Welcome 2022

We have many hard years ahead, and preemptively training yourself into depression is a bad idea. Get off the internet. Find things that give you joy. Resist the immediate gratification of shitting on every nice or happy or even “could be worse” thing someone says.

-- Amanda Marcotte

Yup. Marcotte is a snarky blogger/Salon writer/etc. so she is not some happy go lucky type in this business.  

The Internet is one thing that gives me joy.  Seriously.  I started spreading my opinions on bulletin boards.  Not that I'm old or anything.  And, I like expressing my opinions, and engaging with others.  The Internet also provides a lot of interesting and fun information.  And, I found some nice people online.  I have not met nearly all of them (I saw a few in person, but did not engage with them), but they still seem quite real.

I find it unfortunate that over the years various means of engagement shutdown.  I am the sort of person who loved getting a "star" a member of the Slate fray, that online magazine's previous comment section.  Places like Balkinization Blog provided me a chance to put forth my .02 and preach a bit.  Ditto comments on Dorf on Law.  And, a few other places who over the years (or last year) shut down comments. And, Concurring Opinions just stopped existing!  

Yes, one can overdo it.  I started a practice of not tweeting on weekends and then made it a three day weekend.  I think I will try to just avoid Twitter on those days from now on as well.  I tweet a lot and with a phone with Internet can now access it in bed or on the road.  It does get to be too much.  But, in some fashion, it is fun and helpful.

The second part of her message (I didn't link it, but it's part of a longer thread) is true too.  There is a term called "doomscrolling" where people check Twitter or perhaps some other medium to see what is bad, including people commenting on the same.  It can get a bit much.  And, it includes people ignoring the good things.  Good things happened in 2021 (really).  We can criticize (I really do wish Biden used his pardon power in 2021) without ignoring he picked multiple former public defenders as judges etc.

There are people who are just pessimistic.  Others very well might just be emphasizing that sort of thing when they post stuff online.  That's part of it -- it is partially venting.  That too should be remembered when people say things online.  It can get to be too much.  But, venting is part of life, a release, and many realize that is not all there is.  

I never completely wrote a list of my philosophies (I feel like a philosopher more these days, always considering things), though I did make a list here once, but one of my basic principles is that things are complicated.  We can cite certain basics, sure, but events as well as people tend to be complicated.  This applies to the good and the bad.  

I find this a more interesting way of looking at life overall.  I like accounts that look at the various sides of things.  A movie that shows various points of view can be better.  This doesn't mean everything is equal and nothing is bad.  But, black and white is a lot more often something on a cookie than real life.  

Again, since "but" and "except" are favorite words, even that is not a hard and fast rule.  I will (at times tiresomely) emphasize certain things strongly.  Like Republicans keep on making it hard for me to provide balanced accounts of them.  But, even Senate Republicans showed up some on 1/6.  

I doubt I will spent THAT much less time online in 2022 (maybe somewhat as I have other things to do),* but the lessons taught by Amanda do hold. 2022 will have good and bad things. I'm worried but not resigned about November, for one thing.  We need to retain a sense of sanity among all the craziness.  Anyway, I survived this long, and see no reason not to continue to do so.  

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* One thing I have to do is work on content on various websites.  (The creator of those has even more -- I started with a personal website and this blog, but she has multitudes.)  I will see how long that goes, but that's not too bad of a reason to be online.