates to Spring Chant or Eternal Spring.
Sorry for the late ending. I’ve been really busting my hump at work and haven’t had much time to write. But I’ve been tinkering with this one off and on for a while.
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the Plath Poetry Project’s calendar. Simply pick a poem from the calendar, and then write a poem that responds or engages with your chosen Plath poem in some way.
This one was rather intimidating. While I respect and emulate the greats like Poe, Wild, Hemmingway, Langston Hughes and even Chicago greats like Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, I have always feared Sylvia Plath. She was a unique genius, and emulating her work is a lot like trying to describe the void. I’d much rather look away.
Anyway, the poem I chose was Elm (the April 19 entry), and as I feared, It kind of sucked me in, chewed me up, and spit me out. I didn’t even have time to write my day 30 poem.
Postcard in Praise of My One-Time Online Secret Girlfriend
Why are you here? Why am I? Why are we? Even though we’re both evenly among our peers in our late twenties, this feels… odd. Oddly uncomfortable and weirdly familiar in keeping welcome company. You seem to be enjoying this bass-boosted noise even less than me, if that were ever a possibility. You say nothing as you gallantly support the nightclub wall with your back, your face screwed into a question mark. You’re puzzled by how different I am IRL than online. You’re with your girls and I’m with my homie, but I spot in your eyes, a symmetry. Or is it synergy? It’s a mystery, but I can see that you too wish it were just you and me. I have poor self-esteem, so I don’t take these vibes lightly when they come to be. You speak softly, drowned-out by the club cacophony, yet I feel your words settle next to me. I won’t forget how you let me hold your hand gratefully, us both grateful no one else could see.
***
Written for NaPoWriMo Day 28 prompt: “draft a prose poem in the form/style of a postcard.”
My tarot reading,
if you believe in such things,
drew Three of Pentacles.
Or is it The Three of Pentacles?
The eternal skeptic,
I know not of how tarot cards
prefer to be addressed,
or if they even perceive mockery.
Three, (or The Three)
apparently
signifies skilled labor
or fashioning with your hands,
be it trade, craft, or artistry.
It seems that even fate herself,
an unforgiving, mysterious mistress
conspires to compel me
to continue to create.
If you believe in such things.
***
Written for NaPoWriMo Day 27 prompt:
…we challenge you to pick a card (any card) from this online guide to the tarot, and then to write a poem inspired either by the card or by the images or ideas that are associated with it.
write a poem that includes images that engage all five senses. Try to be as concrete and exact as possible with the “feel” of what the poem invites the reader to see, smell, touch, taste and hear.
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 