I actually still don't know what to do with my life

This is about careers and work because of course it is. Barring a revolution, I will spend most of my life at work earning money. I better be able to fucking tolerate my job. Unfortunately for me I have spent the past 6 years training exclusively for a job I can no longer stand, which is any kind of lab or bench work. It turns out that when I was 16-22 and just doing bench work to support the experiments of others, everything was fine, but now that I'm expected to align that with current research and optimize experiments myself and navigate who to ask for help when they don't work, I hate it with every last fibre of my being.

An instructor (basically someone whose entire job is to teach at the post-secondary level) told me recently that if I wanted to test out if it was my lab or research in general that I hated, I could always take a post-doctoral fellowship somewhere else and just quit. I think I've been in school so long that I kind of forgot jobs are just kind of endless and you can decide when you're done with them. I'm so used to school and I'm so used to pushing myself through unpleasant things because I feel like I'm Supposed To that I forgot I get to actually have an opinion about what I want for my life. That being said, the idea of joining someone else's lab and generating data and trying to make experiments work to present at some regular meeting just fills me with sadness and dread and unhappiness so I think I have my answer.

Still it's hard to say no completely. It's hard enough to pick a path to commit to, let alone letting go of one entirely. When I leave my PhD, I don't think I'll ever do bench work again. I don't even know that I'll continue working as a scientist. There's a lot of identity wrapped up in that. This summer at work, being a PhD Candidate and one of the oldest ones there has gotten me a lot of respect and admiration. It's a nice ego boost for people to say wow, you must be smart. It feels like a waste to have put in all this time and effort and not actually use the training for its intended purpose. But if my husband came to me tomorrow and said hey forget all this nursing stuff, I want to pursue writing, I'd say of course, that's not a waste, let's find a way to get there. If any of my friends were to come to me and say hey I don't want to use this degree anymore but I feel like I wasted my time, I'd find something comforting to say. I'd encourage them to live their own lives. I may even tell them hey, what a flex that you can do an entire degree in that despite not wanting to spend your whole life in it. That's a level of commitment and drive and intelligence that haters want for themselves (haters being the mean voice in your head, primarily). So why is it suddenly not okay for me?

In any case it's not like I want to throw out everything. I've learned a lot of information throughout this degree. But when I saw an instagram micro-influencer (for lack of a better term and yes, I'm on instagram again, please don't say anything mean about it) say her dream was to discover a treatment for neurodegenerative disorders or whatever she studied in her PhD, I was like. well. Fuck. I have about the coolest PhD project anyone could work on, in my opinion, and yet I am not passionately dedicated to the cause of treating pediatric brain cancer. That obviously doesn't mean I think that's a stupid goal, or that I want children with brain cancer to just die, but I no longer want to actively participate in the research process.

The most value I've found is in my understanding of this process, and helping others understand. The best part of my degree was teaching despite all the hostility from students (almost exclusively men, but that's a rant for another time). My summer job involves a lot of teaching. I've even taught my coworkers things. I care about things being accurate when I teach, and that fuels my curiosity and drive to understand. I love when I can put something in simple terms so someone else gets it as much as they need to get it. I love when I inform someone about how something actually works. The someone can be a stranger on instagram, a stressed out biology undergrad, or a 6-year old. I've genuinely enjoyed myself so much this summer I've debated graduating and going straight into a B.Ed degree to be a teacher... if I can stand 2-3 more years of school with NO income and much more tuition and all the many downsides I've heard about teaching. Though to be honest... if I could go back in time to 2018 and have all my memories, experience, and knowledge from grad school, I'd just get an ed degree, so maybe that should be telling me something. 

As it is I do have... well, a half assed plan. I've definitely hit the Final Point of Desperation. I hit that point months ago and told my supervisor I need to fucking graduate and I can't keep being here. My plan is to graduate April 2024, so hopefully that pans out. In the meantime, I've got about 3 "side hustles" for lack of a better term and have a lot more confidence after this summer job to volunteer and apply for things (after all, I have experience now... and I also have my police records check and first aid training, so let's just fucking go for it). I've been told I can definitely come back and do this job again next summer, so I have that ready and waiting just in case. But my real goal is to have some kind of job lined up for me next September. September 2024, I want to be starting work... somewhere. Or starting my fucking education degree if that's where life takes me. I feel like maybe I should have more of a plan but then again, this is more than I had about 5 months ago. It's definitely more than I had 5 years ago. 

Maybe I'm posting this here in the hopes that someone will read it and in September 2024 will think "huh. I wonder if that random woman online ever met her goal" and come back here and check, or maybe not. But I want to be able to say I did. So I'll do my best to get there, understanding full well that it may take longer than expected, thanks to my fucking PhD.

Diagnosis: Boredom

 Oh My God I Need To Do Things...

Turns out having a full time job and being busy on your feet all the time means you can't pontificate endlessly on the meaning of life or whatever. Particularly the kind of job where you are actually legally exempt from the regulations about breaks (I don't get a half hour paid break after 5 hours because of my job, which means I do not get any breaks at all, all day. I am working over lunch). Someone is always asking me to do something and when work finishes, my experiments start, or I need to put time into my marriage, or a friendship. Bonus: I make money now. I have earned more money than I have spent in the past two months, and while doing it I've made new friends. Serious, actual friends in some cases- and some who will be around to Do Things With even once the summer ends and with it, the summer job.

Do you know what I was doing before? Fucking nothing, most of the time. I didn't want to work on my research because it was boring and there was no structure or deadlines to keep me going. There's no mental health boost of feeling useful or hardworking when it doesn't matter if you get something done today or tomorrow or next week or next month or next year. And those things I have to do are difficult and painful because I keep failing at them and that's just normal and expected. Why would I do them?

You can't get the mental health boost of doing a good job if the job doesn't matter at all. That's all I'm saying. But having a job where it does matter if I show up and give my best effort, and get things done, and have a good attitude, and need to prepare food and some other stuff in advance... a job where other people are relying on me... it feels good. It feels nice. I needed the reminder that I have something to offer the world. It's a very potent depression-zapper. You can't be useless because you solved a fire at work. Actually you solved about 18 of them. YOU did. By yourself, with sometimes no support from coworkers, and not even because they suck, but because there was another fire at the same time that they had to deal with. That means I'm part of a team, that means I can be integral to that team's best functioning, which again, means I cannot possibly be useless and my brain really WAS lying to me.

Some people have legitimately said to me that this $17 an hour entry level job is beneath me as a PhD candidate, particularly because it's only tangentially related to my field. My job can be done- and is being done quite well- by a coworker who didn't even take high school biology. That coworker is one of my favourites because we collaborate so well. We fill in the gaps for each other. And in the meantime- I feel useful. I am being paid for my work. People care that I show up both because I said I would and because they care about me as a person. How is that beneath me? Am I above feeling... useful and important? The prestige associated with getting a PhD doesn't fulfill that for me, even though it is a nice ego boost to have people constantly assume you are very smart. That's fun and all, but it obviously wasn't preventing me from feeling like shit.

Like no, it's not a full time job that's going to allow me to move out of my parents' house with my husband just yet, but it's something. It's a reference letter. It's experience. It's some fun money. It's the potential ability to find a job later that will let us move out and buy property. That's not nothing, and it certainly feels worth it to me. Given that I have to live with the consequences of my decisions, I think I'll take it.

It's all the same

This is the rare post that I actually edited from a draft I made a few days ago, and also may be my last post for a while as somewhere in here I got to thinking there's a difference between me writing something to have it be read and writing something to have it be written.

Anyway. This is a loose collection of my own personal thoughts about how social media somehow does not connect us and in fact makes disconnection worse. It's very navel gazy, but I hope you'll enjoy. It was, after all, written to be read.

I'll start first with the observation that I think hobbies are kind of rare these days. The idea that young people don't have hobbies in the same way comes from a couple places: several posts I observed on tumblr and my own personal experience. This is the "what do you do for fun?" story, where my husband asked me that very question when we first met and I didn't have an answer. I had given up writing a couple of years prior in the middle of a busy NaNoWriMo in my grade 12 year, and hadn't done so very carefully, and I felt I didn't have time to read with my busy university schedule (and this was even while I was living on a meal plan). Those had been my two main hobbies for years. This was also in the mid-2010s, and in retrospect now I can see this was the beginning of social media really starting to take over people's lives. I say this as someone who genuinely lived through a period that saw the beginning of facebook, youtube, instagram, snapchat, tumblr. I remember when those things were new, and they were very different. facebook in particular I remember changing quite a bit in the mid-2010s to be a lot more focused on ads and business pages and suggested posts, etc. we were all being kept on the platforms longer, and this was before even vine existed. now it's so much worse and you don't really realize that until you look back.

If I didn't have hobbies, I didn't conceptualize of this as a problem until I was asked that question. that age is classically the age where one establishes their identity etc, so it's also not unreasonable that I would have had a crisis about the same thing around that time (he asked me this when I was 19). Who was I as a person? How was that connected to the things I did with my time? I'd never stopped to ponder those questions before, and in a way I didn't really realize that's what the problem was. 

