Shifting Characters

I'm a bit disjointed today. Too many things going on, and even when I have time to sleep, I dream of trying to get things done. This, to warn you that this post isn't exactly going to be Shakespeare or Wilde.

You probably remember that I have, for pretty much social reasons, a FaceBook account. Yes, I know it's social media by definition, but I'm actually using it to keep track of far-flung friends and make easy arrangements to see or collaborate with those who are nearby. Or coming from another continent, whichever. Also to tell those who are far away but want to keep in touch (such as my brother and several friends who are in fact in a different hemisphere) general happenings, which pretty much doesn't happen if I have to take any time for it. You know, like letters, email, sending a CD with a bunch of pictures, other basic things that most humans don't have trouble with. I've always been bad at it. Easily distracted.

What was I saying? Oh, right.

So, I use the account to be, you know, social, as differentiated from getting ego strokes, which is really what most social media is used for most of the time. Moreover, it's pretty much a necessity for certain functions at this point. This Aerie being the only true rendition of myself, everything else is filtered for a particular audience, with selected traits that more or less constellate into a slightly fictional character. The persona I use on FaceBook is reasonably inoffensive, wickedly witty enough to repel challenge from most political stupidity, and much more interested in generating humor than anything. In other words, me without sharp edges. The trouble is that I've let myself get drawn into the inanity of people's slactivism, the endless raising of awareness (yeesh), the mindless and baseless sociopolitical commentary thinly veiled as dubious humor. As I've said before, it's a strong temptation.

The effect is amplified because I have allowed my FB character to wander, to get a bit of mission creep of a sort. I was getting too involved in spreading truth, which combines the metaphors of Don Quixote charging windmills and throwing pearls to the pigs. Only the onlookers will be in any way swayed, and the political cost to my web is too high and too certain to make it worth the trouble.

No more of that, then. I've told FB to not tell me about the most egregious and stupid "news" sources regardless of who posts them, and have begun shifting to a less reactive habit as fast as I can do so without being obvious. The smarter ones might notice and realize I'm taking it somewhere else, but I'm alright with that. They're the only ones I am likely to forward here in the first place. I just need to remember that there are topics to comment on and topics and truths to avoid, in that too-open petri dish of emotion.