Deleted Facebook

I quit Facebook in July. Deleted my account. Simplifying my life. Less to worry about, less to stress about, and less of an online footprint to get me in trouble. Sure I lose some connections with people, but how deep those connections were? Better focus on improving connections with a few close friends, meeting more often in real life. 

Was Facebook useful for activism? It announced events, but was unreliable for news, and didn't give me a real outlet to express myself in a meaningful way. Rather than typing a few words and sharing stuff online, the focus should be on organizing in real life. Join Meetup groups and actual organizations. Go to meetings and meet real people. This is what's important. This is what I need right now. 

Facebook has proved negligent in using my data, and gleefully allows paid trolls and bots to rule the place. I don't need to waste my time and energy on that. I survived the loss of EP - a social networking site that was far more important to me and actually changed my life. The loss of Facebook is but a minor milestone. 

The recovery was far quicker than I thought. My fingers itched a couple of time on the first day, moving the mouse to where the Facebook icon used to sit on my desktop. But the addiction quickly wore off. I made an am implementing a FEXIT plan for easing me back to life before Facebook. This includes making better connections irl with real people, and going back to TV, newspapers, and reliable news sites. This blog is part of the plan to give me a meaningful outlet for self-expression.

Freedom

Freedom from the bondage of desire comes from Letting Go: letting go of things, to do lists, projects, ideas. 

The Buddhist ideal of non-attachment hits it right on. So do Taoist principles, and the modern minimalist movement.

If we don't like a movie or a book, we should not feel compelled to finish it. 

Walking away is empowering. Suffering through a project we lost interest in, simply "to finish", is a waste of time, and self-inflicted imprisonment.

Collecting things for the purpose of "using them someday" just adds to our stress, constantly reminding us that we're not doing things we've resolved to do. Giving away those things, or giving them up, gets us freedom to do whatever else we actually want to do at the moment. 

Fortune and fame, especially, need so much effort to collect and maintain. Those who have them long to be unknown and under the radar, free to do simple things without all the attention and headaches. 

Every layer of letting go unwraps a deeper feeling of freedom.

At the same time, every hangup about letting go is a thread in a spiderweb keeping us from total liberation. Some tethers, like our children, are necessary and positive. Often, though, the tethers are illusory, a product of our own tendencies to collect and plan.

Let go of old clothes, books, etc. Whatever we're not using and not likely to use. 

Let go of our past, or parts of our lives we're done with. 

Do not embark on a journey to the future laden with a heavy past.

Be the Nomad that picks up and moves at an hour's notice, following the rain.

Let go of anger. In forgiveness you find peace.

Let go of bitterness. That's the way to happiness.

Let go of regrets. We cannot do anything about the past, so what's the point of dwelling on it?

Only the present matters.

Bound by Desire

Doesn't it sometimes seem that the things we buy confine us?

The newest of cars still needs regular maintenance, and often repairs. 

Clothes need laundering, organization, hangers, ... 

Electronics need time for us to set up and read the manual, plus regularly update.

Books need time to read, games time to play. Subscriptions time to enjoy. 

Everything we buy or subscribe to binds us in a way to commit to using / sustaining it.

More insidious than this kind of bondage is that to our own creative force.

Our own ideas hold us hostage.

We get a creative idea. We commit to acting on it. Then we become bound to our own creations. My father worked his life for a small company, becoming beholden to its success, and forced to work to the end of his life to maintain what he started. Even my fun software project started as a great idea, then became an addiction to fix, maintain, and enhance.

Our knowledge is also confining. If people know you are good at something, they expect you to help them with it, be it math homework or fixing a house or a car. More than that, the more you learn, the narrower the areas you are expected to seek employment in.

These are not necessarily bad things, but the something in me rebels against the thought. I want to enjoy life as it is, in the here and now. Instead, I am spending more and more of my time catering to different thoughts and ideas I have. Even writing these very words in my blog. I had to allocate time and energy for it - time and energy that could have been spent playing with my daughter.

The rat race is not imposed on us, but begins when we choose to jump on the bandwagon - chasing our own thoughts. 

Zhuangzi said, you can't run away from your own shadow, but you can't catch it either. So much of life is spent in futile activities.

I wonder if God, provided it exists, is also enslaved to its own creation, i.e., to us. There is no other explanation for why he or she kept sending us prophets and missives, at great effort, when we were such a lost cause, and even - presuming Christianity is true - sending their own son to save us. Our having a life of our own, and freedom of choice, limited the Deity's freedom.