But everyone was online. it wasn't just me. And yet somehow that wasn't a unifying, connecting experience in the same way it was when I'd attend writer's groups with a bunch of middle aged women in my hometown denny's restaurant, or when I meet up to play board games with friends, or when I used to go swing dancing. I may have engaged some with those activities online- one could connect with people on the nanowrimo forums, for example, or play video games with others online, or join swing dancing groups. But just doing that itself was never the same. and this is assuming that the online activities are connected to a real life hobby- a lot of people online were just sort of there. Still are. just passing around memes, watching shows and movies, having extremely bad discussions about serious political topics, whatever. I also find that more modern iterations of social media require less incentive to produce content yourself. Think about facebook in the early days, vs tiktok now. There are probably millions, if not billions, of tiktok users who use the platform for nothing except to consume content. They're just there to watch, maybe use some of the fun filters on themselves. That's how I used it. Facebook in the early days was nothing if people didn't post shit about their lives, share photos, updates, etc. You could just go on there to consume, but your audience was allegedly just people you cared about anyway.  But now you can go on facebook and be fed content for hours. I've been sucked into that. my husband still is. and the crazy thing is, probably 99.9% of that content isn't even from people you know or personally care about that much, or even from a person's profile. it's from a page. 

The point is that a lot of social media experiences now aren't really very social for most people. They're parasocial at best, and mostly involve the consumption of information. Endless amounts of it, about the most random things. I found myself going down the path of watching every video I came across about parenting "just in case/for later." Eventually I realized I was spending my precious time watching videos to get information about a subject that wasn't even relevant to me. I don't have kids and probably won't for several years, what's the chance I actually remember all this shit from random videos about a topic I didn't even actively seek out? And that last part made the experience worse. I had to manually scroll past videos with children in them at all in order to get the algorithm to stop showing me that content. The second I saw a child I just skipped it immediately without watching it at all. I had to do this for two fucking days. The fact that I had to, and that I did it, is really strange to me when I think about it. 

I was just being provided information + entertainment (infotainment is a useful portmanteau, but I didn't really want to just use it here) at random until something grabbed my attention. That's all I was doing. My hobby was taking in information. Just like everyone else. And despite that, I didn't feel some sort of connection about it. I didn't feel like I was part of a community of people using these apps together. I mean, fuck, in every ad you've ever seen for these platforms, they feature people using the platform to... plan and do things in real life. But online, everyone is lying, and the basic rules of internet safety dictate that you should not plan to do things in real life with people you have only interacted with online. So these online platforms are at best a way to facilitate you doing real life things with your real life, pre-existing friends. At worst, it's a way for you to feel like you are communally connected with others while not actually doing so. It disguises parasocial relationships as social relationships. 

I had come into this wanting to describe it as we're all having the same experience yet somehow not connecting. We all need to do something to unwind, and now we take the easiest and most accessible option. But instead of everyone finding interesting things to do that connect with their own personal skills and interests, we all do the same exact thing, and life is reduced to a flat monotony with no opportunity for connection. It's so bland.

The notion of what I spend my time on is top of my mind these days, obviously, and that connects back to social media. I was scrolling just to scroll, just to be entertained. It was entertainment with nothing that I got out of it. It was a bland monotony, only on the surface customized to who I am as a person, never allowing me to connect with others. It made me just like everyone else yet somehow paradoxically prevented me from connecting with everyone else. We're all the same and we're all lonely and somehow we can't bond over that. That's why I don't want to go back to fucking instagram.

To be fucking real with you instagram is the last thing on my mind these days

it wouldn't even rank if not for my husband's continued presence on the app, combined with my father's. They still both constantly show and send me things and were it not for this I don't think I'd think about it at all. I saw someone in person yesterday who I used to get updates from through the app, and I can confirm now that the app was providing exactly 0 useful information about their life. The connection isn't real and I knew it and you know it. Sitting there talking to someone in person, I got more connection than I ever would have looking at a carefully curated selection of posted pics. 

There's also a lot going on for me now all of a sudden. I've been continuing to read one person's tumblr blog just for something fun to do in my downtime, because while it's limitless, it's also just one thing with no interactive ability. 

Beyond that I am reflecting on my consistent inability to be inflexible with my time boundaries. I find myself a little elated this summer that at last I feel like I have the hard expectations of full-time job hours to point to. This is a time of year I often find myself traveling and/or seeing family and often realize it's not the right time to be doing that. A lot of end of semester commitments and lab work always rolls around early April, and unfortunately this year I also missed out on some volunteer commitments and personal development stuff I was interested in.

All things being what they are, though, I know it's my fault. I'm the one who has, for years, consistently failed to just say that I'm busy and be okay with that being a lie. I'm the one who keeps agreeing to stuff. I'm the one who can't seem to manage to work while traveling. Here I am at 11:30 PM writing this and working on some volunteer stuff while my husband sleeps. When we get back from our trip, I have a bunch of stuff to play catch-up with, and while I know logically it will all be fine, I'm just annoyed that I have to do it, to be honest. 

I'm not sure why but I don't seem to give myself a lot of authority in my own life and this time-boundary stuff is one of those ways. I can and should say no, I can't come, I'm too busy. I realize that a great part of what I'm excited about this summer is that I can feel people around me shifting to make themselves available around my availability for once. For once I am not the one who is good whenever and just goes along with whatever to make everybody else's life easier. For once I don't feel like I have to justify not being available. Even this trip, I had to carefully coordinate some lab stuff to be able to take, and I opened up my email at 9:30 this evening to 14 unread emails, about 7 of which were actually something I needed to deal with. That's a lot for me, for context. But especially while I am here I find it hard to actually say no, I can't go to the pick-a-part and wander around for 2 hours, I can't just go wander around the outdoors store with you all afternoon, etc. And that's just on me. Somewhat on my husband's and my combined lack of planning of anything on this trip, but mostly me. I could have pushed harder.

I haven't been pushing very hard. I've been coasting. I've been prioritizing family and friends, above work certainly (which is probably a good thing in the long run) but also above myself in a way. It's not kind to myself to leave myself no time during normal working hours to do productive work. It's not kind to myself to never say no to family or social obligations. It's not kind to myself to be the only one being flexible, it's not kind to myself to be making everybody else's life easier in that way.

I have a sticky note on my monitor at home that says "It's only a lie if they have a right to know." And nobody really has a right to know what I am doing at all hours of the day. Nobody has a right to know exactly why I'm busy, just that I am (if asked). 

Not saying I have all the answers or anything, but felt a need to come put this out there. On the off chance you see some of yourself in this, I hope you can at least find comfort in the commonality of experience. You're not the only one who abuses their flexible schedule and makes it convenient for everybody except themselves (except the days I push my lab work a day later so I can enjoy a day off in the midst of a busy period).

Too Much Information (also, fucking OOPS)

The fucking oops is just to reference the fact that it maaaaaaybe wasn't wise of me to get a full time job while being a full time student and also having a second part-time job. Oh, and the part-time job doubles as soon as May starts. And also there's a ticking clock situation with it where I really have to get on the part where I digitize old files because... someone just quit, and with them gone, the state of the office and my father's role in it seems suddenly much more limited. I'm selfishly almost hoping my sister doesn't find a job in her field in the US and has to come home, but not really because it makes her life 10x more complicated. 

But there's another way of looking at that which is: how lucky I am to have so many things to do. How lucky I am to have money coming in. How lucky I am to have this opportunity to save. Not even necessarily all luck, either; I've worked hard to get that full-time job (the part time one is sheer luck of the genetic lottery). Last summer I earned $0. This summer I will earn over $10K, maybe even $15K if I really grind (this isn't counting the money I will be spending, of course, but still). That's a safety net for when I graduate, potentially unemployed. I feel like I've actually done something about things that I'm insecure and worried about. And anyway... the summer will end. And there will be more of them. 

The TMI thing is in reference to the latest thought I've been having about social media, and now the internet more generally, which was, to be fair, brought to me through a youtube video. There's this vein of philosophical thought that apparently it's not necessarily the best thing to be living in an information age. There's so much information coming at us all the time, and a lot of it is entertainment. Actually probably most of it is. I'm really bastardizing this, but I've only just begun to explore the idea and connect the dots.

Anyway, I thought about this tonight as I went to play a game on my phone (I've stopped scrolling individual tumblrs and it has in fact removed the urge to get one) and thought maybe I should listen to a podcast while I did so. For a while in February and March, I had a few podcasts I'd listen to while I cleaned at my part-time job, and I was actually caught up with them. I really enjoyed that feeling. Then stuff happened, like a family trip, and I am now weeks behind. I had this anxiety as I thought about it, like ugh, I have to catch up on my podcasts. And then I was like wait a damn second! What's this "have to"??? These fucking podcasts are supposed to be for fun. 

Remember a few entries ago when I talked about how I feel a sense of obligation to notifications? I think this plays into that. Notifications offer me information which claims to be urgent and important, but usually it's neither. It's interesting, and might even be fun, but as the last month proved, I don't need it. My life is just fine without it. But now I can see that I still consume a lot of information. In fact, last month I signed up for like 5 different substack newsletters to get even more information. And I realized today while trying to catch up on these emails that I was treating them all like an obligation before I realized hey, I don't actually care about this topic, I can just... not read this.

It's truly only hitting me now that I will never, ever be able to keep up with the sheer scale of information on any given topic. I'll never be truly well-informed. None of us can be anymore. There is so much stuff out there, and what's even worse is that a lot of it is just inane garbage. Some of it (which yes, does overlap with inane garbage, but not totally) is just fun stuff, fluff, no substance. I've often been floored by the sheer number of books that just exist (like JUST thinking about each individual title, there have been SO MANY books written and published) but this is going beyond, to just think about how much information and data there is, including some that I'm producing right now. And boy have I been trying to hoard it. 

