rrs: life in stumptown

A little inspired, perhaps, by friends who have dumped FB for Lent in years past, I too have put the FB on “mute” as I call it. Not necessarily for Lent, as I’m not much of a religious-go-getter, but the timing seemed good. Seeing a few friends hit pause for Lent this week reminded me that I’ve tried a few times in the last year to do the same.

I use FB as my most primary form of communication. It is fairly seamless when communicating with such a large group of family and friends— the majority of those being 600 miles away (or greater). It allows me to keep in touch, share pics of the family without having to personalize anything, and for the most part my friends and family can pick and choose how often they want to see or hear from me (unless FB changes its settings again this week).

In the past I’ve been blasted by “friends” about always being on, but I’m not sure those blasting me 1. Have a family they’ve left behind -or- 2. Are even really appropriately titled as “friend” on my friend list. Perhaps they would be better suited on my list titled “assholes.” If they don’t care about my lunch and what it looked like, why did they friend me anyway? (yes, sarcasm)

So what exactly does mute mean for me and FB? First and foremost, I’ve deleted the FB App from my iPhone. Muting FB means I haven’t deleted my account, yet I’ve dumped everyone in my restricted list, so no activity is visible on my FB page at all, except for one last public post- for friends to message me if they want to communicate in a more personal way. As I mentioned above, FB is great at letting me blast out an update without any personalization. I think now, I am craving the one-on-one communication. The last time I checked, I had unlimited data, text and minutes on my phone. And do you know how many phone calls I average a month? Four.

That said, I’m hoping to have some real interaction on the phone, and feeling as “Jetson’s” as possible, really take advantage of Skype and FaceTime. What better way is there to feel close to those 600 miles away? After today, I will only log in once from my laptop each day to see if any new messages have come through for those that want to communicate offline. I will not be posting new content or responding to any updates from friends.

In the three hours since posting that last update, two people messaged me their emails, phone numbers and Skype names. I’m assuming those closest to me already know how to get a hold of me, so it will be interesting to see which of my FB “friends” actually wants to keep in touch.

What do I hope to accomplish from this? Well first of all, a basic reassessment of the way I communicate. I am also curious to see who I think of throughout the day. Who crosses my mind? What are they up to today? As my nephew said, “I hate FB because when I see my friends, there’s nothing left to say. You already know what they’ve been up to.”

Which brings me to my blog. I began blogging back in 2006 before getting turned on to FB. I blogged as a means of creative expression. I would write short stories, poetry or musings about very personal things. It was wonderful “therapy” when I had a lot on my mind and no outlet. I also blogged about my then-recent move to Portland. Then surprisingly, people I actually knew started reading it and I found myself scaling back the personal nature of what I was posting and opting for the more generic two-line observational post.

The second and third revivals of my blog consisted of posting about living in Portland, and working in the marketing and design world. While I could pour my heart into writing about my experiences here in Portland, I found myself staggering about design and MarCom topics. In short, it was feeling like an extension of my job, and not “me”. My blog became something to do for the sake of doing it, everyone else was doing it as a means of self promotion.

As I finally found myself untethered again from the marketing and design industries I also found myself staring at a stale blog. Unsure what to post, or if I should post anything at all. I had very little to offer creatively at that point, and as a career change was coming about, I didn’t feel I had the time or drive. I also found myself burnt out talking about how great Portland is. The blog has since been relegated to occasional posts about family life, a quirky encounter or vague posts about the education I’m pursuing in Women’s Health.

I’m looking forward to this break from FB, sure that it will force more personal communication with those I love and miss from home. Hopefully the break from posting fragments throughout the day will allow me time to drum up something interesting to say on my blog. After all, as I said before it is wonderful, cheap therapy.