I’m now beginning day two of adjusting to no social media.  I notice I’m not as easily stressed even after two days.  It helps that I’m not wasting time waiting for friends to respond to my posts.  It’s also good that I no longer see every little post in my former groups that don’t pertain to me or the subjects I care about.  I just got tired of stressing over people I will never meet in person.  Even the college friends I have, I haven’t talked to many of them in person since graduation.  Sure what they are up to is interesting, but I don’t need a moment to moment play by play of their daily lives.  I can easily catch up with them via email maybe a few times a year.  Just because I may not talk to you on a daily basis doesn’t mean I am upset with you.

And in the make believe reality that is fostered by the abuse of social media, that realization can be easily lost.  Most people aren’t going to respond to me within a few minutes simply because they are at work or taking care of their children, etc.  I lost sight of that for awhile when I was spending a few hours a day checking social media.

Since I cut my social media accounts I found I am doing far more writing and watching movies.  I also don’t play as many computer games.  I must have spent four hours just writing down my random thoughts yesterday.  It is far easier to express myself in emails, blogs, journal entries, etc. than I can on facebook and twitter posts.  Besides, it isn’t like my facebook accounts were generating that much more traffic.

At this point in my life I don’t care if I make money off the blog, at least as long as I have my disability pension and can make rent every month.  In almost fifteen years as a renter I haven’t missed a rent payment yet.  I’m not going hungry, even if some days I’m living off hot dogs, ramen noodles, and canned vegetables.  I don’t write for fame and fortune.  I write for a record to be out there somewhere in cyber space.  I suppose it’s like putting a message in a bottle, tossing it into the ocean, and hoping someone finds it someday.  Or maybe like the Voyager probes that will drift through space for ages, silently waiting to be discovered.  It is kind of like my way of saying to the cosmos “I existed for a short while in an average small town with a mental illness.”  That probably is going to be my legacy, if I am going to have one.  I don’t have children and probably never will.  I will probably be forgotten by my own family in a few generations, by my friends and classmates families far sooner.  Yet this blog, this proverbial message in a bottle that is digital driftwood floating through cyber space, who knows how long it will go on.  Maybe in a few generations there will be a cure for mental illness.  Sheesh, in a few generations life today may be completely unrecognizable to the citizens of that time and age.  They may look upon mental illness with as much shock and horror as people today look upon Bubonic Plague, smallpox, and cholera.  Some people live on through their offspring.  Others live on through their work.  A select few are such movers and shakers their deeds and names live on throughout history.  Me, well, if I am to live on after I die, it will be in the words I write in a small blog.