I think THAT might be the next experiment. What kind of information am I taking in? Why am I taking this in? What do I consider important to know? What do others consider important to know? And just in general letting go of this obligation I have to consume everything. I think that has made me broadly knowledgeable and I can think of a handful of times having obscure knowledge has just come in handy, but ... something feels off. 

Being off social media cut me off of lots of information. Most of it wasn't really that high quality. I'd go back and look at some things to laugh or to get information, I found some crochet patterns I enjoyed, I followed local news... but I also spent time curating collections of information. I still do this. I like to collect things, and I didn't realize I was doing that with information. I don't know that I want to spend my time that way. I don't like how pressured I feel to take in everything. Did you know that for a while I'd look at every piece of baby/child development/parenthood/motherhood content that came my way, just in case/for later? Like what was I doing? As if that stuff wouldn't be available to me later, IF I even choose to pursue that life (or even if I do pursue it, if I choose to look into all that!). I was able to stop that habit, but I can see that things are more ... entrenched than that. 

I also want to be careful here, though. I don't know that I totally agree yet that having access to a lot of information is all bad. It certainly seems silly to claim that. I want to think critically about whether information is always the solution, though. Just now while writing this when I said "I don't know that I totally agree" my first instinct to rectify this was to ... look for more information on the topic from a different bias/ideological slant. Why not look inside myself? Why not reflect more deeply on what I already know, perhaps by revisiting it? Why not pore over old information? Goodness knows I've collected enough of it. 

Something is telling me that there is a part of learning that involves sitting, reflecting, thinking, absorbing, combining, curating, etc that isn't just reading, watching, or listening to something new. And that I have been doing primarily that- just taking it in. I've had the urge more than once to sit with some information and really process it and I stuffed that urge down in favor of consuming more information. Because I needed to check off another book on my goodreads list. Because I need to catch up on my podcasts. Because I need to look through the rest of this new song playlist apple music generated to see if there are any good songs. THE WORLD IS SO FUCKING ABUNDANT WITH ABSTRACT STUFF!!! I will NEVER get through it all! Why am I trying to? What am I losing in the process?

I don't really have an answer to all that. The theme of this post is that life is abundant. And I am overwhelmed.

So. What now?

 I know I've had like 18 what now moments in my last few posts, but given that it's now April 6 and the plan was only ever to go off social media for one month, I have to consider not only what to do about that now, but also what to write about on this blog next. It was nice to have a sort of theme, a challenge- something to very loosely focus my writing around because it kept me coming back. Being off social media was something I thought about all the time.

An obvious suggestion occurs to me in the whole working full time and being in school full time and also having that other extremely casual part time job cleaning my dad's office and scanning charts (I say extremely casual because I've done no scanning, only cleaning). But honestly, that isn't going to be anything that feels new, at least not to me (and I'm aware the social media stuff wasn't new). 

I think the social media thing spoke to a larger trend in my life of wanting to create a life I actually like within the limitations I have. Those limitations being things like- I live under capitalism, so I must work. I'm also an animal- I need things like food, water, sleep, and social interactions, which all require effort on my part. And the limitation that if I want to do anything, it requires effort. This is all to say that quitting social media was in service of the life I wanted to live. I'm making concessions like keeping snapchat because of the social interactions thing. I have some friends who seem to primarily communicate on snapchat, and while I can ask that they text me outside of it, I can't actually force them to do anything. Not being able to force others around me to quit social media too is actually something I've found quite limiting, but I digress. 

At the end of the day, I got out of this experiment what I wanted from it going in. I pushed and challenged myself. I learned some new things about myself and what I want from my life. It was empowering in a way to do something despite the many, many reasons I could find why I shouldn't. To choose something that is harder in some ways because it's better in the long run. It's nice proof that I can do it, I just need to find the right way. Writing here helped, having a time limit helped, and finding other outlets for those brief spaces of time when I don't have anything to do helped. Quitting for the month gave me some agency, helped along by the fact that I was hearing a lot less of other people's opinions. It was also a good reminder that the moves I make towards a life I want can be small. Uninstalling apps is pretty easy. Getting my PhD is not. 

So. What now?

I honestly don't even know. I might have to sit and think on this a while. I've become a person who doesn't feel like she needs to be on instagram, which I didn't expect. 

To be fair, something else that comes to mind is being the kind of person who Does Things. This links back to what my husband said to me probably about a week or two after we first met about what I like to do for fun, and how I realized I just spent all my time online, and it links with social media- it's a Thing You Do Online. But I want to be the kind of person who like, goes to the public library, volunteers too be a judge at the local science fair (AND I WOULD HAVE DONE IT TOO IF I WASN'T OUT OF TOWN), has regular nights out and nights in with friends, reads cool books, takes classes, etc. Someone who's outside in the fresh air doing outside things. Someone who is active. Someone who's involved. You get the gist. Not to sound too corny about it, but I'd like to live life in the real world.

There's also an element of this where I want to focus only on connecting with people I actually know or can interact with in a real world setting. I don't want to focus on interacting with strangers online. At the very least, just one stranger at a time. This is why I stop myself so often from responding to comments, sometimes even from making them. It's why even on anonymous sites where I have an account, I find myself getting drawn into arguments that just make me so irrationally angry, I have to block people just to make it stop for my own sanity (this is when I don't stop myself from making a comment). I'm just sick of it. That kind of stuff doesn't happen in real life nearly as often, because people behave differently when they are face to face- and I say this as someone who has witnessed some truly irrational, childish, threatening behaviour from male students I have taught (and only male students, though fortunately a very small subset of them).

The marketing stuff also no longer speaks to me. The one thing I've missed this whole time is just being able to see content from friends, particularly when we meet up in person and they are confused when I don't know about x or y thing that happened to them because they sent it on some app I'm no longer using. I have not missed any of the interacting with strangers bit, because it turns out that wasn't enriching my life. Reading what strangers write, considering the opinions of others, whatever, that's one thing, but platforms that enable me to easily interact with people I've never met and never will is just something that isn't adding to my life like I thought it was going to. I care about the actual purpose of what these platforms were supposed to fulfill- connecting with friends and family in new and interesting ways- not what they fulfill now- people creating content of their life to show to others, and constantly exposing you to that. This whole thought is kind of half-baked in my head at the moment, but this thread has been consistent through the whole month: I miss my friends. I feel like I get less of them because they're on these platforms. In a metaphor, they are physically in these spaces I'm choosing not to enter because so much of what goes on in there isn't what I want for my life. But there is stuff I do want for my life on there: people I care about. Ugh. I still haven't found a way to resolve this.

I'm trying to end this on something thoughtful and profound but there isn't anything there right now.

The fallacy of preparing + other observations

I'm rewriting this entire post. I need to be less.. structured here, I think. So here goes.

Part 1: I got a job.

The job is teaching kids science at a summer camp. As I am wont to do, I immediately thought of all the reasons this is a bad idea after getting it. What if there's lab meetings again? What if my supervisor reneges on her promise to back me up with this idea? Have I just tanked another summer after spending the last one studying and being sick? Am I just going to be exhausted all the time? What if I need to have a committee meeting? What if the kids hate me? What if the week of vacation that I get only if my prep is done on time isn't really contingent on my prep, but everyone's prep, and then some lazy fuck denies us all vacation time? What if I'm bad at this? What if I hate it?

And of course I have rebuttals to all of this. Just attend the one meeting you have to present at. She's never done that before, you have no reason to expect it now. I'd hardly call a summer of meaningful employment including some travel and meeting new people and going to the university pool twice a week at "tanked" summer when you compare it to 6-weeks of TRUE full time studying and stress. You will get used to it and can mitigate this. Again, you can probably take a day off. I highly doubt all of them will do that but you've had students hate you before, so this isn't new. Well, you went into this thinking you'd get NO vacation, so honestly the shot at SOME is still better. Then you'll find out. Then you'll know.

BUT. there is another pathway that often gets activated in my brain. One that I've discussed in therapy. It's the Preparation Pathway, which normally makes me very organized and calm (I have Gas-X, Reactine, Advil, Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, and antiperspirant in my purse or backpack at all times, so I never have to fret when I have a random malady far from home, but also I mean this in the sense of I prepared for this job interview and got the job). But sometimes it backfires, which is when I end up doing things like imagining how sad it would be if my husband and I broke up because I couldn't get a job anywhere cool and we had to move somewhere he doesn't want to live (aka anywhere without serious mountains) and he is sad and resentful and it destroys our relationship to the point that I'm sobbing in bed alone. Or, right now, the kind of prep that has me saying I should start walking 10K steps a day and waking up at 6AM on purpose to get used to how horrible it will be later.

This doesn't work, of course. If you're the kind of person who likes doing this, far be it from me to stop you, but I always do this to myself and it never works for me. Part of it is just assuming I'll be a different person than I am, part of it is that I'm incorrectly predicting what something will be like. I don't actually know how much standing will be involved. I don't know how exhausting I'll find all that standing. I probably won't wake up a little earlier Just Because when I've never been able to sustain that ever before in my life. But also: there's little to no point.

