Ground Control to Major Tom

My brain is messy, I need to clear out the Clutter Angst

Well, let’s get the weird stuff out of the way first. Because it’s sort of blown my mind thinking it through.

Here I sit at my little computer table, photos and topic ready to go, happy as a fluffy cloud at dawn, then BAM. I totally lose my mojo. My brain went into a little bit of a panic over nothing. I’d found this great quote on Tumblr, it went perfectly with what I wanted to write today, so I highlighted and clicked to copy, then kept scrolling. My tiny brain got distracted by a great painting and I saved it, deleting the first save, so I could add it as art to illustrate the quote. Ugh.

No problem, right? Just scroll back up and find the quote. So I did. But the quote had disappeared. I think an ad covered it up. I went back and forth multiple times through 40 posts or so to be sure it was GONE gone, not just skimmed past. Nope, nada. And I started to get a really funny feeling. I HAD to find it. Classic anxiety rears her ugly head again.

I calmed down as I started to think it through. Really, what in the world is there to be anxious about? Why am I having this extreme reaction? My theory - a combination of COVID dystopia hangover and the scrolling mechanism.

All the studies on scrolling are directed towards the danger for children and teenagers. Let me raise my hand, this sixty one year old also has issues. Well, several issues, but we’ll stick with this one.

I wrote earlier on another platform about my problems with Twitter. I think I see a pattern here.

I woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning, the low grade retirement anxiety is back. It's happening less often, which is a blessing, but often enough to add to my general angst. I've started connecting these jittery days to the days when I doom scroll Twitter. I don't like to be an ostrich with my head in the sand and I pretend that Twitter - or I guess it's X now - is an easy, quick way to check the pulse of the world.

I'm no longer sure that's correct. Twitter is better likened to a seething, writhing mass of earthworms, beings meant for acres of earth contained in one large cooler inside the bait shop. I think I'd rather get outside and see my earthworms one at a time when I happen to turn over some garden soils with a trowel or walk on pavement after it rains. One or two earthworms a week, that's really all I'd like to have in my life, not freaking 300 in an afternoon. Begone, creatures.

Change is hard. Breaking a habit is hard. Realizing that you're hurting yourself is hard. Doing nothing about it is worse and only prolongs the agony.

Goodbye, Twitter X, and good riddance.

SO, it appears I am, ummm, we’ll call it SUSCEPTIBLE to external stimuli. Still, why did this little loss of nothing important rock me for a few minutes? Tumblr is NOT Twitter. Do I have to cut myself off of all scrolling social media? The answer appears to be MAYBE. I’ll think about it.

COVID has exacerbated the angst, I think. The scrolling mechanism came out in 2006, but it didn’t freak me out then. The dystopia of the last few years lit the match. Going home for two weeks to slow the spread turned into months of nebulous working from home, having groceries delivered or opening up the trunk of the car while a masked grocery employee dropped them into the empty space. Bad enough. THEN some countries started to refuse to allow unvaccinated people into restaurants and grocery stores. Masked people were screaming at unmasked people. Travel verboten. I would wake up in the morning and think, so what’s going to happen today? Is it going to get WORSE?!?

I’m a bit of a digital hoarder now. Some of my German friends have parents who hoard canned goods, flour and wine after WWII deprivations. I get it. I download photos to various files on my computer, put recipes, gift ideas, quotes and vacation sites into boxes on Pinterest, and add samples to my Kindle Fire, so many that I’ll NEVER get around to reading all of them. And now this - my little brain lurched and said “I’ll never find that quote again! I don’t remember the author! Why can’t I just get organized and put this stuff together, what the heck?”

Umm, note to self. We now have access to more information than at anytime in history. It’s at our fingertips, through the keyboards on our phones and laptops. You can’t retain it all, you can’t organize it, you can’t hold onto it, you can’t remember all of it. It’s OKAY. Chill.

It’s going to take a while to realize I don’t have to pull this bilious miasma of computer research around me to feel safe. My world won’t end if I miss a quote or Facebook post. Matter of fact, you might feel better, Fraulein Zen, if you just let the crap go. RELEASE IT, as my therapist Earl would say. Or PROCESS IT. Whatever.

(Sorry about the quote. It really WAS perfect. Hah!)