Thing #2739846591 that I've learned in grad school is that You Have To Take Things As They Come And Not Make Them Harder. There are times, like right now, when there isn't a lot to do, and I can take it easy. I can be a bit more casual with getting things done, there's not too much pressure, and any deadlines are far, far away. There are other times when I spend 8 hours a day in cell culture (which, as I said before, is exhausting in a fairly equivalent way to driving) for a week straight and have 0 energy to do literally anything else. There will be a time when I'm running a camp all week with a particularly exhausting set of campers and also doing some experiments in the lab after all that and my whole life will just be work. Or maybe there won't. I don't know. 

The point is: I have to just work with what I actually know. I know I'll need to be used to standing more, so I could fit some more walks in. I know I have to get up early, but that doesn't matter right now, so I might as well enjoy my random wake-up times. I know from past experience that 9-5s eat up lots of my energy and time, so I'll have to be careful to prioritize things that give me energy, say no, and manage what I can manage. I'll have to meal-prep to save myself time and energy and make sure I'm eating good meals that keep my digestion normal. I can do all those things. I can make routines and manage situations to care for myself without preparing in advance. Some of the learning on the job will be off the job, that's normal.

So despite my urge to lean into that preparatory mode, I'm forcing myself to just work on what I have in front of me right now. I can't predict the future. Maybe a meteor hits the building I work and study in tomorrow. I don't know. Should I prepare for that, just in case? Obviously not. But I'll still have all those meds in my bag, even if it means I can never take a smaller purse.

Part 2: I must either be on social media or off of it, and also my phone plays a role

I have been reading individual tumblr blogs for a few days now. It consumes just as much of my time as being an active participant on social media used to. Worst of all, I now have the urge to actually re-join again and make posts, but I know it will go the same way it always does: I'll keep getting angry and getting in fights and spending all my time on them and I won't actually just get to have fun. I always go in with those intentions and I never leave with them. A part of me wants to keep reading them, but another part of me knows I have to let them go. That I want to let them go.

The blogs themselves were also refreshing, though, in that I saw some opinions contrasting those I've spent time reading about. Fortunately, this made me think again. I think I'm kind of bad at coming up with my own opinions. I have a lot of them, but I think more of them are influenced by outside sources than I thought. I also think this is not a unique problem to me, and probably not something I can ever fully resolve. Much as we wish humans were just computers taking in evidence and using it to form Ideas And Thoughts, we aren't. All of us are biased and have stuff in the way. 

I had hoped that going off social media would help me form my own opinions, but I don't think that's all of it. Now that I think about this twice though, I don't think it's necessarily that spending more time reading opinions I disagree with made me agree with them. It was a different experience. It was more uncomfortable. The format was different, the arguments were different, the evidence they pointed from was different, and when it wasn't, the interpretations were. But I think in the course of all that I forgot that the point was I could read all this stuff and still disagree. I'm not writing a book report on the internet for a grade or anything, I'm just living my life. I care about the truth, but I think I'll have to concede that sometimes it's hard, if not impossible, to determine what the truth is about things. And I'll sometimes need or want or just have an opinion anyway, and that's fine. We all have them. I still have them. I just haven't been thinking about them too hard.

With regard to going back: I looked at facebook again today and it was all right. I got some important updates about events I'm going to and stuff going on locally. I didn't really look at much else, and I won't be putting the app on my phone. My dad posted 18 trillion things from our recent trip. I think I'll probably put snapchat back in with some severe restrictions and see how that goes. I'm determined to stay off instagram, perhaps forever. I don't feel like I was getting much out of it now that I'm gone, it was really just pictures of people I know that were almost always cross-posted to facebook anyway, and memes on memes on memes sent primarily by my husband. I won't log back into tumblr, because I just know how it goes. I may delete my account. I probably should officially delete my reddit account, just because.

Part of why I don't want to go back is that I don't want to waste time on those things when I will have so much less time to myself. I'd rather try and spend some time this summer enjoying summer for what it is. Or just at least doing things that actually bring me some inner joy, especially now that I know that life is actually just fine off the apps.

Maybe I'll even convince my husband to join me. Who can say. 

Until next time.

Something else to fixate on

As I was reflecting on how this experiment feels now, at this juncture, I was surprised that the thought that came to my mind was "this is just normal now." I don't have that longing of "I am so bored" that I had at the start of the month, and while I still sometimes open my phone looking for instagram, I'm just used to living this way. I don't feel a sense of missing out on something anymore. I remember what I was consuming before, obviously, but I'm just like... well, that could be nice, but it comes with a lot of strings so I don't know that I want it anymore.

I like that I now sit and read books before falling asleep. I like that I read books on my phone now and spend my days reading endless substack newsletters (a LOT of which I don't agree with on many points, but I'm trying to further refine my positions and views on a number of topics). I like that I found time to work out and that I spend more time talking to my parents. I miss getting updates from my friends, who choose to do this solely through snapchat for some reason, but I can't control other people's behavior.

But it isn't fair to say that I don't miss scrolling. Something about it was pleasing to my brain for sure. I still find myself doing the digital equivalent of being on the outside looking in- watching videos my husband thinks I'll like on his phone instead of mine, getting singular videos sent to me on facebook messenger, reading tumblr blogs just on a browser without signing in, even reading twitter feeds without signing in. The rabbit holes I can go down are severely limited without the app, and a browser doesn't always remember my place and will refresh annoyingly. All of this is beyond my control outside of creating an account, which I seem to be able to stop myself from doing. I think this level of consumption is manageable, for now.

The problem remains that people are doing a lot of thinking, writing, connecting, and sharing on these platforms. I think that's all fine and good. But the endless nature of them when logged in and online is just too much for me to handle. Honestly, I think it's too much for anyone to handle. Also, when I'm on the outside looking in like this, I have to actively look at just one person's account or feed- I have to have some intention with what I'm choosing to seek out. That requires thought and effort and is self-limiting in that way, too. When I'm logged in and exposed to explore pages and feeds and popular hashtags and recommendations from friends and for you pages... I'm just being shown content the app thinks I'll be interested in. I like it better when I can engage with content I think I'll be interested in. Fuck the app.

Of course, if everyone really decided tomorrow to stop using these apps, I'd have no new content to consume. If they just shut down and stopped existing, I think it would have a massive global impact at this point. It's like fossil fuels- sure, we need to stop using them, but not cold turkey, because that would be the end times. You can't just pull out something that is this involved in almost every facet of daily life, even if you know that there is Something Better beyond it. You have to be slow and meticulous about it. And importantly, everyone has to be on board. 

When I think about a world without social media, it's hard to picture, even though it did exist for most of human history. I don't even necessarily think the idea of social media is bad per se, but not like this. Maybe that means it won't be free, that you'd have to subscribe or buy an account (and I also hate the subscription-ing of everything too, but I think it makes sense in this model). That then makes it a class thing, whereas now it's a "great equalizer" where anybody can "become an influencer" or whatever, but I think we all know those stories of getting discovered or rocketed to fame happen mostly to people who were probably mostly doing all right beforehand. Actually, that would be interesting to study and properly analyze the data on...

I guess what I'm getting at is more or less some kind of less well-thought-out and organized version of what Jaron Lanier said in the "ten arguments for deleting your social media right now" book. The way it is is not the best way it can be. Right now it sucks up your attention and makes you act poorly. It's treated like a platform to engage seriously on when really it's probably best suited for Being Silly Online ("It" here honestly stands in for any of the sites I've talked about). It's also pushing for the de-anonymization of the internet, which is alarming to me to say the least. What happened to the days of internet stranger danger when we had all those PSAs about young girls messaging some stranger they thought was Susie from one school over but was actually Bill, a creepy 54 year old sex offender? Do they not show those anymore? What happened to "the internet is forever" and "don't reveal any personal info about yourself online" and "people can say anything online, don't trust what you read there"? I feel like everyone nowadays is like "It's best if everyone has their full name and face attached to every thought they've ever had, free for anyone to consume. Don't forget to specify every important demographic fact about yourself." When I was growing up we were told to lie about ALL of that. I think that was the better way to go, if I'm being honest. 

Altogether I personally think at this point that everyone needs to take a step back from social media, especially as it is right now. I think a lot of people could benefit greatly from doing what I did here. There are a few situations where I can see it being harder than I'm making it out to be here, but generally most people are just using it for funsies and to see photos friends post. You know if I'm talking about you. Do you really need to be scrolling? Is it always the best use of your time? I didn't want to get on a soapbox about this but honestly I feel really, really good after this month and I think I'm going to continue this way for a while now. 

That's the other part I was surprised by. I feel more like myself than I have in a long, long time, now that I don't intentionally immerse myself in who everybody else is all the fucking time. When I'm bored and don't have something that purports to entertain me, I have to find a way to entertain myself. Which means I'm forced to consider what I actually like doing. It's actually really nice to be doing that personally as I'm going through some of the same thing professionally right now- considering what I actually like and enjoy and feel skilled at rather than what I "should" be doing. It's a bit of a detour in some ways and incredibly basic and expected in others, but it feels right to me, and I find it easy to become passionate about it. Great things happen when you let yourself be yourself. 

As for whether I'll continue writing this, I don't know. I have decided to cut out other stuff this year (most notably alcohol which is considerable for someone who barely drinks at all), so maybe I can talk about that, maybe I'll just keep writing whatever. It's not like I came to this with a ton of purpose, but I think it's a good writing outlet for me. It feels low-stress and manageable. So likely expect to hear more from me, but don't be surprised if I disappear.

Coming to the end (of the month)

The whole goal of this experiment was to go 30 days. Though I realize now, there was some other stuff embedded in there, like whether or not I'd actually make it that long. I can now almost say I did (there's still a few days left, after all), but if I'm being completely honest, some may not agree with me.

I still looked at twitter- but I don't have an account. I haven't for years, and I will never get one again, at least not for personal reasons (I don't know what kind of career I'm going to have). This means all I can do is read what other people say, either by leafing through a hashtag, or reading someone's profile, and that's only because I finally found an extension that would allow me to look at it for more than 5 seconds before the site told me to sign up (I did this because during some major school issues last year, the most reliable and frequent updates were on twitter, which I find kind of depressing). I've looked at reddit threads- mostly for information on stuff; I'm sure we all know the beleaguered frustration of adding "reddit" to the end of a google search to get honest opinions about some product or service, rather than just ads or pages from the company itself. For all I hate reddit after logging off permanently 2 years ago (I really should delete my account), it DOES offer a way to find genuine opinions about a particular brand of leggings or a random website some youtuber recommended.

Youtube is the other big one. I know many would classify it as social media, and I see why. I realize now that I've come to the end of this month still using it that it's a notable exception I've made. I never felt worried about my use of youtube and my time spent on it. Most of what I watch is longer form content and I find it an interesting way to learn about different things. It allows me to watch workout videos, which I've suddenly had more time and energy for this month, and allows me to watch helpful videos around various little craft techniques. I leave comments sometimes, but I am very self-censorious and often will delete all or most of a comment after typing it. I don't have notifications on to reply to things, I don't use my real name, and most of my comments get lost in the sea anyway. That's fine with me.

Last night my husband and I met up with one of my friends and some of her work friends for board games. I found out something had recently happened to her that she'd elected only to share on snapchat. She asked if I was still off it and we had a brief discussion about it; I found out that I'm not the only person she knows who regularly just goes off social media without warning. To that I had to say I didn't want to be like another mutual acquaintance of ours, who loves to announce on social media what they are doing with their life next, only to quietly quit two days later. They have done this with social media before, more than once. I didn't want to be that person, proudly putting on my story "I'm going off social media, text me xoxo!!!" because it felt like it would defeat the purpose. I left something in my bio- "Off socials for march"- and figured that was enough. 

Part of me wants to go back now and see what I missed, but I have a sneaking suspicion I already know what it is. A lot of conversations of memes sent by my husband, my sister, and one of my friends, and potential a few craft videos sent by a group chat with two other friends. Some posts from people I know and love. And... that's probably it. I could probably catch up with everything in about 20 minutes. But I wouldn't just spend 20 minutes there. I'd go down the rabbit hole for a long time. I'd get stuck again. 

So now that brings me to the next question I have to ask myself: what do you want to go back to? Tiktok is honestly something I've all but forgotten about in the last month, particularly over the last week, so that's an easy no- except maybe to delete my account. Facebook is so boring at this point that I hardly think I'll get stuck there- I'll probably resort to doing what my mom does and checking once a month, or using it to find events, etc. I won't put it back on my phone. I've watched my husband and sister get sucked down the rabbit hole of watching videos on facebook from time to time, and now even my dad, and I don't really want that to be me. I'll probably also go and delete my reddit account, since I never posted much of value on there anyway. 

The real sticklers are Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr. I haven't mentioned the latter much on this blog at all, because I signed out probably last August after it got to be too much for me and haven't signed back in. I appreciate the anonymous nature of the platform and the way it has text posts instead of video content, but I find myself getting too sucked into stupid angry arguments and drama on there, and I find it emboldens some truly insane views that I just get tired of hearing about after a while. But I can't bring myself to delete the account there. I think it's because some of the stuff I've posted there IS something I'd consider to be valuable. It's a deeply personal collection of things as well, since I've had it since about 2014. It really has a lot of features I like in social media, and I'm loath to delete it even though I know I could simply start fresh... but it sucks up my time just like any other, and it often provokes me in a way I don't like. I think for now the best thing to do is just stay logged off until I start getting those emails about losing my username again.

As for Snapchat, the main issue is that it appears to be the way some people often communicate with me. Most people I have on there I never send messages to, mostly I just watch their stories. My friend remarked last night that I was the only person she knew who got caught up in the stories section over there, which has some truly heinous content- it's like the social media equivalent of gossip magazines and tabloids. I told her the only reason I get caught up in that is when I have only snapchat and nothing else on my phone. It is just where I redirect my energies, despite all its shortcomings. I told her last night I'd pay for a version of snapchat without it all at this point- a version which is just the chatting stuff, not the weird social stuff. I'd pay a subscription for that. $2.99/monthly is definitely worth not being tempted by all that garbage. Of course, the problem with that is likely the same as the problem with trying to do this for free through an app like screenzen- I can just stop paying, or disable or delete the app causing the limitation. That was my issue the last time I tried screen zen- for some reason the act of physically deleting the apps and not going on them at all is a better deterrent despite knowing I could just reinstall them. Maybe because deleting one app is like, three steps, but reinstalling multiple ones and logging in is many, many more. I'm inclined to reinstall this one, however, with screen zen, and give myself some period of time- say a week or ten days- to see how I do. I'd probably limit myself to 3-4 five minute sessions daily of that app, with a small delay- say 15 seconds. If, after the trial period, I can't handle it, I'll have to consider what to do next. Because I just don't want to get sucked into that vortex of shitty, time-wasting content, particularly since the ads are MUCH more annoying on snapchat than any other app. 

Last, but certainly not least: Instagram. This one is surprisingly the most complicated for me. I use it to talk to friends, and it's where most people I care about post updates about their life. I can scroll past most ads more easily, and I enjoy the kind of connection I find on there. I dislike greatly that it's moving more and more towards video content, and the reels are often just old, recycled tiktoks, which tempts me back there. I could take a similar approach to snapchat- install it with limits- but I have a feeling this one more than any other would strain the limits quite severely. Instagram is really a lot of what I want in a social media app- I can keep things private for myself and therefore semi-anonymous, connect with real people I know, and see their life updates, and it isn't solely video formatted. Because of that temptation, it's the trickiest one to wrangle. Because it also has an explore page that I can spend hours getting lost on with a variety of different content. It brings the temptation to film myself and post rants, and the temptation to follow people I don't know who post a LOT more often because it's their job. Everything about it is too enticing. So I think, for now, I'm going to stay off that one. It might be more feasible to check that one once a month, like facebook, on their web version, which is severely limited compared to the app, but I need more time away. I want more time away.

And that's the kicker at the end of it all. On some level, I want to be off these stupid fucking apps and websites. I do not want to use them. Most of what they do to me is cause me to waste time and get angry. That's no way to live. I've read so many books this month. I started a cross stitch project I'd been putting off. My screen time is greatly reduced, and I've been forced to embrace boredom more. I can see too how much people around me use these apps, and honestly, I was probably the same, if not worse. I don't think I'm more enlightened or better than they are, but sometimes I selfishly wish they'd join me. The reasons I stay on some of these apps is because of personal history and the ability they offer me to connect with people I care about, including people I may not be particularly physically close to, which affects our ability to have a close relationship of any kind. 

It's been a really good month. I don't want it to end. It seems ludicrous that I'm suffering even minor social consequences for not using a handful of apps. The problem seems to be that I started in the first place. If I'd never signed up, if I'd never downloaded the apps, if I'd never bothered... would I even have this problem at all? But of course then I'd always be wondering what if and feeling that maybe things would be better on the other side. At least now I know for sure... they really aren't. 

The thing is, despite what I just said about snapchat and maybe looking at facebook, nobody is strictly forcing me to be online. I could just... keep doing this. And I kind of want to. Why stop? I read an article about a man who did this for an entire year- he had to go back eventually, he said, because he had too many friends scattered all over and it just was the best way to get updates (he was about 10 years older than me, though, so a different stage of life). 

I realize now the purpose of posting about this somewhere has been just to put out in the void a little guide for others about how it feels being off social media for a relatively long chunk of time. This is more than just turning off your phone at night or putting it down to watch a movie or visit with a friend, or deleting your apps when you have a busy period of schoolwork coming up (something my sister does regularly) and reinstalling them a couple of days or weeks later. It's also less than what others have done. But I hope it can maybe convince more people that it's worth logging off or deleting the apps, even just for a time. Other people still exist and your friends will still like you. You'll probably find some new and creative ways to waste time. As always, I advise leaning on things that you enjoyed as a child. 

It's hard to put into words exactly what I enjoyed about this month, though. Was it just that I was less angry? Was it that I felt more present? Was it that I, an introvert, enjoyed a respite from the barrage of online voices and opinions thrown at me? Was it that I read more books? Was it some kind of weird superiority complex? Maybe yes to all of them.

It just occurred to me though- there's also the urgency factor. Even as someone who had most notifications off for most apps, because I hate notifications, I felt a lot of urgency to check to and respond to things on these apps. I'd open them and feel compelled to watch everyone's story just so that there wouldn't be that pseudo-notification of coloured rings around their profile pictures. I'd scroll until I was all caught up. I'd feel a need to engage with everything seriously and not just flippantly scroll past. I'd feel a need to react to and watch or read every single message someone sent to me. Nobody forced me to do this, and maybe this is a problem other people don't have, but that specifically designed UI that makes things look unfinished if you haven't done EVERYTHING... ugh. It got me so many times. This is why I am not a person who has 4876 unread emails, or more accurately, a person who does not have email notifications on on their phone. I cannot stand notifications. I cannot stand when something looks like a little to-do, especially when it's something that only takes a few seconds of my time. It's one thing when it's one, it's another thing when it's dozens upon dozens of them, with new ones throughout the day. It makes it feel like a chore to check them all. 

This isn't even some critique I have of the apps, although I know they're using it to drive engagement. It's just a particular facet of my personality that I'm sure many share while others don't. My husband never watches instagram stories. It just doesn't bug him. I have friends walking around with a bazillion unread emails while I viciously unsubscribe from future ones and delete a dozen a day just to know that I'm caught up. I cannot handle having notifications. It drives me fucking insane when I have to leave one to respond to later because I physically can't respond immediately, but I know I need the reminder. In some ways that's a good way to motivate myself, because it seems to be some way of being that I can't change about myself. It's also a good sign that I need to stay away from things that offer the same prompting and urgency with none of the importance or gravity. I honestly can't believe I hadn't thought of this before. I get anxious when I have an unread email in my school inbox- unspeakably so. OBVIOUSLY I'm less anxious with fewer notifications. It's why I had most of them turned off in the first place, and still do. My notifications are limited to: phone calls/facetime, texts or messages from other messaging-only apps, system notifications, calendar notifications (which I am fully in control of and actually represents a way I use this personality feature of mine to my advantage), notifications from the alarm app my parents have for the house, and government emergency alerts (albeit severely limited). Everything else- and I mean everything else- is turned off. If I want to check something else, I will open the app and check for myself. Because otherwise I would be stuck on my phone all day in a never ending misery spiral.

I'm actually really, really surprised I didn't think about this before. Instagram in particular was really bad for this- it wasn't just something I could use to kill time, but something I felt compelled to keep caught up on. I removed an expectation from myself. Holy shit. There's your peace piece, girl. Do not install the app again.

I can't say I'll be posting much more regularly throughout this week- I have a job interview and many other things keeping me busy coming up- but I think for now I'm going to just keep social media off and enjoy my time. Hope I convinced you to try the same.

Me & Fitness

 One of the things I've done this month with all this extra time I suddenly have is, once again, dip my toes back in the workout pool. That's a metaphor- I don't actually swim for workouts, though I probably should as I love it- I'm just... you know. Trying to be regular with things again.

The last time I had any kind of regular fitness routine was honestly probably high school gym class, and even then the last time I felt like gym class was a good and fair workout was the time in the eighth grade we played lacrosse separated by sex (so girls played the girls, and boys vs boys- I maintain that all gym classes should be separated by sex after like, grade 7, because in that one class it became clear to me that the difference in ability between me and an athletic girl my age was far less than between me and a non-athletic boy my age. But I digress). The point is- I'm not particularly athletic.

That didn't matter for a long time. I was young, and more importantly, I was thin. I don't say this to say that I was healthy back then, just that nobody EVER got on my case about working out when I had a BMI of 20 or whatever. That did not last. I've talked before in bits and pieces on here about my weight gain, but suffice it to say it has been a LOT, fuelled partly by depression, partly by two years of undiagnosed and untreated hypothyroidism, and I suspect partly by birth control, despite what my doctor said (I've yet to meet a woman of any age who didn't gain weight on birth control, but there could be some confounding factors in that). 

Around 2017, when I was 22, I started my intuitive eating journey and brought myself to a much more neutral, better, functional place with food. I think of food now mostly in terms of sweet vs savory, and in terms of carbs, fat, protein, and fibre. I don't think about how "good" or "bad" it is except in terms of freshness and expiry. I think about things like taste, satiety, and energy. It's nice. I think being able to focus on what I enjoy and what I need from my food allows me to approach it in a better way. I feel a lot more peace around it and don't feel so out of control, and foods that were once overwhelming to me and that I felt an urge to eat until I was sick are now things I can just leave lying around for MONTHS. I have no regrets.

Fitness and exercise are the one thing I can't seem to figure out for myself. That's the place I'm at now. I'm the slowest, fattest one much of the time (I use the term fat here neutrally, by the way- I have more fat than others. My body is larger. Whatever you want to say). I tell people I am a slow hiker and they assure me they are too- only to outpace me dramatically once we actually get there. When I say I am slow, I am not kidding. I am the slowest hiker most people have ever met. Before I got on synthroid, I had next to no energy, weirdly no appetite, and a slow, never-ending weight creep (among other things). By the time I was diagnosed I had foot pain so bad I could not bear to walk for more than half an hour, and was sleeping 10 hours a night (I physically could not get up before 10 hours had passed). The foot pain wasn't from my weight. It was from my foot muscles slowly atrophying, crying out for energy my body could not deliver because it was too busy attacking my thyroid for no goddamn reason. The reason I know this is that I haven't lost much weight at all on synthroid, but my foot pain is completely gone. 

Recently, I discovered that the muscle atrophy was not just limited to my feet. My core is completely decimated. I have back pain all the time and my hips are tense and sore. I have shin splints from the way my body is trying to move around all the time. But this was kind of a gift- it gave me a fitness goal. Before, all my attempts were just sort of "guess I'll do this" until it no longer seemed necessary. But now, with every core workout I do, my back pain is just a little better, my posture just a little taller. There's an Improvement that I can see that pushes me to do more. It's nice.

I have tried to do fitness in the past since the days of high school gym class ended. In high school I started taking TRX at a family friend's gym. I liked her gentle approach, and I need the action hours for CAS for my IB program. In university, I didn't have time for much- I tried to take a TRX class once, and it got cancelled due to low enrollment. We were told to attend the other session- the one offered during my night class. Night classes also prevented me from joining the dance team, since their fucking tryouts were always only one day a week and ALWAYS the day I had a night class. I did take up swing dancing for a while, and that shit is surprisingly good cardio, and around then I started climbing stairs in the education building with my now-husband. I had really good quads for a while. But the semester ended.

One summer I biked to work daily until the abuse from my commute and the poor behavior of other riders finally just convinced me to take the bus (that and it rained all August). The summer after I did that, the city put dedicated bike lanes on the same fucking path I'd been taking. For a while during my unplanned year off, I attended a gym twice a week- I even did some small group classes with a trainer and saw some progress. But then I got into grad school, and the gym (which was women-only, and I miss that) didn't have a location in the city I live in now. I took a kickboxing class with two friends at the start of grad school, but I didn't enjoy it much, and at one point near the end of the class I got so dizzy I had to sit down (something I find happens to me often with high-intensity cardio). I was also the slowest, fattest one in that class. Shortly after, in the beginning of 2020, I decided that was the year I'd get fit and started taking two gym classes a week at the same gym I'd gone to in high school. And, well, we all saw what happened in 2020. Attempts to go back in 2021 and 2022 were thwarted by a chaotic schedule, both personally and with regard to lockdowns and reopens. In all of those classes I was also the worst one.

I mention the slowest, fattest thing because this has been the thing standing in my way so much. People who are of average fitness truly do not understand how fucking discouraging it is to know you are the worst one there. To see that you are the only one taking the modified poses or moves, the only one that can't quite make it through the dedicated time of the move, the only one who has to sit up in pilates class and ask for a different spring set for certain exercises because even the easy move offered in the beginner class is too much for you. Two summers ago, I went camping with my now-husband and my sister and her friend, and on a hike, my husband insisted I set the pace. I eventually let my sister and her friend go ahead, and had to explain to my husband through tears that it was mortifying to be at the front, red in the face, exhausted, huffing and puffing, while I could hear everyone behind me was just enjoying a walk. The shame of it all was too much. This was after I'd spent a few months in the winter doing 10 minutes of the elliptical every morning before spring busyness removed my energy for it.

Writing it all out like this, the one thing I can see is that I am nothing if not persistent. I will not give up. I keep trying, all the time, knowing that this is important for me. I just want to acknowledge how tired I am, how hard this all is. It is hard to never be the best one, it is hard to feel as though you never have a talent, it is hard after all this NOT to feel like I am just not athletic and should give it up. Engaging in "intellectual" pursuits comes easier to me. For a while, I thought this might be genetic, but looking at my parents' histories, this just isn't the case.

My mom ran constantly until she had my sister and I- even then sometimes, out with the stroller and the dog. She did cross country in high school, well enough to compete. She ran races. She ran all the time, until life got really busy. My dad was on the football team in high school (though he insists he was fat, and I can see this insecurity hasn't really faded in him). He played very minor-league hockey through medical school, and was even ski patrol a few winters at nearby hills. He can still skate laps around me, despite a back injury that means he can't do any of it at a very high level anymore. My parents also put me and my sister in dance classes until I was in the 9th grade, and that was very athletic. Most nights a week, I was doing exercise. Sometime around high school, that stopped for me, and by this point my parents had become very unathletic. Today that is largely because of age and other health concerns, but my parents were both somewhat active people back in their day. So why am I not?

I don't have an answer. I don't even have a guess at an answer right now. I'm frustrated by that. In studies of athletic ability, they find these things are more related to genetics than anything else- so if your sibling or parent is good at some activity, it's more likely that you will be too, and vice versa. I've never been exceptionally gifted at skating, skiing (my neck is still sore from whiplash from a skiing fall literally this past weekend), or running. 

Maybe it's that I'm looking for something I'm naturally good at rather than something I enjoy. I know people say that all the time- that the best activity is the one you'll keep doing. I think they are leaving something out- the best activity is the one you'll keep doing regularly, despite your relative skill. It's the one that fits into your schedule and your budget, the one you have access to. 

Two things stick out from what I just said upon some quiet contemplation. One, I am being too perfectionistic about all of this. Doing any exercise poorly and being the absolute fucking worst at it forever is better for me than never doing it at all because I can't do it well. It is also highly unlikely that I will find some magical form of exercise that is pure fun and just magically fits into my life at all points in time. Also- my "once every few days I guess" current attitude towards beginners pilates videos is SOMETHING, and I need to count it. Two, I have not even remotely tried all of the things I might like, not on a serious level. Those roller skates in the garage still fit me. I still have access to the university pool. I have climbing shoes I bought, and I go to the bouldering gym literally as often as my husband. I've been skiing TWICE this winter, despite living 1.5 hours away from a decent ski hill. I also completely left out my old walking commute from undergrad, which probably did a lot more heavy lifting than I gave it credit for (and is something I sorely miss). But hey- lockdowns are over. You can try out the gymnastics place. Maybe trampolines will do it for me. Maybe swimming will do it for me. Maybe I can get into roller skating now that it probably won't result in 8/10 foot pain anymore. 

I'm tempted not to post this. But I'm noticing a trend lately where I will write posts and not post them. So here goes nothing.

Digital Declutter

 I really hate the feature on iphones where, when you take a photo to send to someone in an imessage, it saves it to your phone. I don't necessarily need to save the photo of the crusty, dirty mop at my dad's office that I asked if he was sure he wanted me to use (he wasn't. I did not mop). Yes, I can delete them, but my computer has just been backing up all my icloud photos forever. There are photos in there I don't have on my phone because they aren't important and I deleted them, as well as photos I deleted because they are painful to look at. But I digress. 

You know what there was a lot of on my phone? Videos. Of me. Talking to myself. Sometimes they're more benign (in my opinion), just me voicing thoughts aloud and wanting them recorded for some particular reason I can't pin down. I almost never watch these again. Other times it's me ranting about something. There were so many of these in the last two or three weeks before I deleted them. All of them were about something I saw online that clearly got me going.

I have to admit I am proud of my self-restraint in that these videos were not posted online. I've really reined myself in about ranting even just on my instagram story- nobody wants to see it, I never feel good about it later (only embarrassed), and nobody cares, including me later when the moment has passed. But I haven't had much of an urge to make them anymore, and I have a hunch as to why. I'm sure anyone can guess where this is going, but we're going anyway.

First of all, I'm no longer watching content from random strangers talking about something, usually something the algorithm knows I'll interact with. AKA something that I either really support or that really irks me. I started getting a lot of alternative medicine quackery on tiktok right before I deleted it, and it was really irritating me. I'm finding it hard to avoid going into specifics here, but I don't want that to be the point of this post. The point was that I was on these apps watching people film themselves talking absolutely nonsense garbage, and there were so many little buttons on the screen that encouraged me to respond in the same way. Post a response video. Make your own. The button is right there at the bottom of the screen all the time... and other apps had the same features. Lots of buttons to press to record yourself and upload some content to keep others online too. Snapchat's default is to open to selfie mode I think (I can't actually check). It feels like it requires a truly herculean effort to avoid falling into these many traps. AKA not something I, as an individual with a lot of stuff going on in my life just like everyone else, have the energy or attention to devote to avoiding. 

And those two things together- the video content from people and the myriad of little buttons encouraging me to respond and/or make my own- meant I was thinking about filming myself all the time. I speculated on that at the start of this experiment, and now here I am writing a blog post every day. I haven't filmed myself once. It feels silly and stupid to do that in response to, I don't know, a line in a book I read that I particularly disagreed with. I'm more likely to rant about it to someone I know and start an actual honest to god conversation, or at least just speak the thought aloud and bounce it off some other living person out in the world. Sometimes that's all you need. 

The thing is though... people often don't respond or care when I do that. That's not always a bad thing, nor is it a malicious thing. The people in my life are busy and don't often care as deeply as I do about the same things. In fact, it acts like the opposite of those algorithms, in a way. I'm not getting pulled in and sucked deeper into outrage or frustration. Sometimes I'm being actively prevented from doing that. Best case scenario, I find common ground with someone, or someone challenges me in a productive way that makes me think. Algorithms never did that for me. 

I'm also noticing more space inside my head for my own opinions and thoughts, now that I'm not constantly subjecting myself to everyone else's. I truly don't think humans were ever really meant to comprehend that. We're built to maintain local social circles, and yes, sometimes those might expose us to differing opinions. Including ones that result in excommunication and physical violence- it's not like humanity never did that before social media. It's not like it was impossible to be physically isolated in a community that doesn't share your values before you could log on to tiktok and see what feels like the values and opinions and stories of everybody in the entire world and experience just how many of those don't line up with yours. But I think that's the problem, at least before you might think if you left that physical community, you could find something different. Where can you go that's outside the internet? What community is there outside of the vast majority of internet-connected, content-producing humans?

Anyway. I don't know if there's anything to that. But I feel more like I am living my own life, by myself, doing my best, instead of living my life alongside everyone on planet earth, if that makes sense (I suspect it only does if you immerse yourself in social media and then remove yourself as i did). Everything is quieter and I have more control over how much noise gets into my head. I also haven't really thought about those friendly acquaintances in a while. I hope they're doing well, but it no longer makes sense for me to know as much about their lives as I did. Then again, what a gift that was. It always felt special to know, even if it didn't totally make sense. 

Also- I said at the start of this that I'd still find ways to waste time, and I stand by that. But wasting time feels like when I do things like, I don't know, pull every single strand of hair out of my hairbrush, or eat the popcorn outsides to save the middles for the end as a fun snack, or like when one of my elderly neighbours spends all day outside in the fall blowing every single individual leaf off the rocks beside his lawn. Wasting time is me in high school doodling tiny flowers in the margin of my social studies notes, or me in undergrad trying on all the dresses in my closet, or putting on makeup just to take it all off again. It's things that don't really serve any purpose other than making time go by. And what does it really say that I put social media in that category?

I mean, really, what I spend a lot of time doing when I work from home- watching youtube videos and simultaneously playing games on my phone- is indicative perhaps of my short attention span, but it doesn't really feel like wasting time. I'm usually watching something I enjoy and learning about something new, and I'm playing a game, which is a thing I like to do as well. Or I'm reading, more often than not. Or I'm here, typing. Or- and this is some new health thing I'm focusing on at the moment- I'm making myself actual meals. Or I'm going on walks with my mom. Or I'm petting one of the dogs, or doing a load of laundry, or or or. All productive little tasks. Even me going to play a video game downstairs for an hour feels more productive and useful than scrolling. 

Nothing is ever as satisfying as scrolling is, for sure. But in general, if I move away from thinking of productivity as just my work output- in this case, work towards my PhD- and move towards thinking of it as time well spent, well, then I'm spending my time well. And it's things like that that make me want to keep going.

Actually Out There, Living Life

I'd apologize for the delay, but it doesn't need that. But I do want to talk about it: I was out skiing. My husband, as per usual, went out on another trip- but this time, he stayed in an AirBnB in a small village about an hour and a half away from where we live, closer to the ski hill. A friend from further north came to join him for a few days. And they invited me. I went skiing. In March.

The skiing wasn't great; the two of us also went out to the same hill on Valentine's day and the snow was MUCH better then. That day I had no falls, but also stayed on the smallest chair; yesterday I went up a larger one with some big green runs and spent an hour getting down through some severe anxiety and fear after a particularly bad fall almost immediately after getting off the lift. My sore neck today tells me it resulted in some whiplash. It wasn't my last fall of the day either. I fell three more times, but only one involved whacking my head again, leaving me today with a dull, low-grade headache. Despite it all, though, I had fun... particularly when I was left alone to just do runs on the smaller chairlift and the easiest run on the entire mountain. Something about feeling safe enables me to focus on other aspects of what I'm doing with my feet, legs, body, arms... everything.

In anticipation of a lot of social contact on this trip, I'd planned to be a bit of a hermit on Saturday, but then of course my parents wanted to go for breakfast at one of my favourite places, and I wanted to play some gauntlet with my dad, and I had to pack up and run some errands. No time for computer work at all, hence: no post. But I'm back today. 

Unfortunately in all my living-life-not-on-my-phone-ness, I missed several notifications I'd set up for myself about an in-person teaching seminar I wanted to attend. I missed it (and I lied about being sick... but last week several people just no-showed without so much as an email, so I feel kind of morally neutral about the whole thing). I suppose that's something to keep in mind if I'm going to keep living off my phone.

Things like that actually make me wish there was more segmentation of devices. I know that's not particularly eco-friendly of me to say, but at least my parents' very old personal digital assistant devices (which we still have, but no longer charge or turn on, unfortunately) didn't have games or social media to distract you. At least my old point-and-shoot camera would just let me look at photos, I had no way to upload them from that device, or edit them, only delete them (I think- not confident on that last one). At least my iPod is only distracting if I choose to play solitaire from the clicker wheel. Devices With Only One Purpose really are something. After all, if I had a device that was only social media- not simultaneously my phone, my camera, my music and podcasts, and a way to get weather, internet, news, and games- I could probably just lock it up for a month, or leave the charger somewhere that isn't my bedroom, or purposefully leave it at home. Out of sight, out of mind. I feel like that would make it easier to make habits around.

Of course, as I type all that, it DOES occur to me that I could treat my phone like the Social Media Device and just carry around a camera and iPod (though I'd have to buy new headphones for the latter if I want to use it), and a paper calendar (which I do have, but don't really use since google calendar is so much more helpful). And my kindle, I suppose. I could start actually visiting the library to get books and carrying them around. But something about that fills me with anxiety. I want to be able to be reached. Short of carrying around a flip phone, I have to take my cell phone with me, and it's difficult to justify avoiding convenience. After all, books and devices take up space in my pockets and bag.

The other thing I'm thinking about lately is that this whole thing is easier because most of the people around me are still connected. My husband continues to send reels to my still-existing instagram account, and he shows them to me on his phone from time to time. My dad will sometimes send me a video on facebook messenger, which I can watch- but just the one he sends me. It's like instead of the algorithm out there curating the content it thinks I want to see, it's my loved ones. They generally do a better job anyway. It would feel unfair to ask this of them, but honestly, they're still on the platforms as much as they are of their own free will. Far be it from me to complain if they want to follow in my footsteps. 

And lastly- being out at the airbnb this weekend brought back a new feeling, one I hadn't experienced since high school: the social media FOMO. There were times this weekend when my husband and the others were on social media. I noticed how many times they would check it. I still find myself falling into checking my phone habits, but more I look for my news app, or I look at the weather (this is something I already did a lot before- I like to know what's coming up), or I just start reading a book on my library app. The disjointed method of reading books isn't my favourite, but it lets me read more than if I tried to make reading a purist experience, and it's a good replacement for social media in my eyes. The FOMO wasn't quite the same; I am over a decade older, with a lot of experiences in between, and have a slightly different way of processing and dealing with uncomfortable emotions. I'm also no longer in the phase of my development where I'm so hyper concerned with what others think of me (obviously I still worry about that, almost everyone does, but it's not like adolescence). 

All together I find myself reflecting on themes of convenience and efficiency. I had a whole thing written out here, but it didn't make sense. Mostly, there's the thing where removing convenience of something makes my life more efficient, but that isn't always how it is. Sometimes it's less efficient for me to have to sit around and think about what I want to do, but at least I'm asking that question now instead of doing the equivalent of writing in that answer in stone, forever. Some of the best parts of life come when you are inefficient. Some of the best thinking. In writing this post, for example, I had some thoughts on my drive home this morning, I wrote out a lot of it and erased big sections, I went and made myself lunch, I watched some unrelated videos... it's not a linear process. Other days it is sometimes better for me to do something inconvenient- leave my desk and take a walk, for example- to make things more efficient- I'll do my work faster and better than if I just sat and tried to power through it.

At the end of the day, I guess the two aren't always what I want for myself in the long run and in the grander scale of what my life is and how I want it to be. 

I'm just gonna leave that there- since I think to continue writing this post would, unfortunately, be both inefficient and inconvenient. Have a day.

Clutching at happiness/should I make a substack?

I've done it! I've proved my own point! The type of content I take in is likely to make me think I should also make that type of content. I haven't had the urge to film myself ranting about something for a while. Now, of course, since I've been reading a lot of substack newsletters (subscribing for free, of course... I live in my parents' basement for a financial reason), and I just came upon one that has a very ... let's say casual style, similar to this blog. It almost makes me think I should write one. But like.. about WHAT? I can't justify charging people money for that, but it is appealing to think that alllll the posts I've made in the last month could have netted me a whopping $8, or whatever that $8USD would be after substack took its cut and I paid income tax (which I'd get back later because surprise surprise, you don't actually pay income tax when your income is about $5000CAD/year. Grad school is great, guys, you should go for real). But I digress. I probably won't make a substack because you have to like, have a theme for that, and allow comments, and the idea of all this ending up in someone's email inbox is just too personal. The idea of this being in someone's news aggregator (something I just learned about this week) is funnier. Enjoy this update, you.

But the post for today, continuing on my journey of social media, is thus: I'm kind of unsatisfied. I think it's still that loss of easy dopamine. Even youtube shorts don't cut it; they're not very interesting and the fast-paced style is now kind of aggravating to me. The algorithm they have has NOTHING on tiktok. I have found more time for reading, which is great. But maybe I'm reading too much nonfiction and it's too hard on my mind. Maybe I need to read some fiction. Something fun and easy. A little closer to the dopamine boost without the same ill-effects, since I'm far more likely to learn a little something, even just about writing style or worldbuilding. 

And in any case, it's not like I didn't feel like this before. As much as I purport to like staying at home all the time, it does kind of get old. Without some pressing deadline to motivate my work as there was last summer during my comprehensive exam, I'm kind of aimless. I'm waiting for my supervisor to bother some technicians I don't know and have never met about a particular kind of analysis I need done for future experiments. I have some data analysis to do and to send to my supervisor and other people involved with my project. That's kind of all I can do for today. That, maybe another core workout, and cleaning my office a bit. Otherwise I'm just... sitting in front of my computer all day.

I think part of it is once again this trap of being In My Parents' House, where I don't really feel like I can be in public areas doing what I want. When I'm here alone, I spend a lot more time in the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, I spend time reading by the fireplace and cooking and baking. When I'm not here alone (funny that there is no opposite word there, to say "not alone." I have to say the whole phrase, there isn't some word that fills that purpose. Anyway), I spend a lot of time downstairs or in the office. Or I leave. 

The problem is that I don't really want to be anywhere else today. I mean sure, it would be fun to go downtown and look into all those cute little shops for plants and books and witchy herbs and things, but that's more fun with a friend, and everyone is working today. I could say fuck it and just play sims all day, but that feels irresponsible. I could be responsible and get all my work done and then be able to just play sims all day minus the fuck it attitude, but of course I'm not doing that. It's no fun and I need fun.

Tiktok pundits here may say I sound like I have ADHD. I don't, but thank you for your concern. I say this only because I can recognize that my brain fundamentally needs some Fun Juice to feel satisfied enough to do work, during which my brain consumes Fun Juice to output productivity and make complex decisions. So I need the Fun Juice first is what I'm saying, or else I'm going to be really thirsty later. For juice. Once again, my predilection for metaphor has revealed the limits of metaphor. 

Just now I almost did it! I almost clicked away! Oooh, curse you, social media, for hardwiring me to be unable to just get in the zone. Shit like this is why I don't want to go back.

The other thing is like. I find myself every day with a kind of hollow ache, wondering what random people are up to. What about that person from high school or undergrad? How is their day going? What's up in their life? Boy would I like to see. When it comes to friends I see regularly, I don't long for it as much: I know I'd get a meaningful and thoughtful update if I chose to have brunch with them this weekend. Or if I texted or called them. They're right there, always accessible, often offering me information without me having to ask. Social media for them is kind of silly, since watching someone's instagram story of their baby sitting up does not even remotely hold the same gravity as visiting and seeing that baby do that. That baby! That I knew as a crying lump! Can sit!!!! Or seeing my other friend's highlighter-pink hair in person (and watching other friend's baby stare at it in awe, visual cortex adjusting to make sure it has room for this particular hue). It's just not the same online. And ironically, my friends who live far away already don't post that many social media updates. 

I have also gotten feedback that I should have told people I was going off social media. Ironically, this is from the friends I saw in person last weekend. But I've seen other friends do that, and seen them fail to follow through, and saw how sanctimonious, silly, and self-important they looked as a result. Do I really think that people need to know that I'm not there anymore? But now that I think about it, that's kind of dark. How much do I really matter to those acquaintances from high school or undergrad or wherever if not announcing my absence from the app means nothing to them? There's some thread of a good idea in here that I can't quite express as eloquently as I want to at the moment. 

At this point I no longer catch myself reaching for my phone to specifically open instagram or tiktok, so I know my brain has gotten used to their absence. It's accepted they aren't there and it isn't going to get that stimulation. It's learned new pathways now: the Libby app, the Kindle app, the CBC news app. Often the browser as well, to google some concept in a book that I don't fully understand. Or Signal, since it's encrypted and I like the note to self feature quite a bit. The fact that it took something like two weeks to do that REALLY makes me not want to go back.

I don't feel like my life is lacking anything of substance because of my absence. I see people I care about. I find information about topics I care about. I engage with the world. If I want to know what ice cream flavors the local ice cream place has, I have to actually go there and see (I can't even call them because they're so newfangled and millenial that they don't have a business phone number). I don't feel like I'm a new person or anything.

The other thing I'm wondering about is how common this social media absence thing really is. It's ironically almost impossible to measure, and it can't become a trend on social media pretty much by definition. But I see lots of people on the social features of my "I am sober" app talking about being sober from social media. Now of course I have to do what I don't want to do but need to learn to do online: wonder if they are lying, since I have no way to verify their claims. But if I believe them... this absence thing is more common than I thought. 

I still long to be that girl who says she has no social media accounts and can focus on homework and get it done in a reasonable amount of time. But there I go again! Assuming she isn't lying! Why does everyone LIE so much that I have to learn to do this? Argh. 

The only thing I can say is I promise I'm not lying here, but I can't make you believe me.You're just going to have to take my word for it.